I will (almost) always watch a movie about the Beach Boys (the latest, simply titled “The Beach Boys,” premieres Friday on Disney+), not only because of the role they played in American cultural and musical history, but also because of the role they played in mine. From 1966 to 1969 my father worked for the band, as a tour promoter; The fact that these were his least popular years, when rock became heavy, harsh and confusing, meant that this relationship gave me no prestige among my peers. But it was interesting for me.
I saw them play, in striped shirts, white suits, colored velours, and no costume, at the Hollywood Bowl, when kids were still screaming during their shows; at the Melodyland Circle Theater across from Disneyland, when they apparently couldn't get reservations any closer to Los Angeles; and at the Whiskey A Go Go, when “Sunflower” was released. I watched Dennis Wilson's drag race; His Shelby Cobra ran over my toe as he was being pushed to the starting line, but since much of the weight was taken off the car, there was no damage. Bruce Johnston introduced me to Eric Clapton backstage at a Blind Faith concert. (“This is Eric,” he said. “Hello,” I said.) I rode for a minute in a car with Carl Wilson and his parents.
I knew them as much as any child knows their parents' business partners, which is to say not at all, but they were familiar characters, as were the support staff in the office, the studio, and on the road. They came together in fragments of news and gossip, coalescing into a pantheon that floated around my life. The Maharishi, with whom the band briefly toured, gave my dad the mantra from him. And there was Charles Manson, of course, the indestructible dark stain on any telling of this story, who joined Dennis in pursuit of pop stardom. My father had moved on when the Tate-La Bianca murders occurred, but since he had once kicked Charlie out of the office, that was a moment in our house.
Directed by Frank Marshall (“Rather”) and Thom Zimny (whose documentary “Elvis Presley: The Searcher” is one of the best films about Elvis), it covers places that have been well traveled and sailed often? – territory. Not even counting the dozens of online videos and tributes from stars, there are a large number of full-length films about the band as a whole and Brian Wilson, the foundation of their sound, dating back decades, including three biographical films : two for television – Dennis-centric “Summer Dreams” and “The Beach Boys: An American Family” – and Brian's well-regarded film about young and old on the big screen “Love and Mercy.”
Al Jardine, left, Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Carl Wilson and Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys.
(Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
It's irresistible stuff, a showbiz story and a family drama, peppered with child abuse, drug addiction, mental illness and recovery, a war between art and commerce and an arc of success, failure and success, when “Endless Summer,” a two-pack best-of LP hit No. 1 on the charts in 1974 and catapulted the group into permanent residency as “America's Band.” With their range of fun rock 'n' roll and ambitious, eccentric art-pop, they are at once a band for everyone and a band for geeks.
Clocking in at less than two hours at a time when four-hour rock documentaries are not unusual, it's a fast, compact narrative, with surprisingly little music and entire swaths of recording history ignored. But it looks fantastic, with lots of stock photos and home movies, many of which are new to me, even as a veteran of this stuff. Aside from new footage of interviews with survivors in and around the band, and the usual testimonials from pop musicians, there won't be much, if anything, new for fans. What is new in the Beach Boys documentaries is the tone, which does not stop at sensational episodes and downplays the fights to emphasize love.
For a group whose relationships have been notoriously divisive and whose history has been marked by tragedy (Dennis and Carl's early deaths are represented only by an end title card), it's essentially good-natured, even sentimental. (The film is set at the beginning of their ongoing competitive careers, before the Beach Boys became Mike Love's band and Brian a solo artist, and surprisingly omits their 50th anniversary reunion tour and final album. studio, 2012's “That's Why God Made the Radio.” (which isn't bad at all.) Everyone, even Wilson's troubled father Murry, gets what's coming to them. A staged but genuinely sweet final scene can make you cry.
Like the Beatles or the Grateful Dead, the Beach Boys are a perennial group whose influence will long outlive them. And, over time, the idiosyncratic pop music they made in the late 1960s (my years in their orbit, i.e. my Beach Boys music) came to be celebrated. Few bought “Friends” when it came out in 1968, but now you can listen to a four-part podcast in which knowledgeable fans lovingly take it apart, track by track, instrument by instrument, voice by voice.
