Mike Love: No Love lost

Mike love has fired three Beach Boys and not just any Beach Boys. Two of the founding members, Brian Wilson and Al Jardine and David Marks who joined the band in 1962 will not continue after the 50th Anniversary Reunion tour, currently under way in Britain, ends.

Mike Love, who owns the rights to band’s name, released a statement saying that the three ‘former’ members would not continue with the Band once the tour is over.
"The post-50th anniversary configuration will not include Brian Wilson, Al Jardine and David Marks. The 50th Reunion Tour was designed to be a set tour with a beginning and an end to mark a special 50-year milestone for the band,” the statement said.

The statement, released to the press, was reportedly how Wilson, Jardine and Marks found out they were not to continue.

Holy Good Vibrations!

The tour was reported in December of last year and had everyone feeling warm and fuzzy after years of legal battles and other spats (Love won the legal battles which is why he owns the rights to the Beach Boys name). There was a feel-good CBS Sunday Morning piece on the regrouping of the band, the tour and the new album they made together.
Wilson, who started the band in 1961 with his brothers Dennis and Carl, Al Jardine and his cousin Mike Love, was responsible for some of the bands biggest hits: “Help Me Rhonda” “California Girls” and “Surfin’ USA” said at the time of the reunion announcement that there was real love among the band members and the tour was a way of sharing that love with their fans.

So much for that.

Jardine is backing internet campaign to get the three members reinstated and "preserve the validity of The Beach Boys as a whole".

Love said the decision was financially motivated.

Hmmmmm.

The tour ends Friday (September 28) at Wembley Stadium in London.

Footnote: The Wilson brothers, Love and Jardine were from Hawthorne California, which is where they formed the band. Hawthorne was special to me because my great aunt and uncle lived there and it is there while visiting them in 1960, I first saw Robert Kennedy. He was campaigning for his brother Jack.