Beach Boys Music Group

All of St. Charles is racing to eat before the sun sets and the kids melt down. At 5:30 p.m. on a Saturday, a time when many Angelenos are just rolling out of bed, the locals of this Illinois city are pouring into the La Za Za Trattoria, a family-friendly kind of place. A sentry of highchairs lines one wall, and the occasional shriek of a cooped-up child provides dissonant harmony to the clanging of silverware against plates and the chorus of disjointed conversations.

It was late at night and Brian Wilson, who had just taken LSD for the first time, was in the bedroom of his Hollywood apartment with a pillow over his head. He was stricken. He had images of his mother and his father in his mind and, most of all, fear. Then he managed to push all those thoughts aside. He walked downstairs to the piano. "I was thinking about the music from cowboy movies. And I sat down and started playing it, bum-buhdeeda, bum-buhdeeda. I did that for about an hour.

There's no surf, no sand, no little deuce coupes and only a couple of California girls in sight of the North Hollywood recording studio. Inside, the 61-year-old architect of "Good Vibrations," "Surfin' U.S.A." and "Fun, Fun, Fun" sits stoically at his keyboard, surrounded by a small army of musicians, and stares into one of two video monitors.

The Beach Boys have filed a $20-million federal lawsuit against a warehouse owner and others, charging them with the theft of original recordings, business documents, rare photos, sheet music and memorabilia that had been put into storage in North Hollywood but ended up on the auction block in London last fall.

The long-playing, woe-filled ballad of Beach Boy Brian Wilson's return from mental illness and substance abuse took a bizarre turn on Monday as Wilson's cousin filed a court petition claiming that the rock singer has been "brainwashed" by a former psychologist who has taken control of Wilson's recording enterprises.

Beach Boys lead singer Mike Love on Monday won songwriting credits and past and future royalties for 35 of the group's songs, a decision that could net him at least $2 million. A federal jury unanimously found that band co-founder Brian Wilson and his lawyers failed to make good on a promise to give Love a 30% share of a $10-million settlement Wilson won in connection with the 1969 sale of the band's songs.

It was late at night and Brian Wilson, who had just taken LSD for the first time, was in the bedroom of his Hollywood apartment with a pillow over his head. He was stricken. He had images of his mother and his father in his mind and, most of all, fear. Then he managed to push all those thoughts aside. He walked downstairs to the piano. "I was thinking about the music from cowboy movies. And I sat down and started playing it, bum-buhdeeda, bum-buhdeeda. I did that for about an hour.

Forget California's 9.8% unemployment rate; the real crisis facing Republican strategists is this: Can they take California without the Beach Boys? That's right--Nancy Reagan's favorite rock group has abandoned the Grand Old Party. The reason, said Beach Boys front man Mike Love, is as clear as the water in Santa Monica Bay. "We like George Bush as a person and have supported him in the past, but on the environment, we have to part ways," Love said.

Brian Wilson, the eccentric creative force behind the fun-in-the-sun Beach Boys, is charging his music publisher with fraud and seeking $50 million in royalties lost over 20 years and $50 million in punitive damages. The singer-composer filed suit Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court against Irving Music, the publishing company owned by A&M General Corp., which also is named along with four other divisions--A&M Records, Rondor Music International, Almo Music and Almo/Irving Music.

It should have been a moment of triumph for the Beach Boys, dropped from their record label but now taking center stage on one of the most popular television shows in the world, "Baywatch." On the Santa Monica Pier, David Hasselhoff was praising the Hawthorne-spawned combo for virtually inventing the imaginary beach realm that "Baywatch" celebrates with babes, hunks and flaky New Age philosophizing.

Beach Boy Mike Love filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles on Wednesday against his cousin and founding Beach Boys member Brian Wilson, charging that a promotional campaign for Wilson's 2004 "Smile" album injured Love professionally. Love's suit claims that the "Smile" promotion "shamelessly misappropriated Mike Love's songs, likeness and the Beach Boys trademark." The suit also charges that the campaign included the giveaway in Britain of 2.

The state historical landmark dedicated to the Beach Boys last month has already been the target of graffiti vandals. The city quickly removed paint scrawled on the 119th Street monument and officials were considering a variety of security measures, including surveillance cameras, a fence or sealing it with a graffiti-resistant coating. Beach Boys Brian, Carl and Dennis Wilson grew up in Hawthorne. The Wilson home was demolished in the 1980s to make way for the Century Freeway.

That wasn't the rumble of an 18-wheeler on the freeway shaking the ground in one Hawthorne neighborhood Friday. It was the good vibrations coming from 1,500 rock 'n' roll fans from as far as Great Britain and Australia who spilled into two streets of a working-class community of tract houses to memorialize the birthplace of the Beach Boys' surf music. The childhood home of musicians Brian, Carl and Dennis Wilson was bulldozed in the mid-1980s to make way for the Century Freeway.

Surf's up ... in Hawthorne. The landlocked city may have no surf or sand to call its own, but on Friday it will be the site for dedication of the state's newest landmark, one inextricably linked to sun-tanned bodies catching waves and reveling in the Southern California sun. State Historical Landmark No.

The mythology surrounding the Beach Boys' "lost" album "Smile" says that if the band's leader Brian Wilson had completed it as intended in 1967, it would have been considered that year's best album, if not the best of its era. But even though "Smile," completed and recorded anew this year by Wilson, generated some of 2004's most glowing reviews, it was not among the Grammy album of the year nominees.

At one point in the new documentary film "Beautiful Dreamer: Brian Wilson and the Making of 'Smile,' " Wilson discusses how the other Beach Boys, especially singer Mike Love, reacted to the new directions he and lyricist Van Dyke Parks were attempting in "Smile," the ambitious album that Wilson scrapped. "Mike did not like 'Smile' at all," Wilson says. "He hated it. He hated it."

The state historical landmark dedicated to the Beach Boys last month has already been the target of graffiti vandals. The city quickly removed paint scrawled on the 119th Street monument and officials were considering a variety of security measures, including surveillance cameras, a fence or sealing it with a graffiti-resistant coating. Beach Boys Brian, Carl and Dennis Wilson grew up in Hawthorne. The Wilson home was demolished in the 1980s to make way for the Century Freeway.

Mike Love's first Caribbean-themed Club Kokomo is sailing ahead for a June debut in Orange, and larger versions of the nightclub-restaurant are likely to open in Nevada and Florida in 1999, a real estate agent for the Beach Boys singer says. Backed by private investors, Love envisions dozens of clubs worldwide with a House of Blues-meets-thatched cabana look. The Orange club, at the Stadium Promenade retail/entertainment project, will be 15,000 square feet, with concert seating for 250.

Surf's up! "Good Vibrations," a new musical using more than 30 Beach Boys songs, will open on Broadway in January. The show will begin preview performances in early December at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre. An opening date will be announced shortly. "Good Vibrations" has a book by Richard Dresser and concerns a group of small-town teens who come to Southern California.

Harry Jarnagan loves the Beach Boys, though he's never been to a show, never been in a fan club and never owned all of their albums. The proof of his passion lies in an 80-page application that he hand-delivered in February to the California Office of Historical Preservation to have the site of the Wilson brothers' childhood home declared a historic landmark. The Hawthorne home at 3701 W. 119th St. was leveled in the 1980s to make way for the Century Freeway.