Please sign petition for Beach Boys to withdraw from performing on 2/5/20

[SurfRiderHawaii]

Where are people getting all the stuff about shooting lions and elephants from?

You’re kidding right?

[Needleinthehay]

Shawn was not in charge of Dennis' estate.  The administrator of the estate was a lawyer named Shelley Surpin.

There's a ton of info about the case in these court records...
https://books.google.com/books?id=vdcd1e_SY5cC&lpg=RA2-PP1&ots=MWZvfql-SD&dq=estate%20of%20dennis%20c%20wilson&pg=RA4-PA6#v=onepage&q=surpin&f=false

One of the court briefs mentions that the estate was negotiating with Brother Records, and that there had been speculation of a figure of $200,000 to $600,000 (though the brief rejects that speculation as "irrelevant").  So, it's not clear how much the sale of Dennis' share generated. If someone were really interested, they'd probably have to dig further into the court records.

I read that case file...pretty fascinating, had never seen it before. Thanks for posting!

[Angua]

If Mike was stripped of the licence and it went to Brian and Brian / Al / Blondie / maybe David started to tour as The Beach Boys, would Brian get the sole custody of Bruce ?

As I understand it the original agreement between the voting members of BRI was for all members of the band to be able to use the name and pay an amount to BRI for doing so.  After the meeting was over and without discussion Mike offered a higher fee for sole use of the name.  So why not strip Mike and Bruce of the use of the name for bringing the name of the Beach Boys into disrepute and let others use it for a fee - Brian, Al, Blondie and Dave Marks?  They even could offer use of it for backing musicians (as in 'session musician with the Beach Boys'). They may not make the same huge amount of money but they'd make some and at least they'd drag the name out of the gutter.

[Tony S]

Makes one Wonder just how long Dennis would have remained in the band as essentially an employee of the group rather than a voting owner after he sold his shares and had he survived. My guess is very short time span. Sad

[ReggieDunbar]

If Mike was stripped of the licence and it went to Brian and Brian / Al / Blondie / maybe David started to tour as The Beach Boys, would Brian get the sole custody of Bruce ?

As I understand it the original agreement between the voting members of BRI was for all members of the band to be able to use the name and pay an amount to BRI for doing so.  After the meeting was over and without discussion Mike offered a higher fee for sole use of the name.  So why not strip Mike and Bruce of the use of the name for bringing the name of the Beach Boys into disrepute and let others use it for a fee - Brian, Al, Blondie and Dave Marks?  They even could offer use of it for backing musicians (as in 'session musician with the Beach Boys'). They may not make the same huge amount of money but they'd make some and at least they'd drag the name out of the gutter.

In order to change the license they need Carl's estate to be onboard as they have 25% each. (And I think they like the money...)

[Tony S]

To your point. Not sure Justin and or Jonah Wilson would want to give up their share of the Beach Boys touring income that Mike provides. Jonah is an established real estate agent out in LA and appears to be doing quite well. But that notwithstanding my guess is they like the money.

[rab2591]

FYI, the maker the petition completely changed the it from having to do with The Beach Boys to "We call on the UK government to implement OPTION 3 for a Total Ban as a first step towards an END to all Trophy Hunting."

While I agree that trophy hunting should be illegal, it's rather disingenuous to use 130,000+ signatures that were all signed on the basis of protesting Mike Love's Beach Boys. I'm still keeping my signature on there (though I wouldn't know how to take mine off if I did want to), but in case anyone else didn't agree with the newly updated petition I wanted to make people here aware of that. You can report a policy violation and explain why you want your signature off the petition. (Wata: If you want to remove your signature, click "remove your signature" link in the email you received after signing."

edit: thanks, Wata!

[Wata]

Heads-up: If you want to remove your signature, click "remove your signature" link in the email you received after signing.

In case you no longer have the email, you can contact them in this page: help.change.org/s/article/Remove-signature-from-petition?language=en_US

[rab2591]

If there was any bright side to this mess, Mike playing this concert did shed a lot of light on the disgusting world of trophy hunting.

I read a good post elsewhere regarding the band's decision to play the concert. It talked about the band having families and bills to pay, and how if they got fired (for refusing to play the gig) it probably wouldn't be easy for them to find work elsewhere. Of which I can completely understand. That being said, I absolutely think Mike should've cancelled the gig, and he should never have put his band in that position. Did you really need this one concert to keep the band financially afloat? Would it have been that hard to find another gig?

I will never buy any solo material from Mike Love. I will never go to one of their concerts. While I wasn't surprised that yet another completely avoidable and embarrassing situation happened The Beach Boys, I was absolutely surprised that it had to do with Mike playing a Trophy Hunting convention. With The Beach Boys' history of advocating for wildlife/environmental preservation - this gig is just such a blemish on that history now. I was also surprised at the amount of support this petition got from all sides of the fandom. If Brian ever played a gig like this I would boycott him as well.

Mark and Alan (and others working hard on the Feel Flows set) deserve our support, as has been said previously in this thread. While I signed the petition, I do plan on buying the Feel Flows set. Perhaps I can donate an equal amount to the Humane Society to offset not following through with the boycott.

What a week: the Facebook comment deletes, Mike claiming "freedom of expression" as a reason to play the gig, Brian Wilson being targeted by the President's son, a hunting organization publicly calling for their members to "trigger" those opposed to their viewpoints. And Mike stubbornly continuing on with the gig. You can't make this stuff up.

Thanks Mike for adding yet another ridiculous and embarrassing chapter to The Beach Boys saga.

[HeyJude]

I know everyone says if they voted to strip mike of the license it would be "legal hell", etc....does anyone know exactly how? I mean, from what is understood (as far as i can tell) if the voting members of BRI voted to strip the license, isnt that pretty cut and dry? They gave him the license and they could vote to take it away, right?

Of course, they would literally be voting to strip themselves of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year of free money, basically...What is the number? Something like 10 or 20 pct of his GROSS touring income? (which is partly why he has to do the 'walmart' touring method) because 10 or 20 pct of the gross gets taken off the top...Lets say he grosses 50k/show (probably more) and does 100 shows (I know he usually does 150/year or so) and its only 10 pct...thats 500k/year divided by 5 (?) members, so thats 100k/year each for doing nothing. And it's probably more, thats a conservative estimate...Not to mention he keeps the beach boys name out there which stimulates record sales, etc. So we're probably talking about 200k/year each for each BRI member. Sure he's annoying and he plays at these terrible events that Don Jr and trophy hunters are at, but to be honest ,if it were me, i'd probably take the 200k/year and just deal with it....am i way off on my numbers?

Not to mention, how many more seats would Brian sell if he went out as "the beach boys"? i doubt very many more....His name is well know. It's Mike's that isnt, hence why he was chomping at the bit to buy the license. When he was going out as "mike love" or "california beach band" or whatever it was, he barely sold any tickets and was playing small venues, as far as i can tell.  I mean how many baby boomers want to see "Mike Love" vs "The Beach Boys"...its a huge difference. Vs How many want to see Brian Wilson vs The Beach Boys? Not a huge difference. YOu can tell because Brian plays about the same size venues as mike as sells similiar (if not more) tickets than "The Beach Boys"

I think the idea is that, even if the other three board members voted to strip the license, Mike could tie it up in litigation for years. Look at cases even like the very different mid-2000s lawsuit regarding "Smile" and the freebie UK newspaper CD, etc. While he ended up losing that suit, elements of it dragged on for years.

A lawsuit involving BRI would be even messier. Brian or Al would have to ask themselves, are they prepared to have their offspring or spouses continue the lawsuit if it outlives them? Does Brian want to go for depositions and trials and stuff when he's 84 years old? Again, all the while paying lawyers tons of money, and losing all the license money (Brian has never professed to want the BB name to tour, and even if he did would never do 150 gigs per year, and even if he wanted to, would probably see the license/name frozen while lawsuits flew).

If the guys were 20 years younger, and Mike hadn't been using the license consistently for 22 years, and if Brian actually wanted to out and tour as "The Beach Boys", then it might be more realistic to pursue voting to take away Mike's license. But that's just not the case.

[HeyJude]

If Mike was stripped of the licence and it went to Brian and Brian / Al / Blondie / maybe David started to tour as The Beach Boys, would Brian get the sole custody of Bruce ?

As I understand it the original agreement between the voting members of BRI was for all members of the band to be able to use the name and pay an amount to BRI for doing so.  After the meeting was over and without discussion Mike offered a higher fee for sole use of the name.  So why not strip Mike and Bruce of the use of the name for bringing the name of the Beach Boys into disrepute and let others use it for a fee - Brian, Al, Blondie and Dave Marks?  They even could offer use of it for backing musicians (as in 'session musician with the Beach Boys'). They may not make the same huge amount of money but they'd make some and at least they'd drag the name out of the gutter.

I just don't think Brian has ever truly been interested in touring as "The Beach Boys", for a myriad of reasons. That's one of the main reasons it has been varying degrees of easier over the years for him to just let Mike use it.

[guitarfool2002]

FYI, the maker the petition completely changed the it from having to do with The Beach Boys to "We call on the UK government to implement OPTION 3 for a Total Ban as a first step towards an END to all Trophy Hunting."

While I agree that trophy hunting should be illegal, it's rather disingenuous to use 130,000+ signatures that were all signed on the basis of protesting Mike Love's Beach Boys. I'm still keeping my signature on there (though I wouldn't know how to take mine off if I did want to), but in case anyone else didn't agree with the newly updated petition I wanted to make people here aware of that. You can report a policy violation and explain why you want your signature off the petition. (Wata: If you want to remove your signature, click "remove your signature" link in the email you received after signing."

edit: thanks, Wata!

Anyone who signed can report this to the website.

I think this is complete bullshit...you can't get people on board  to sign something specific and then change the topic of the petition they signed after the fact.

Report them ASAP.


A: How to Report Content - How to report a petition

To report a petition on Change.org, you must first be logged into your account. Once you have logged in, follow the steps mentioned below:
Scroll to the bottom of the petition page and click on “Report a policy violation” button located below the comments section.
This button opens a menu where you will select a category for your report.
Before you can make a submission, you must include a reason for your report.
The more specific you can be with your reason for reporting content, the more equipped the Help Center team will be when assessing your claim.

[HeyJude]

To your point. Not sure Justin and or Jonah Wilson would want to give up their share of the Beach Boys touring income that Mike provides. Jonah is an established real estate agent out in LA and appears to be doing quite well. But that notwithstanding my guess is they like the money.

Their most likely choice in these scenarios is a choice between a few hundred K per year with Mike touring, or ZERO (or very little). Easy decision.

The only example of the Carl's sons voting against Mike that we know of over all these years is when they voted to allow the "Love & Mercy" score/soundtrack CD to be released. I think that was a much easier decision to make; it didn't jeopardize any touring income (and, in fact, actually would have only brought in some additional amount of royalties to all of them).

[rab2591]

FYI, the maker the petition completely changed the it from having to do with The Beach Boys to "We call on the UK government to implement OPTION 3 for a Total Ban as a first step towards an END to all Trophy Hunting."

While I agree that trophy hunting should be illegal, it's rather disingenuous to use 130,000+ signatures that were all signed on the basis of protesting Mike Love's Beach Boys. I'm still keeping my signature on there (though I wouldn't know how to take mine off if I did want to), but in case anyone else didn't agree with the newly updated petition I wanted to make people here aware of that. You can report a policy violation and explain why you want your signature off the petition. (Wata: If you want to remove your signature, click "remove your signature" link in the email you received after signing."

edit: thanks, Wata!

Anyone who signed can report this to the website.

I think this is complete bullshit...you can't get people on board  to sign something specific and then change the topic of the petition they signed after the fact.

Report them ASAP.


A: How to Report Content - How to report a petition

To report a petition on Change.org, you must first be logged into your account. Once you have logged in, follow the steps mentioned below:
Scroll to the bottom of the petition page and click on “Report a policy violation” button located below the comments section.
This button opens a menu where you will select a category for your report.
Before you can make a submission, you must include a reason for your report.
The more specific you can be with your reason for reporting content, the more equipped the Help Center team will be when assessing your claim.

When you report, click on "Misleading or Spam", it then gives you an option to select some items, click on "petition content drastically changed"

[guitarfool2002]

I am furious at this.

I encourage anyone who signed or supported this petition based on *The Beach Boys* performance to contact the change.org website and report this change of topics by the guy who started the petition.

You can't get people to sign a petition about a topic and then change topics after they've signed.

Now it's about UK laws and Boris Johnson, "The Beach Boys" has been removed from the petition yet the signatures remain.

For fucks sake...

[SMiLE Brian]

WTF, this makes that one poster at the EH board look like they make sense...

[guitarfool2002]

I just posted and pinned instructions and contact info if anyone wants to report this shifting of petition topics to change.org

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,26921.0.html

I'd strongly encourage reporting this...what the petition starter did was beyond dishonest to everyone who signed based on the original topic.

[Ang Jones]

The Admin on Brian's MB just wrote

'Hello everyone:

We've read your messages about the Trophy Hunting petition and understand your concerns. Please note that the original petition you signed is being taken down, and your names won't be carried over to any other petitions - it stops with this one regarding The Beach Boys. We're sorry for any confusion or concern!'

[CenturyDeprived]

Bummer this happened with the petition, for one because it's a dishonest thing to that type of bait and switch, but also because it takes the heat off Mike and distracts from the real issue, that the band name has been dragged into the mud in a most disgusting way.

That doesn't change, nor does the fact that Mike not standing up shows his apparent approval of his buddy Don Jr. publicly attempting to humiliate his cousin, despite any unrelated shenanigans by the original petition writer.

If I didn't know better, I'd almost swear that someone with deep pockets with something to gain from this helped make this happen, in order to discredit the petition and call the whole thing into question.  Probably not, but stranger things have happened. At minimum, anyone with a *desire* to discredit the original petition can't exactly be unhappy with this turn of events.

Mike's still an unethical disgrace to the BBs name, dude needs a narcissist trophy #neverforget

[rab2591]

I'm not sure if that was Mr. Goncalves most successful petition to date, but I would imagine that it probably was. He likely realized that there was no more steam in The Beach Boys story and wanted to keep those numbers booming by changing the petition and hoping people would ignore the switch.

I am grateful for his cause (and I'd imagine it opened a lot of eyes up to this ongoing issue), but he should never have changed the petition. Completely disingenuous and in the end likely hurt his his chances of another successful petition - how many others will refuse to sign one of Mr. Goncalves petitions because they wouldn't want another bait-and-switch?

"Please note that the original petition you signed is being taken down."

I think this is the most awful choice he could make. Keep it up as a documented success! But make a separate petition for your UK/Johnson gripe. 130,000 people who voted to boycott Mike should still be heard. Thank goodness we still have the news articles as documented proof of Mike's hypocritical gig.

nor does the fact that Mike not standing up shows his apparent approval of his buddy Don Jr. publicly attempting to humiliate his cousin

This really ticks me off. Okay, so Brian publicly denounced Mike's Beach Boys - I'm sure Mike was hurt by that. Perhaps Mike could've taken a second to think about the fact that he chose to use Brian's music to entertain an entire audience and convention that approves of endangered animal killing. He makes some sentence long "justification" for the concert to address all of the longtime fans who disapproved of the concert. Ya know why? Because he couldn't logically justify this concert.

The petition may get deleted but no one is going to forget the time that Mike Love stubbornly played a gig for a bunch of endangered animal killers.

[HeyJude]

Not surprising, but the Mike Love Twitter page has gone into "protected" mode:

https://twitter.com/mikeloveofcl?lang=en

[CenturyDeprived]

nor does the fact that Mike not standing up shows his apparent approval of his buddy Don Jr. publicly attempting to humiliate his cousin

This really ticks me off. Okay, so Brian publicly denounced Mike's Beach Boys - I'm sure Mike was hurt by that. Perhaps Mike could've taken a second to think about the fact that he chose to use Brian's music to entertain an entire audience and convention that approves of endangered animal killing. He makes some sentence long "justification" for the concert to address all of the longtime fans who disapproved of the concert. Ya know why? Because he couldn't logically justify this concert.
 

Again, I think it comes down to not wanting to say a peep of anything remotely critical aimed towards the Trumps. Mike is tossing their salads to get something in return at some point. He's betting on some return on his brown-nosing investment.

It could have been Mike's John McCain "he's not a terrorist" moment, where he stood up to someone (Don Jr.) saying something unquestionably reprehensible, even if it was somehow against Mike's own perceived best interests at the time, but instead he's cool with his bully buddy, who comes off like a villain caricature of some rapey douchebag fraternity bro in a 1980s movie - someone directly connected to the most power in the entire world - attempting to publicly humiliate his "beloved Cousin Brian" and put Brian in his place. That's a-ok.

Pieces. Of. Sh*t. Both Don Jr. and Mike. Birds of a feather.

I mean, Don Jr. is objectively an awful, awful person. Mike I really, really wanted to think was better than that. I guess I was wrong.

[CenturyDeprived]

Not surprising, but the Mike Love Twitter page has gone into "protected" mode:

https://twitter.com/mikeloveofcl?lang=en

Ha. Hahaha. It was only a matter of time. 

Yeah, that Streisand Effect thing is just a myth, right Mike?

You know who I feel bad for in this whole debacle? The OTHER Mike Love, the Genre Conscious Roots Rock Reggae musician from the beautiful island of Oahu, Hawaii. His name comes up right after Mike Love's name, in most search engines.

[Pretty Funky]

FWIW, The Beach Boys Wiki page now has a reference to the whole sorry saga. While you may have an opinion on Wikipedia, it’s often the first port of call for anyone new to the band and doing research. Just another black eye to the legacy unfortunately.

In February 2020, Wilson and Jardine encouraged fans of the Beach Boys to boycott the band's music after it was announced that Love and Johnston would take their touring version of the group to perform at the Safari Club International Convention in Reno, Nevada. Despite Wilson and Jardine's protests that performing at the convention would symbolize the band advocating for trophy hunting, Love decided to proceed with the concert anyway responding that the band "[supports] freedom of thought and expression as a fundamental tenet of our rights as Americans." [316]

[SMiLE Brian]

This has been a terrible week to be a BBs/BW fan....