The Beach Boys and Ronald Reagan???

[Rocky Raccoon]

What's the history of this relationship?  I thought their friendships with John Stamos or the Captain and Tennille were cringeworthy enough but the Reagans???  The Beach Boys as right-wingers just doesn't sit right with me for some reason.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm not judging anyone for their political views but these weren't just views.  It would seem like these guys were completely open about their respect for Reagan (just like the worst of the Republicans) and performed for him multiple times.  How did they get involved with Reagan?  Was it just a publicity stunt?  Can we just blame Mike Love (which is always the easiest way out)?

[Chocolate Shake Man]

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh flux.

[Jon Stebbins]

What's the history of this relationship?  I thought their friendships with John Stamos or the Captain and Tennille were cringeworthy enough but the Reagans???  The Beach Boys as right-wingers just doesn't sit right with me for some reason.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm not judging anyone for their political views but these weren't just views.  It would seem like these guys were completely open about their respect for Reagan (just like the worst of the Republicans) and performed for him multiple times.  How did they get involved with Reagan?  Was it just a publicity stunt?  Can we just blame Mike Love (which is always the easiest way out)?

Its called Google...
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=Ronald+Reagan+Beach+Boys&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

[Rocky Raccoon]

What's the history of this relationship?  I thought their friendships with John Stamos or the Captain and Tennille were cringeworthy enough but the Reagans???  The Beach Boys as right-wingers just doesn't sit right with me for some reason.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm not judging anyone for their political views but these weren't just views.  It would seem like these guys were completely open about their respect for Reagan (just like the worst of the Republicans) and performed for him multiple times.  How did they get involved with Reagan?  Was it just a publicity stunt?  Can we just blame Mike Love (which is always the easiest way out)?

Its called Google...
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=Ronald+Reagan+Beach+Boys&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Nothing in there answers my question.

[Rocky Raccoon]

Actually all it does is make it more baffling to me as Reagan had banned the Beach Boys from performing in Washington.

[Ron]

What's the history of this relationship?  I thought their friendships with John Stamos or the Captain and Tennille were cringeworthy enough but the Reagans???  The Beach Boys as right-wingers just doesn't sit right with me for some reason.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm not judging anyone for their political views but these weren't just views.  It would seem like these guys were completely open about their respect for Reagan (just like the worst of the Republicans) and performed for him multiple times.  How did they get involved with Reagan?  Was it just a publicity stunt?  Can we just blame Mike Love (which is always the easiest way out)?

Well, here we go.  You started it.  The Beach Boys are all Republicans.  Sorry.  They are.  Don't worry, as a liberal you've got U2 and Radiohead.  

BTW Ronald Reagan was the best president in history.  

[Jon Stebbins]

Actually all it does is make it more baffling to me as Reagan had banned the Beach Boys from performing in Washington.

Try reading it again

[Jon Stebbins]

What's the history of this relationship?  I thought their friendships with John Stamos or the Captain and Tennille were cringeworthy enough but the Reagans???  The Beach Boys as right-wingers just doesn't sit right with me for some reason.  Now don't get me wrong, I'm not judging anyone for their political views but these weren't just views.  It would seem like these guys were completely open about their respect for Reagan (just like the worst of the Republicans) and performed for him multiple times.  How did they get involved with Reagan?  Was it just a publicity stunt?  Can we just blame Mike Love (which is always the easiest way out)?

Well, here we go.  You started it.  The Beach Boys are all Republicans.  Sorry.  They are.  

Not true. Bruce is a Republican. Mike sometimes.  The rest are/were either independent, Democrat or unaffiliated. BTW Murry and Audree were registered Democrats.

[Rocky Raccoon]

BTW Ronald Reagan was the best president in history.  

I don't mind people saying he was decent but best in history?  Seriously?  That's just ridiculous.  I can name plenty of Presidents more politically significant than Ronald Reagan.  Lincoln, Roosevelt, Adams, Kennedy, Truman... I can keep going.  Ronald Reagan was a snitch (McCarthy trials anyone?), cut taxes for the rich while raising taxes for the middle class, tripled our debt, funded terrorists, refused to acknowledge the AIDS epidemic... the guy was just as bad as Bush.

[Mikie]

BTW Ronald Reagan was the best president in history.

That's complete bull sh*t.  Ronnie Raygun was definitely not the best president in history. 

[guitarfool2002]

Others can do it better, but let me give the semi-abridged version:

A lot of this was blown waaayyyy out of proportion. Leave it to the political scholars to argue that one on the how's and why's, but the version(s) some in this thread are reading isn't 100% accurate.

Ronald Reagan didn't ban the Beach Boys from anything. They played the show in 1981 and again in 1984. That should be the end of the story. But here's the rest:

James Watt was Reagan's Secretary Of The Interior, a cabinet position. One of his duties was to oversee the national parks and facilities, including the concerts held on those grounds. In 1981, The Beach Boys played. In 1982, The Grass Roots played, and Watt's office received complaints about drug use, assaults, and an increase in people treated for drug- and alcohol-related health emergencies and injuries that day. A group of a few hundred people there staged a smoke-in supporting legalizing pot at the show.

Watt is/was an unabashed conservative - apart from hearing reports of both the usual booze-fueled idiots and intoxicated concertgoers making it hard for families to enjoy the show, his solution was to write a memo in late 1982 about "attracting families" and offering "patriotic and inspirational" entertainment at the July 4th concerts in the future, in response and reaction to the complaint and the stats he received about intoxication and assaults at the Grass Roots show. It was his response - agree or disagree, he wanted to make the concert more family friendly in response to complaints on his desk.

According to Watt, he or his staff never mentioned the Beach Boys by name, never banned them or anyone, and says when he wrote that memo, the Beach Boys had not been booked for the concert that next year (1983). What turned into a media firestorm which saw him being called out and his resignation being demanded was based on hearsay and lies, and the assumption he "meant" The Beach Boys despite not naming them because they played in 1981 - ignoring The Grass Roots concert completely. Again, Watt claims his memo (the one reported on in the news of the day) did not mention the Beach Boys, they had not been booked for the 1983 show, and he was responding to the happenings at the 1982 concert where the BB's did not play. And he was almost publicly destroyed once the rock community picked this up from the print media, I believe the Washington Post ran the initial story in print.

Now going through the how's and why's that memo got turned into headlines saying Watt "banned" the Beach Boys from the DC concerts and in this thread how Reagan "banned" the Beach Boys...that's getting into political stuff, left-versus-right, and I don't wanna go there...here.

So what happened? Watt was publicly made a scapegoat, you see footage of him accepting a "foot in the mouth" award from Reagan in the "American Band" video along with a completely phony news voiceover describing the so-called "facts" of the story, along with video of the BB's hanging out with Ron and Nancy Reagan. It was a horrible PR move to alienate a few million potential voters in the year before an election year, especially with a band as American as the BB's, and Reagan and his advisers were trying to smooth things out by becoming strong champions and friends of the Beach Boys as "America's Band". That's politics, right and left. Whether the band goes along with it is their right as a citizen to believe what they choose. If Mike liked hanging with the Reagans, if he found them nice people or whatever else, that's his business. Don't hold it against the music if you don't like Reagan.

What the Reagan White House did with the BB's is called damage control; politics is nasty and they have to protect the guys at the top by throwing underlings under the bus, making scapegoats out of names the general public barely knows.

Am I defending James Watt? Whatever one wants to think - I'm just offering up his version of the story, which I think is crucial to telling the whole story for the sake of history. Maybe Watt is covering his own a**, again judge for yourself after reading more on this.

But Reagan didn't ban anything, let's set that straight and bust the myth, and it would appear the guy who got blamed for it didn't ban anything either, despite news reports which created the firestorm.

If anyone has more insider info or can clarify any points above, please do!

[Rocky Raccoon]

Others can do it better, but let me give the semi-abridged version

Well you did it better than any of the responses before you so thank you for clearing that up! 

[Mikie]

I wonder if ol' Ronnie ever found out that Dennis was doing his daughter....

[Alex]

BTW Ronald Reagan was the best president in history.  

I don't mind people saying he was decent but best in history?  Seriously?  That's just ridiculous.  I can name plenty of Presidents more politically significant than Ronald Reagan.  Lincoln, Roosevelt, Adams, Kennedy, Truman... I can keep going.  Ronald Reagan was a snitch (McCarthy trials anyone?), cut taxes for the rich while raising taxes for the middle class, tripled our debt, funded terrorists, refused to acknowledge the AIDS epidemic... the guy was just as bad as Bush.

I hate Reagan just as much as the next left-winger, but I believe it was James Watt who did the banning.

Damn, beaten to the punch, and very well done, too.

[Bill Ed]

I hate . . .  just as much as the next left-winger . . . . .

In my experience it seems to be what left-wingers do best.

[guitarfool2002]

I'm asking everyone with an interest in this story to re-think what they've heard about it because going way back to 1983, what was and has been reported between the BB's, Watt, and Reagan, is NOT 100% true and it should be noted in the history.

Some articles from 1983 suggest the Beach Boys played the July 4th DC show "last year"...and backed up by Andrew's concert list, they were in St. Louis July 4th 1982 playing a Freedom Fest. They were not in DC and Missouri at the same time. Again, The Grass Roots played DC July 4th in 1982, not the BB's...and the reports of the day ignored that, suggesting there were two shows in DC that day...it's really quite a mess, and simply not true. Very sloppy journalism.

An article from April 1983...April 1983, three months away from July 4th...says Al was unsure whether the Beach Boys would even be in DC on the 4th that year ('83), as issues were being worked out for them to play the 4th in Manhattan. So when Watt says the BB's had not been booked as of late 1982 when he wrote the memo, it would appear he was right: They had not been booked by April 1983 either, because Manhattan wanted them, according to Al! They ended up playing July 4th 1983 in Atlantic City, NJ, not Manhattan after all.

So the suggestion that Watt or his office banned the Beach Boys when they weren't even considered when he wrote the memo in late '82, and had another show in the works months later so they couldn't confirm the 7/4/83 date even then...it would seem to be false. So they came back in 1984.

If anyone should have been upset, it was the Grass Roots and their fans.

[?]

Clearly, the whole thing was a smokescreen designed to divert attention away from James Watt's involvement in the pressing of the first Smile bootleg LP.   

[Alex]

I hate . . .  just as much as the next left-winger . . . . .

In my experience it seems to be what left-wingers do best.

Well, maybe "dislike what Reagan did and what he stood for" is a little more accurate as far as my own opinions are concerned.

[Mikie]

(McCarthy trials anyone?),

Iran/Contra anyone?

[Wylson]

Actually all it does is make it more baffling to me as Reagan had banned the Beach Boys from performing in Washington.

Try reading it again

Rocky's question was perfectly legitimate and all he gets is someone posting a google search followed by "read it again". Yeah very helpful and friendly

[guitarfool2002]

Unfortunately a Google search or 99% of any searches will only produce the reported story, which isn't the true story, at least with the July 4th details.

[guitarfool2002]

FYI on The Beach Boys and political events around this time (late 70's, 80's):

Jan. 21, 1977 they played at a Jimmy Carter inaugural concert

March 9, 1980 they played a campaign benefit concert for George Bush Sr., running in the Republican primaries against Ronald Reagan.

Jan. 19, 1981 they played at one of the Reagan-Bush inaugural concerts

Jan. 19, 1985 they played the second Reagan-Bush inaugural

Jan. 18, 1989 they played the inauguration for George Bush Sr.

[guitarfool2002]

I'm directing this specifically to AGD: Do campaign appearances by Mike and Bruce count on your site's Gigs reference? If so, in searching around the net I found an interesting group of appearances by Mike and Bruce who were out campaigning for George Bush Sr. in October 1988. Some of the party organizers had promoted the stop as "The Beach Boys" appearing, when it was only Mike and Bruce. They changed the lyrics for Good Vibrations according to one paper's account: "I'm pickin' up Bush vibrations..." No mention of a backing band, sounds like it was just Mike and Bruce with microphones. Chuck Norris was the emcee.

They were touring California: Merced, Stockton, etc. October 14th to the 16th, 1988...if not more, those were just the ones I saw.

[Andrew G. Doe]

Such appearances are listed in 10452, and noted as not full BB shows. More are always welcomed, as is any new or updated info.

[hypehat]

I hate . . .  just as much as the next left-winger . . . . .

In my experience it seems to be what left-wingers do best.

Yes, because the American Right is completely open to all sorts, no matter if you're gay or poor or an immigrant or the President himself.... ah yes, what a happy, inclusive bunch. Always with a smile on their face.

Come the f*ck on.