Surf's up on QVC for Beach Boys

And on the 46th anniversary of the release of "Pet Sounds," the Beach Boys played QVC.

The reunited Beach Boys, that is, who are in the early stages of a 50th-anniversary reunion tour. They visited the sprawling 84-acre campus of the home shopping channel in West Chester, Pa., to hawk "That's Why God Made the Radio," their new album due to be released June 5.

This version of the aging, archetypal California harmony-singing, 1960s surf-rock group includes three original members -- songwriting giant Brian Wilson, 69; vocalist Mike Love, 71, his cousin; and guitarist Al Jardine, 69, his high-school classmate. All were on board in Hawthorne, Calif., when the group's first single, "Surfin,'" was released in October 1961. When they recorded it, the group included Wilson's brothers Dennis, who died in 1983, and Carl, who died in 1998.

Last week at QVC, Wilson, Love and Jardine performed an hourlong set before 130 employees and guests while host Carolyn Gracie pushed "That's Why God Made the Radio," bundled with a 10-song best-of CD for the low, low price of $19.98.

At QVC, the three originals were joined by two tried-and-true cohorts. Singer Bruce Johnston, 69, first played in the band in 1965, replacing Glen Campbell, who had taken the place of Brian Wilson when he withdrew from touring to concentrate on creating the yearning, beautifully arranged masterwork that is "Pet Sounds." And guitarist David Marks, 63, grew up across the street from the Wilsons in Hawthorne and was already in the band as a 13-year-old when they signed with Capitol Records on July 16, 1962.

Love and Johnston have toured together as the Beach Boys regularly. But not since 1996 have they played with Wilson, the troubled pianist, bass player and singer whose name has the word "genius" attached to it more frequently than any other in pop music. Wilson, who sat at a keyboard to the left of the stage at QVC and came alive to sing a sumptuous version of "God Only Knows," has seen his career revive in recent years with the aid of a loving backup band whose members are in the superb 10-piece ensemble on this tour.

Multiple hatchets had to be buried for the reunion tour -- whose closest date to the Twin Cities is July 1 in Milwaukee -- to happen. The band was mired in many lawsuits, with the Love and Wilson camps divided over ownership of the songs as well as the use of the band's name.

"Last year I started trumpeting, playing my Gabriel horn," he says. "Because the fans really wanted it. They were really hurting. My partners didn't like me talking about it. Mike and Brian had to make peace with one another. All of us had to give something back."

At QVC, the group played big hits ("Surfin' Safari," "California Girls"), with the thinning voices of the originals augmented, and sometimes overwhelmed, by their skilled backup harmonizers. On tour, the group has been playing 40-song sets that dig deep into its catalog, from obscurities such as "All This Is That," a song about transcendental meditation, to "Add Some Music to Your Day," which the group sings a cappella while gathered around Wilson's piano "like we did when we started out," Jardine said.

The new single has passages of that old magic, along with awkward stretches that land with a thud. Johnston says the album, produced by Joe Thomas, pieces together Wilson's melodies with Love's lyrics.

"Brian had a lot of good fragments lying around. It was like putting a puzzle back together."

Jardine calls the album "a nice little piece of work. ... It's got that 'Pet Sounds' vibe to it. There are a couple of happy tunes in there. But it's pretty moody. Brian is a melancholy soul. He just hears things we don't hear. It really just pours out of his soul."

But Jardine says music remains his old schoolmate's lifeblood.

"When he sits down at the keys, then he's connected. Because he lives through music, and through the keyboard. It's like his central nervous system. I don't feel anything near that when I play the guitar."

As the show winds down, Gracie says 8,500 CDs have been ordered (later, the tally will top 19,000 -- impressive, but no match for the record 43,000 that Barry Manilow moved in an hour), and asks each band member to send a message to his fans.

Johnston wishes everyone good health, "so you can come see the Beach Boys."