Slow, Sloppy and Brilliant

Brian isn’t in charge anymore; in fact, he’s no longer sure he wants to be a Beach Boy. When the record label visits his house, he paints his face green. He gives away all of his gold records, “removing himself,” as a friend will later put it, “from his own past.” One afternoon in 1969, he bursts into the studio in his pajamas, waving a document in the air: a five-way contract that would change the band’s name to “Beach.” “We’re not ‘boys’ anymore, right?” he says. “We’re men! So why do we want to call ourselves Beach Boys?” The rest of the group refuses to sign it.