Mike's Book Discussion Thread (and how it relates to the SS board)

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Who knows, it might end up as content in Al or Bruce's autobiography.

And you just ended up on the ban list. Tired of the constant trolling and PM'ing trying to get others banned.

[Rocky Raccoon]

Bruce Springsteen is issuing a compilation album with some unreleased tracks to coincide with his book.  Elvis Costello did the same thing when he released his book.  I was thinking  how cool it would be if Brian and Mike did this too.  Probably wouldn't happen but it's fun to dream.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

That would be brilliant

[18thofMay]

Unbelievable Cam, seriously I have asked you this half a dozen times. What is at your center what motivates you to post the way you do?
I try to remain fairly impartial but come on that was ridiculous!

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

too late now...he's gone like the wind.

[18thofMay]

too late now...he's gone like the wind.

He will find a way

[Marty Castillo]

Who knows, it might end up as content in Al or Bruce's autobiography.

And you just ended up on the ban list. Tired of the constant trolling and PM'ing trying to get others banned.

Out of curiosity, what was the banable offense?

[Juice Brohnston]

Who knows, it might end up as content in Al or Bruce's autobiography.

And you just ended up on the ban list. Tired of the constant trolling and PM'ing trying to get others banned.

Maybe I missed something. Why did he get banned?

[guitarfool2002]

No spoilers, just a reference to a passage being discussed and challenged in another active thread.

David Anderle's son Jonathan posted a comment and rebuttal to a section of the book that appeared to link David Anderle to the "scam" of selling Sea Of Tunes to Irving/Almo/A&M, and mentioned how David ended up being enriched by the scam.

So that passage in the book does indeed make a very clear connection and charge against David Anderle, and what Jonathan Anderle reacted so strongly to is in fact pretty easy to pick out in that chapter.

But also in that chapter is what could be seen as the NY Times' reviewers notion of cherry picking the facts. This in regards to the 1969 Sea Of Tunes sale. Taking only what is in that chapter, its specific paragraphs relative to what's written about the sale itself, and David Anderle's association with A&M:

The book specifically says that on July 21 (1969), "Murry and Brian" signed the papers to liquidate Sea Of Tunes, and by August 20, it was liquidated.

Someone unfamiliar may read that passage alone and think Murry and Brian were the only ones who signed.

For one, Mike himself signed papers regarding that sale of SOT. He testified to it in Superior Court in October 1994, as reported by the LA Times:

Metropolitan Digest / LOS ANGELES COUNTY NEWS IN BRIEF
LOS ANGELES : Beach Boys' Singer Testifies in Suit Against Brian Wilson
October 29, 1994

Beach Boys lead singer Mike Love testified Friday that he was told he would not get proper credit for the songs he co-wrote if he failed to sign a 1969 agreement to sell the group's 140-song catalogue.

"I signed it under duress, " Love testified in Los Angeles Superior Court. Both the group's manager and its attorney, Abraham Somer, told him to sign the agreement, Love said at the end of the fourth week of testimony in his suit.

The controversy began with the sale of the band's songs, known as Sea of Tunes, to Irving Music, a division of A & M Records. The late Murry Wilson, father of co-founder Brian Wilson and owner of the publishing rights, got $700,000 for the songs. The sale was negated in a 1992 settlement that netted Brian Wilson $10 million. Love, 53, sued his cousin, Brian Wilson, to obtain a share of royalties he claims he is owed for songs including "California Girls," "Dance, Dance, Dance" and "Help Me Rhonda."


The testimony in 1994 was that Mike also signed paperwork agreeing to the sale, but that he signed "under duress". So it wasn't a case of "Murry and Brian" alone signing those papers, because Mike signed them too, whether under duress or not.

That makes the definitive statement in that section of the book not entirely accurate. If the statement is made in the context it was in that chapter about the sale in 1969, it should have been noted too that Mike signed under duress, but that he too signed an agreement. If you leave that chapter, you get the impression Murry and Brian signed it. That isn't entirely accurate, if the October 1994 testimony is factored in.

Beyond that, prior to October 1994, Mike had already received over a million dollar settlement from Irving/Almo over the nature of the sale, and how it was found to be deceptive, negligent, etc etc.

And even more striking is that the reason why Mike was in court in October 1994 hinged on the court decision made in Brian's favor that declared the original sale was invalid, and that Brian was owed back royalties and compensation for the money lost due to what Brian's legal team had proven to the court was a sale that was deceptive, fraudulent, and in some cases had accusations of signatures being forged, papers being given to Brian to sign without full knowledge of what was being signed, and a partnership contract between Brian and Murry that wasn't valid under California contract law when it was agreed by both parties because Brian was underage at the time of the agreement.

So is it "cherry picking" to not say in the chapter where it was written that "Murry and Brian" signed the papers to unload Sea Of Tunes that Mike also signed papers agreeing to the sale, that he later testified he signed but signed under duress, and that the entire sale was found by a court to have been deceptive and fraudulent enough for that court to award Brian back royalties and payments for the income lost due to that sale?

That's one issue that also stood out, made even more glaring by what Jonathan Anderle wrote a few days ago. There could have been more info given related to the details of that sale, if it was a topic in that particular chapter, so people reading would have all the facts and not just a statement that "Murry and Brian" signed away Sea Of Tunes in summer 1969.

Isn't this in the book, Daily Mail quoted it as from the book I thought:

"And in 1969, we learned that our entire catalogue of songs – 140 to 150 of them, including about 80 I had co-written, though I had received credit on only a fraction of them – was to be sold. A&M agreed to pay $700,000 for the entire catalogue. And the payment was going, not to the band, but to Uncle Murry. In cash.
I drove to Brian’s house in Bel Air to see if he knew what was going on. At the time, Brian was not in good shape. He was using cocaine and living in the chauffeur’s quarters of his home while his wife Marilyn slept in the bedroom.
I reached his house, stormed into his room and asked what happened with our songs.
‘My dad f***ed us,’ he said.
‘Yeah, no s***.’
For the deal to go through, the agreement had to be signed by Brian, Dennis, Carl, Al, and me. I complained to the lawyers that songs like California Girls, I Get Around and Surfin’ USA, while co-written by me, had never been credited. If I signed, I’d lose the chance to claim them. But if I didn’t, he said, I might lose credit for Good Vibrations, Surfin’ Safari and The Warmth Of The Sun, which did bear my name.
What could I do? I had to sign the agreement to retain what I had. Everyone else signed too, and we lost all we had created.
It wasn’t until 1994, as I faced Brian in a courtroom, that jurors ruled that I deserved credit on 35 Beach Boys songs that had been solely credited to Brian for decades, leaving him facing potential damages of between $58m and $342m.
I had no interest in crushing my cousin, and it wasn’t about the money anyway. It was about getting credit for my songs. I proposed that he give me $5m and we move on. Brian agreed."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/event/article-3761744/One-Charles-Manson-s-murderers-gang-babysat-two-children-says-Beach-Boys-star-Mike-Love.html

That's all the context it gave.

Could you go ahead and post the claim about David Anderle with its context?  Feel free to post anything of mine you suspect.   Thanks.

Beat me to the punch, I had to leave before following up. The point is made in the chapter discussing the 1969 sale, as I laid out point by point short of copying the whole text, where the book says clearly that "Murry and Brian" signed the papers to liquidate Sea Of Tunes.

The book then contradicts itself (as outlined verbatim in the excerpt published in the mail, copied above) stating that all band members had to sign and agree to the sale, including Mike.

So the one reference says Murry and Brian signed it away, and another in the same book says all band members had to sign and agree as well.

Readers will come away thinking, perhaps, was it Murry and Brian who signed as noted in that chapter, or did all band members sign as noted in a later chapter? Obviously it wasn't just Murry and Brian who signed away Sea Of Tunes as the book stated. So there was some fact-checking or something that slipped through the cracks unless the idea was to imply Murry and Brian were the ones who f***ed over Mike and the band even though Mike and the band signed too, under duress or not.

Contradiction?

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Who knows, it might end up as content in Al or Bruce's autobiography.

And you just ended up on the ban list. Tired of the constant trolling and PM'ing trying to get others banned.

Out of curiosity, what was the banable offense?

Besides the constant trolling? Continuously spamming my PM box trying to get someone banned?The posts on the last page  were  the last straw.  He's been taking swipes at me for years (going on 20) ; this is nothing new. I had asked him to knock it off via PM and he kept at it.

[Juice Brohnston]

Who knows, it might end up as content in Al or Bruce's autobiography.

And you just ended up on the ban list. Tired of the constant trolling and PM'ing trying to get others banned.

Out of curiosity, what was the banable offense?

Besides the constant trolling? Continuously spamming my PM box trying to get someone banned?The posts on the last page  were  the last straw.  He's been taking swipes at me for years (going on 20) ; this is nothing new. I had asked him to knock it off via PM and he kept at it.

What posts on the last page?

[guitarfool2002]

I just reread your initial post and this comes off as the biggest backpedal...

Reread it again Marty and tell me where I suggested plagarism or made a claim that anything was plagarized. I said I noticed similarities, gave several specific examples and names when asked, and can continue to do so. I thought passages in the book sounded familiar - and they do. Familiar defenses, familiar topics, and familiar points of discussion as I had seen on this and other boards. I never said posts were stolen, lifted, or plagarized by anyone. I said passages of the book might look familiar to those who have been following the discussions on this forum.

I was the one who sarcastically suggested plagarism, not Craig, and my words were 'pretty much plagarized'.

Well, all you have to do is read the first page and a half and many people were jumping on the plagiarism bandwagon until Craig attempted to extinguish the garbage fire he started with the initial post. Craig, when you have to make multiple posts to clarify you weren't suggesting

Also, how many threads do we need on Mike's book? There are 4 or 5 threads within the first 10 posts all discussing the book (two started by the same author, I might add). Is there any way we can combine these conversations?

Whatever you say Marty. I posted my take on the book based on an advance read, and when others get their copies of the book they can read for themselves and make up their own minds, either disagree or agree with my impression that various points made, defenses, and the ways some topics were addressed had a familiar ring to them, as in I had seen and read similar things said here by specific posters on this board. I was asked to clarify, and did.

So the ball will soon be in everyone's court, everyone can read the book and have their own take on it and post those observations just as I did. If something sounded familiar to me, that's what I said in my post about the book. No starting garbage fires or trying to extinguish them, just posting my initial take on what I had read. No accusations of anything, just my take on the book.

[Juice Brohnston]

No spoilers, just a reference to a passage being discussed and challenged in another active thread.

David Anderle's son Jonathan posted a comment and rebuttal to a section of the book that appeared to link David Anderle to the "scam" of selling Sea Of Tunes to Irving/Almo/A&M, and mentioned how David ended up being enriched by the scam.

So that passage in the book does indeed make a very clear connection and charge against David Anderle, and what Jonathan Anderle reacted so strongly to is in fact pretty easy to pick out in that chapter.

But also in that chapter is what could be seen as the NY Times' reviewers notion of cherry picking the facts. This in regards to the 1969 Sea Of Tunes sale. Taking only what is in that chapter, its specific paragraphs relative to what's written about the sale itself, and David Anderle's association with A&M:

The book specifically says that on July 21 (1969), "Murry and Brian" signed the papers to liquidate Sea Of Tunes, and by August 20, it was liquidated.

Someone unfamiliar may read that passage alone and think Murry and Brian were the only ones who signed.

For one, Mike himself signed papers regarding that sale of SOT. He testified to it in Superior Court in October 1994, as reported by the LA Times:

Metropolitan Digest / LOS ANGELES COUNTY NEWS IN BRIEF
LOS ANGELES : Beach Boys' Singer Testifies in Suit Against Brian Wilson
October 29, 1994

Beach Boys lead singer Mike Love testified Friday that he was told he would not get proper credit for the songs he co-wrote if he failed to sign a 1969 agreement to sell the group's 140-song catalogue.

"I signed it under duress, " Love testified in Los Angeles Superior Court. Both the group's manager and its attorney, Abraham Somer, told him to sign the agreement, Love said at the end of the fourth week of testimony in his suit.

The controversy began with the sale of the band's songs, known as Sea of Tunes, to Irving Music, a division of A & M Records. The late Murry Wilson, father of co-founder Brian Wilson and owner of the publishing rights, got $700,000 for the songs. The sale was negated in a 1992 settlement that netted Brian Wilson $10 million. Love, 53, sued his cousin, Brian Wilson, to obtain a share of royalties he claims he is owed for songs including "California Girls," "Dance, Dance, Dance" and "Help Me Rhonda."


The testimony in 1994 was that Mike also signed paperwork agreeing to the sale, but that he signed "under duress". So it wasn't a case of "Murry and Brian" alone signing those papers, because Mike signed them too, whether under duress or not.

That makes the definitive statement in that section of the book not entirely accurate. If the statement is made in the context it was in that chapter about the sale in 1969, it should have been noted too that Mike signed under duress, but that he too signed an agreement. If you leave that chapter, you get the impression Murry and Brian signed it. That isn't entirely accurate, if the October 1994 testimony is factored in.

Beyond that, prior to October 1994, Mike had already received over a million dollar settlement from Irving/Almo over the nature of the sale, and how it was found to be deceptive, negligent, etc etc.

And even more striking is that the reason why Mike was in court in October 1994 hinged on the court decision made in Brian's favor that declared the original sale was invalid, and that Brian was owed back royalties and compensation for the money lost due to what Brian's legal team had proven to the court was a sale that was deceptive, fraudulent, and in some cases had accusations of signatures being forged, papers being given to Brian to sign without full knowledge of what was being signed, and a partnership contract between Brian and Murry that wasn't valid under California contract law when it was agreed by both parties because Brian was underage at the time of the agreement.

So is it "cherry picking" to not say in the chapter where it was written that "Murry and Brian" signed the papers to unload Sea Of Tunes that Mike also signed papers agreeing to the sale, that he later testified he signed but signed under duress, and that the entire sale was found by a court to have been deceptive and fraudulent enough for that court to award Brian back royalties and payments for the income lost due to that sale?

That's one issue that also stood out, made even more glaring by what Jonathan Anderle wrote a few days ago. There could have been more info given related to the details of that sale, if it was a topic in that particular chapter, so people reading would have all the facts and not just a statement that "Murry and Brian" signed away Sea Of Tunes in summer 1969.

Isn't this in the book, Daily Mail quoted it as from the book I thought:

"And in 1969, we learned that our entire catalogue of songs – 140 to 150 of them, including about 80 I had co-written, though I had received credit on only a fraction of them – was to be sold. A&M agreed to pay $700,000 for the entire catalogue. And the payment was going, not to the band, but to Uncle Murry. In cash.
I drove to Brian’s house in Bel Air to see if he knew what was going on. At the time, Brian was not in good shape. He was using cocaine and living in the chauffeur’s quarters of his home while his wife Marilyn slept in the bedroom.
I reached his house, stormed into his room and asked what happened with our songs.
‘My dad f***ed us,’ he said.
‘Yeah, no s***.’
For the deal to go through, the agreement had to be signed by Brian, Dennis, Carl, Al, and me. I complained to the lawyers that songs like California Girls, I Get Around and Surfin’ USA, while co-written by me, had never been credited. If I signed, I’d lose the chance to claim them. But if I didn’t, he said, I might lose credit for Good Vibrations, Surfin’ Safari and The Warmth Of The Sun, which did bear my name.
What could I do? I had to sign the agreement to retain what I had. Everyone else signed too, and we lost all we had created.
It wasn’t until 1994, as I faced Brian in a courtroom, that jurors ruled that I deserved credit on 35 Beach Boys songs that had been solely credited to Brian for decades, leaving him facing potential damages of between $58m and $342m.
I had no interest in crushing my cousin, and it wasn’t about the money anyway. It was about getting credit for my songs. I proposed that he give me $5m and we move on. Brian agreed."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/event/article-3761744/One-Charles-Manson-s-murderers-gang-babysat-two-children-says-Beach-Boys-star-Mike-Love.html

That's all the context it gave.

Could you go ahead and post the claim about David Anderle with its context?  Feel free to post anything of mine you suspect.   Thanks.

Beat me to the punch, I had to leave before following up. The point is made in the chapter discussing the 1969 sale, as I laid out point by point short of copying the whole text, where the book says clearly that "Murry and Brian" signed the papers to liquidate Sea Of Tunes.

The book then contradicts itself (as outlined verbatim in the excerpt published in the mail, copied above) stating that all band members had to sign and agree to the sale, including Mike.

So the one reference says Murry and Brian signed it away, and another in the same book says all band members had to sign and agree as well.

Readers will come away thinking, perhaps, was it Murry and Brian who signed as noted in that chapter, or did all band members sign as noted in a later chapter? Obviously it wasn't just Murry and Brian who signed away Sea Of Tunes as the book stated. So there was some fact-checking or something that slipped through the cracks unless the idea was to imply Murry and Brian were the ones who f***ed over Mike and the band even though Mike and the band signed too, under duress or not.

Contradiction?

Well, I should wait till I read the book before chiming in, but Contradiction? Not necessarily. Could Al and Mike have decided to sell Sea of Tunes? I imagine not. So if what Mike is claiming, which is that if they didn't sign they would lose rights to other royalties, all members signing was done with the figurative 'gun to the head'. So yes, potentially Mike might feel he was sewered by Murray, and by extension Brian.

[guitarfool2002]

The contradiction is simple: One chapter says Murry and Brian signed the papers. Another says all band members signed the papers.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Who knows, it might end up as content in Al or Bruce's autobiography.

And you just ended up on the ban list. Tired of the constant trolling and PM'ing trying to get others banned.

Out of curiosity, what was the banable offense?

Besides the constant trolling? Continuously spamming my PM box trying to get someone banned?The posts on the last page  were  the last straw.  He's been taking swipes at me for years (going on 20) ; this is nothing new. I had asked him to knock it off via PM and he kept at it.

What posts on the last page?

Trying to provoke Craig with the whole 'credit' thing.

Oh, and http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,24284.msg587411.html#msg587411   He's periodically called me 'Billie' ( which is the female version of Billy)  because one time years ago on another board that we both belonged to  somebody( not Cam)  used to taunt me with that because  they thought I was gay and calling me such would offend me. I'm not and it didn't, but the bigotry did. *

I'd asked him to stop that too.

*thankfully most of us have moved out of the 1950s since then.

[Jim V.]

Who knows, it might end up as content in Al or Bruce's autobiography.

And you just ended up on the ban list. Tired of the constant trolling and PM'ing trying to get others banned.

Out of curiosity, what was the banable offense?

Besides the constant trolling? Continuously spamming my PM box trying to get someone banned?The posts on the last page  were  the last straw.  He's been taking swipes at me for years (going on 20) ; this is nothing new. I had asked him to knock it off via PM and he kept at it.

What posts on the last page?

Trying to provoke Craig with the whole 'credit' thing.

Oh, and http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,24284.msg587411.html#msg587411   He's periodically called me 'Billie' ( which is the female version of Billy)  because one time years ago on another board that we both belonged to  somebody( not Cam)  used to taunt me with that because  they thought I was gay and calling me such would offend me. I'm not and it didn't, but the bigotry did. *

I'd asked him to stop that too.

*thankfully most of us have moved out of the 1950s since then.

Cam's gone!?? Praise be!

Too bad there's still a place as the Pet Sounds Forum for him to continue to spread his drivel.

And learning why he called you "Billie" is sure interesting. What a fucking prick.

[18thofMay]

Who knows, it might end up as content in Al or Bruce's autobiography.

And you just ended up on the ban list. Tired of the constant trolling and PM'ing trying to get others banned.

Out of curiosity, what was the banable offense?

Besides the constant trolling? Continuously spamming my PM box trying to get someone banned?The posts on the last page  were  the last straw.  He's been taking swipes at me for years (going on 20) ; this is nothing new. I had asked him to knock it off via PM and he kept at it.

What posts on the last page?

Trying to provoke Craig with the whole 'credit' thing.

Oh, and http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,24284.msg587411.html#msg587411   He's periodically called me 'Billie' ( which is the female version of Billy)  because one time years ago on another board that we both belonged to  somebody( not Cam)  used to taunt me with that because  they thought I was gay and calling me such would offend me. I'm not and it didn't, but the bigotry did. *

I'd asked him to stop that too.

*thankfully most of us have moved out of the 1950s since then.

Cam's gone!?? Praise be!

Too bad there's still a place as the Pet Sounds Forum for him to continue to spread his drivel.

And learning why he called you "Billie" is sure interesting. What a fucking prick.

I echo those sentiments.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Thanks guys.
Now...back to the book!

[HeyJude]

I'm still skeptical of Mike or anyone losing "credit" on songs due to not agreeing to the sale of the publishing. Here are his words:

If I signed, I’d lose the chance to claim them. But if I didn’t, he said, I might lose credit for Good Vibrations, Surfin’ Safari and The Warmth Of The Sun, which did bear my name.

I'm skeptical of how they legally could have taken his royalties away, and even more so about how they could have taken his credits away. His writing above says "might lose credit", as in the credit on the label.

I'm curious if there's any more detail or context to this. Someone just blankly told them "If you don't agree to this sale, you might lose your credits on the songs you wrote?" This threat seems odd. It's a textbook example of duress, it's a threat that doesn't carry equal weight towards all of the members (e.g. by 1969 Carl, Dennis, and Al all had very few if any songwriting credits, so threatening to take away credits was an empty threat to them), and even if the apparent *verbal* threat itself wouldn't have been provable, Mike would have had pretty strong evidence of retribution having taken place against him if he didn't agree to the sale and then all of a sudden had his royalties cut off and name removed from 80 BB songs.

The "I might have lost my existing credits" argument kinda smells to me more like a latter-day excuse to explain the revelation that *Mike* may have been one of the people who signed the agreement to sell the catalog. And one would think that this "threat" would have been applicable to Brian as well. But Mike doesn't seem to excuse Brian's role in the saga in the same way that he excuses his own. I think Mike has said in the past that Brian was essentially under various forms of legal or at least psychological duress from Murry at the time. But Mike has also still not been shy about shunting some level of blame or at least anger towards Brian specifically regarding the sale of the catalog.

[guitarfool2002]

I was skeptical - and have been - of that claim as well. Publishing royalties and songwriting royalties are what I thought to be separate entities, in a business and credit sense. Mike would have been getting the royalties through BMI as he was listed as a BMI writer on those songs. No matter what happened with the publishing "commodity" trading hands or ownership, that wouldn't affect the royalty checks he'd be getting from BMI if he was listed as co-writer. meaning if he already was registered on BMI as a writer on GV, no matter who bought the publishing catalog from 1969 until eternity, those BMI payments would still be Mike's.

I remember John Fogerty - whether he was ASCAP or BMI I don't remember - saying his writing royalties kept him afloat financially while he was going through that mess with Fantasy and Zaentz over his song catalog. No matter what went down with publishing and those legal issues, the writing royalties still went to him through either BMI or ASCAP for the use and play of those Creedence songs.

Another hypothetical - Michael Jackson may have bought the Beatles song catalog in a publishing sense, but he had absolutely no ability to change anything about the "Lennon McCartney" writing credit and the usage and royalty payments applied to said credit. He'd get a cut as publisher, and had more control over the catalog, but it had no bearing on the songwriting credit. Meaning, Michael Jackson could not have stripped the "Lennon" credit off yesterday on a whim. It wasn't part of the publishing wheelhouse.

At least that's my understanding.

[HeyJude]

And it may well be that Mike's point is essentially that he was young and naïve and easily fooled when the deal came down. But a quick aside mentioning that the threat leveled against him was an empty threat (or an illegal threat) would help clarify that.

But I again have to wonder how much of that specific detail, of having been allegedly under duress, is meant to absolve him of blame in relation to the potential revelation that his signature was required *and* obtained in the sale of the catalog.

So much of his animus these days seems to stem for the one-two punch of a bad sale deal on the catalog and his not receiving credits. That he may have been a needed and obtained signature in that sale would tend to possibly undercut the justification for at least that degree of animus. 

[guitarfool2002]

Back to the book, maybe someone else who has read an advance copy can help me fill in the gaps in case I missed it or am overlooking it...but I was hoping Mike would have addressed the issue of him giving seed money to fund the PMRC in the mid 80's. Most people - music fans - remember this as a pretty big issue overall, and it became part of the national dialogue if not a rallying point against music censorship which even led to documentaries and other films being made about the music community fighting back against the politicians who were advocating warning labels on albums for explicit lyrics and censorship in general.

Again, maybe I'm missing it, or it simply wasn't addressed. It wasn't a popular decision to fund the PMRC, and I would have liked to read Mike's thoughts on that decision after 30 years and whether he took any heat personally for giving them seed money when the majority of the rock community was strongly against what the PMRC was trying to do with censorship and labeling albums for "explicit lyrics".

In case anyone isn't familiar with this story, I took this from the online Billboard archives, September 1985, and that's why the highlights are on the article.





And again, if I missed where the book did address the PMRC seed money topic, please let me know.

[Robbie Mac]

John Denver testified against the PMRC. John Freakin' Denver! The guy who hung out with the Muppets was on the opposite side of a censorship issue from Mike.

[filledeplage]

Back to the book, maybe someone else who has read an advance copy can help me fill in the gaps in case I missed it or am overlooking it...but I was hoping Mike would have addressed the issue of him giving seed money to fund the PMRC in the mid 80's. Most people - music fans - remember this as a pretty big issue overall, and it became part of the national dialogue if not a rallying point against music censorship which even led to documentaries and other films being made about the music community fighting back against the politicians who were advocating warning labels on albums for explicit lyrics and censorship in general.

Again, maybe I'm missing it, or it simply wasn't addressed. It wasn't a popular decision to fund the PMRC, and I would have liked to read Mike's thoughts on that decision after 30 years and whether he took any heat personally for giving them seed money when the majority of the rock community was strongly against what the PMRC was trying to do with censorship and labeling albums for "explicit lyrics".

In case anyone isn't familiar with this story, I took this from the online Billboard archives, September 1985, and that's why the highlights are on the article.





And again, if I missed where the book did address the PMRC seed money topic, please let me know.

GF - as I look at this, it was a non-partisan effort [Tipper Gore is married to Al Gore a Dem VP.](Dems and Republicans) and deals with labeling standards that have been in existence for year in the motion picture industry for viewing.  The G, PG, etc have been in existence for years.  

What I can tell you is that when a Kindergartner comes into a class singing "Back that ass up; show me what you're working with..." - it is the beginning of "sexualizing" 5 year olds.  And, I think some controls (not censorship but perhaps labeling.) They don't even  realize what they are singing. I think a monetary contribution is pretty irrelevant when there was already a standard in place for labeling motion pictures for some time.  I look at it as a consumer labeling mechanism and a way of protecting children.  

Who cares what adults listen to?  It is their choice and should not be censored, but for kids, I disagree.    

[HeyJude]

I need to know what happened at the Porn Rock panel at the Radio '85 convention! What was the "very surprising" announcement?