Mike Love "Vibe Room" Q&A

[Jim V.]

Took Mike about two and a half minutes to cheezily throw "fun fun fun" and "good vibrations" into a sentence.

The same sentence, mind you.

Love this guy, he is just incredible. 

[Bittersweet-Sanity]

heh...Mike totally sidesteps the question about where he'd rank Summer in Paradise among the other albums and just talks about the eco-friendly message of the title track.

[Jim V.]

Also love that this guy Wink does the whole hhhhhh-what and hhhhh-where thing when he says those words. However, I do have to say he does have a great radio voice. And I'm totally unfamiliar with any of his work.

And now i'll stop making these stupid  on-the-go comments! Sorry...

[CenturyDeprived]

Is it weird for me to think it's weird when Mike peacefully and happily talks about writing songs with Al Jardine, the guy who feels that Mike's recent actions were equivalent to firing him?

It would be nice for me to not think that is weird, and I truthfully desire to think it is not weird...but I think I'd have to pull an Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and remove the knowledge of that from my head in order for it not to actually be weird to me.

[beatle608]

I'm happy to see that he was asked a couple of my questions. Nice surprise!

[Jim V.]

So I finally finished watching it. A lot of predictable throwaway crap questions. But I did enjoy the thing about his solo material. Although he's really kidding himself if he thinks an unreleased 1980s Mike Love/Adrian Baker song is gonna get placement in any kind of movie. And I felt it was kinda like that he brushed off the Looking Back with Love question saying how they were "reviewing all this stuff" or whatever. That excuse will work for all the unreleased stuff, but hey Mikey, that one was actually released! No need to assess anything about it besides whether you want it out there or not. And it seems from the way he brushed it off that he does not want it out there, hah!

It also seems to me that a new album from him still seems kinda unlikely. I guess we will see though.

[Justin]

"Fun fun fun" and "Good Vibrations" in the first 2 minutes...classic!   

[CenturyDeprived]

"Fun fun fun" and "Good Vibrations" in the first 2 minutes...classic!  

I guess that's Mike's Shortenin' Bread riff. His go-to, way overused standby. Somebody needs to stitch together interview clip footage of the cheesy song references. It would probably run longer than the BW Shortenin' Bread riff compilation mix on Youtube.

[ontor pertawst]

Bruno Mars on Wild Honey, he wants. And a young artist on Darlin'. Gee what a good idea, huh?

I like when they opened saying "good to be back" even tho Mike hired him to do this... he made sure to mention meeting the Beatles in India, thankfully. Phew!

Surely his statements about the staying power of electronica will ignite a firestorm! Other than that and a mention of Amy Winehouse that made me wonder if he knew she was dead, pretty dull stuff for so such a long running time. Thin, watery gruel.

[seltaeb1012002]

I learned nothing new. Nothing. I want my 45 minutes back.

[Autotune]

Yeah. It took me less time to read through Brian's three q&a's in the last month and not learning anything new either. I think it's pretty obvious by now that these sessions will be hardly revealing to the initiated. Perhaps if some of those fans who find fault in pretty much everything ML says or does, had contributed some questions, he would have answered them. I think it's great that these guys are reaching out to the fans in this way, and the fact that this guy made a 45-min production of the answers must not go overlooked.

[seltaeb1012002]

^^ True.

[gfac22]

I don't know, nothing too revelatory but I thoroughly enjoyed the interview.  I hope he does another one sometime soon.

[Lowbacca]

"How does the great [sic!] album SIP rank among all the other albums?"

"I used to chase butterflies with a friend of mine [...] so I've had a lifelong sensitivity to the environment. Not only mankind but.. other forms of life. So... SIP encapsulates those feelings in the song."

[Cyncie]

Well, it was a nice, relaxed interview and I think it's great that Mike took so much time to do it. It didn't yield anything new, but as with the Brian Q&A's, I didn't really expect it to. Both cases were efforts to reconnect with fans through the internet, nothing more.

Wink Martindale certainly sounds like an old school radio guy in this, and that's not a bad thing.

Apparently, a Lava Lamp makes a room a "vibe room."

I was glad to see Mike avoiding the old "Brian/Carl/Dennis did drugs" mantra during his discourse about T.M. Maybe he's finally realized he doesn't have to hammer on that to make his point. Instead, he rightfully related it to his own dabbling in marijuana, which is the right approach. "I was about to be pulled into drugs, but found a better way," is much more compelling and less judgmental sounding than "My cousins did drugs and I didn't."

He gave Brian his due credit without puffing himself up too much or mentioning Kokomo, "The hit that Brian didn't write." I liked the way he took his due credit for writing lyrics and hooks without some of the defensiveness  we've previously seen. Mike has made significant contributions to popular music. He needs to own those without comparing himself to the Beatles or Cousin Bri, and he did that here.

All in all, Mike came across quite well in this. He needs more of this kind of PR and  fewer contentious sounding interviews. Of course, in this kind of format, he could avoid any questions he didn't want to answer, but he came off well.

Of course, we still got the whole "Positivity and fun" angle. And, that's fine. I just wish he also understood the importance of introspection in music. He realizes how that "haunting" melody Brian wrote for "The Warmth of the Sun" had emotional impact. Maybe he'll one day realize that songs like "Summer's Gone" are OK too.

[urbanite]

Wink Martindale is not a very good interviewer.  I've heard enough about Mike Love and TM and India, and kind of disappointed that Mike didn't acknowledge that SIP was not one of their better albums.  I guess Mike really likes SIP, which I thought was largely awful.

[The LEGENDARY OSD]

Is there something medically wrong with his throat? The man sounds raspy, hoarse and frankly, not well. He also appears a bit feeble in his general composure. Just sayin'.

[Autotune]

Wink Martindale is not a very good interviewer.  I've heard enough about Mike Love and TM and India, and kind of disappointed that Mike didn't acknowledge that SIP was not one of their better albums.  I guess Mike really likes SIP, which I thought was largely awful.

Wink read the fans questions, primarily. What question did you contribute? The forum was open for questions like for ten days.

[Magic Transistor Radio]

Bummer! Not that this is a big deal to anyone but me, but I posted the very first post in the Vibe Room which was nothing more than a greeting and compliment of some of my favorite songs by Mike. It has been erased from history. At least I can't find it.

[ontor pertawst]

Heh, I thought I posted the very first post as well which has also been scrubbed.

[Justin]

"Fun fun fun" and "Good Vibrations" in the first 2 minutes...classic!  

I guess that's Mike's Shortenin' Bread riff. His go-to, way overused standby. Somebody needs to stitch together interview clip footage of the cheesy song references. It would probably run longer than the BW Shortenin' Bread riff compilation mix on Youtube.

It would be a great companion piece to the video someone edited together of all the "Wheeeeennnnnn" from "Be True To Your School."

[Lowbacca]

"Fun fun fun" and "Good Vibrations" in the first 2 minutes...classic!  

I guess that's Mike's Shortenin' Bread riff. His go-to, way overused standby. Somebody needs to stitch together interview clip footage of the cheesy song references. It would probably run longer than the BW Shortenin' Bread riff compilation mix on Youtube.

It would be a great companion piece to the video someone edited together of all the "Wheeeeennnnnn" from "Be True To Your School."

YES PLEASE!

[wantsomecorn]

Hey, Mike answered my question! And I learned something from it: Mike apparently wrote "Everyone's in Love With You" in 1968.

Mike really seems to get into the questions about TM - it's really interesting to hear him talk about things past his usual interview quotes.

[Wrightfan]

Hey, Mike answered my question! And I learned something from it: Mike apparently wrote "Everyone's in Love With You" in 1968.

Not surprised that these guys hang onto song for years. Wasn't there that thing about "I'm Waiting for the Day" being copyrighted in 1964?

[Magic Transistor Radio]

Hey, Mike answered my question! And I learned something from it: Mike apparently wrote "Everyone's in Love With You" in 1968.

Not surprised that these guys hang onto song for years. Wasn't there that thing about "I'm Waiting for the Day" being copyrighted in 1964?

I couldn't find the answer to any of the questions. Is this on the Vibe Room or something else?