The Smiley Smile Message Board

Just noted a comment below the following review that may have cost Jon a sale.

http://www.seattlepi.com/lifestyle/blogcritics/article/Book-Review-The-Beach-Boys-FAQ-by-Jon-Stebbins-2292737.php

I have not seen the book yet but what are the details of the chapter? I suspect at first glance it could be taken out of context and after reading Jon's other works I imagine it to be nothing but actual fact rather than a anti-Mike dig.

Not me — I'm more looking forward to it now than before.

I didn't see ANY comments that would cost a sale.

I'm not sure the reviewer was meaning that as a dig, if he is he's wrong.

Let's face it, Mike can be entertaining to poke fun at. He's like a professional wrestler turned heel. A lot of people hate him, a lot of people love to hate him, and a lot of people love him and wouldn't have him any other way. There's two sides to every story, and I've pretty much gone full circle on the dude.

Anyway, I don't want to quote anything from the book without Jon's permission - but I will this one caption because it might perhaps describe what this chapter is all about: There is something about Mike Love that gets under the skin of many people. In some ways he's been his own worst enemy, and in other ways he's been unjustly vilified. For sure, he's has been (sic), and still is, a magnet for controversy.

The author just puts it out there the way it is and the way we all know it. He lays out reasons for why, and arguments for "why?". It's a good book (in spite of that one error in the caption!) and is an interesting and fun read.

"Michael de Filippi · Springfield Technical Community College
As a fan of the group, I was interested in purchasing this book until reading this review. ""The Fun Of Hating Mike Love." was enough for me to lose interest. It amazes me how people have such negative thoughts about such a positive influence on the world and within The Beach Boys group.
Reply · Like· 17 hours ago"

I read it! It is less a slam on Mike Love and more of a reason why people hate him. Jon makes a point to say that its not all fair, but some of it Mike did bring on himself.

I would like to think that the topic I started on here is the reason it is in the book :)

http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,8284.0.html

But wishful thinking. :)

Love haters are real. The chapter is commentary on that phenomena. Mike also gets many words of praise in this book. IMO his importance to the band's success is undeniable. And damn...my editor should have caught that typo.

The review made me go right to Amazon.  What a fun sounding book!  Poor Michael de Filippi, he didn't get the joke.
But after all, he is a student at Springfield Technical Community College.

That was a fun re-read.

No one really answered my point about SOT songwriting credit in 1961-1966. Murry was a publisher, he did not profit more or less by how many songwriters were given credit because publisher royalities are separate from songwriter's royalties. He as publisher may have set how songwriting money was split between the songwriters of record by setting the percentage credit but he did not profit from leaving songwriters out of the credit. A songwriter would profit from a contributing songwriter being left off of the credit, they would keep more royalty. Is this not true? If so, Murry gets the blame but he didn't get the supposed extra profit. Murry clearly didn't control Brian and Brian not only profited from the scheme but he actually signed the forms declaring the songwriters while he was allegedly also a co-publisher with the duty to make sure the forms he signed and were submitted were full and correct. It seems to me there is no way Brian dodges the full knowledge and responsibility. Even Mike has tried to pin the blame on Murry.

Good points, but then we're talking about a guy who, at the time, left checks for millions of dollars lying about and had people desperately trying to give him money. Brian signed the forms, but he could have just assumed that Mike was listed or not even cared. He probably didn't think about it. Murry's motivation was probably some nonsense about keeping it in the family.

What I always found interesting about that: Murray's motivations were what a lot of FANS motivations are today : Brian deserves more credit because he's the brilliant misunderstood one, Mike would be pumping gas if it wasn't for Brian, he deserves no credit.


Etc. Etc. insert your own Mike criticism here. 

I think it's clear from Brian's comments that he was/is very interested in money. Because when he has plenty of money he is sloppy about getting it in the bank in a timely manner doesn't apparently diminish his desire for money. If you were cynical you might even see that behavior as flaunting his wealth, making it even more conspicuous to the people seeing his huge checks lying around. If you were cynical. Regardless, it does not change that Brian was the beneficiary of under reporting, not Murry, or relieve Brian of the responsibility to have made sure it wasn't under reported, the added fact that he also profitted from it is just added wrong. OK, I'll be the lightening rod and pre-emptively doubt that any emotional, behavioral problems Brian may [or may not] have had later don't relieve him of guilt. My reasoning is at the time he was one of the most competent, confident, organized young men in the world under no one's control but his own.

Even if you put all of that aside as cranky opinion, Mike says he took up this problem with Brian back in the day and Brian claimed knowledge of the problem, took responsibility and claimed he would handle it or some such but never did. And even if we put that [and all the testimony of eyewitnesses] aside, Brian himself admits he knew it was wrong and Mike deserved remedy.

I admit I don't know Brian's motivations or any [if any] extenuating circumstances but I think it is pretty clear that this gets sugar coated and excused [or just plain ignored] for some reason.

Oh yeah, that "keep it in the family" stuff is bunk, don't you agree. Brian and Murry did everything but keep it in the family. Everybody out of the family got credit and the gold but the family, specifically Mike, got the shaft [often, not always].

What I meant was that he couldn't give a flying fig about the business side, and so if Murry wants to draw up the publishing documents, let him. There's reddiwhip to be eaten/piano to be played, etc. But you're right, Brian should have sorted it out. Confronting Murry about giving his eldest son less money than before might have been suicide, however.

I know I'm sounding argumentative, but we also know that Murry at the same time was wanting to give Brian a dose of financial and personal humility and he wanted more say in his affairs and he was concerned with Brian being too full of himself and how he was treating those around him. Wanting to but being unsuccessful and ending up fired. So I find it hard to believe that at the same time Murry is going to participate in over enriching and over crediting Brian. Especially with no financial motive for Murry. Brian is one of the songwriters and with SOT and the producer which puts him at the first line of accurate and full reporting and then on top of that he is allegedly a co-publisher with SOT which puts another level of responsibilty and accountability on him. Basically he was a songwriter publisher with a financial conflict of interest. Brian apparently accepts his blame and responsibility, I'm not sure why we shouldn't.



Edit: I meant to delete this presumptive comment that was left here and now I have. Apologies to any who saw it before deletion.

I just see it as something the guy wouldn't do maliciously. He'd do it out of being absentminded or not being arsed to call up his publisher, but I don't think he was snickering to himself whilst on the phone to the publisher or whoever saying 'Well I wrote this, and this, and that...'. I'd probably expect that of Murry, but yeah, this carried on a long time after he's off official business and there's no excuse. Again, I don't see it as Brian out to screw Mike. Just being a bit dense and forgetful.

Don't worry about being argumentative, it's all debate right?  :)

Cam -- I think you're busy trying to assign rational motives to that most irrational of things: family dynamics. How could Murry both claim to love his boys and beat them? That doesn't make sense! How could he both want to teach Brian and lesson and push him to receive most of the writing credits? It's irrational!

But in both cases, you have the abuse-love dynamic playing out. And the fact that it doesn't make sense is the point. It's one of the reasons BW is so screwed up.

I wouldn't say malicious but I would say it had to have been intentional and was self serving on Brian's part and it must have taken advantage of what was perceived as a weakness in Mike's nature because it is serial over a number of years and exclusively specific to Mike. And according to Mike Brian did nothing about it even with knowledge that Mike knew. We would have to believe that Murry was psychic if we thought it was up to him to know who deserved credit on songs co-written with Brian. I'm sorry but Brian had to report who was to get credit for songs he wrote to be published by SOT, Murry didn't write the songs. Sloppiness would have spilled over to others besides Mike but everyone of Brian's co-writers apparently got reported and credited except Mike. That spells willful intention by Brian to me.

This quote was posted a few weeks ago, very relevant to the topic being discussed:

Published January 7 1967

Mike Love: “Our [early] stage act was sort of early rhythm-and-blues - stuff by the Coasters and Chuck Berry. Not too many musical innovations there. Our progress has been slow. Because of Brian being on the road with us. He and I used to write songs. I’d contribute a lyric or rhyme, but actually, the bulk of the work has always been Brian’s. We worked after or during road tours that lasted weeks. That’s enough to kill a person without trying to come up with hit singles every few months. Somehow we did. Then when Brian stopped touring, wham! We were staggered. And he keeps doing this to us! More and more and greater and greater things.”


He and I used to write songs. I’d contribute a lyric or rhyme, but actually, the bulk of the work has always been Brian’s.

This was Mike in 1967, current to the time when many of the songs in the later lawsuit were actually written. You have Mike basically giving most of the credit ('the bulk of the work...') for the creation of the music to Brian.

It's worth considering because the question can be asked: Do the specific credits Mike claimed on the songs named in the lawsuit, combined with the dollar amount calculated for the value of Mike's contributions to those songs and in relation to what Brian received percentage-wise for the same songs, add up to how Mike described the process in 1967 when all of this was a current issue and not a decades-old matter being taken to court?

I'm not seeing how this changes Brian undercrediting Mike, he contributed lyrics and rhymes and they worked on songs together on the road. Some of those songs Brian self-admits he didn't give Mike his due credit. Mike never asked or claimed any particular amount of credit. The dollar amount [edit: and the credit percentage] was set by the jury, Mike offered a very low ball settlement. He only claimed [and Brian admitted Mike was denied] due credit. That still leaves Brian as an under-crediter.

That's because of how he was trying to spin things. That's what they wanted everyone to think at the time. And it was too successful so these days Mike is trying to spin it in the other direction. But you have to read in between the lines.

This topic is way too complicated for sound-bite sloganeering.  Jon's book makes this clear.  As an amateur to this field, I sense the point has been made: Mike was improperly undercredited.  He won that co-credit fight.  He should have.  His settlement position was very reasonable.  No one has explained what Brian's lawyers were thinking by fighting a losing battle so hard, especially when Brian himself bailed in court and admitted Mike was right.

And the point is now largely accepted that Mike did not kill SMiLE in 1967, though that was a persistent perception for many years.  That fight has been won as well.  Cam says Brian killed Smile.  Brian says so too.  Though when Brian gives as his second or third reason he killed it was "Mike didn't like it", there is Mike in his TSS essay agreeing in part: he didn't like the lyrics.  Though he showed up and performed them like the pro he is.  And had good cause to wonder what was going on as things fell apart.  So there's one duality.

But the other counterfactual: that Brian was this calculating dick who was out to screw his cousin and only his cousin and nobody else - is also too simplistic, even taking it as somewhat true.  (To make it in music, then and now, one must be a bit of a bastard; Brian could do that when he wanted to).  Most likely Brian would go vacant when Mike asked for credit - yes, still a culpable act - but Brian would and does go vacant whenever anything comes up he's too preoccupied to address.  "Yeah yeah I'll fix it" - and maybe he meant it when he said it - then he forgets about it and doesn't. 

Also, Murry was more than just a scrivener: it was his idea to force the sale of SOT (yes Brian signed off on it - why? - but under intense pressure from Murry that the BBs' career was over).  And remember Murry's typed-but-unsent letter, reproduced on this board,  where he wants to destroy the Beach Boys to save them?  You'll never get a better look inside Murry's head.  He wanted them to succeed, then he wanted to kill the band to keep them humble and obedient.  In other words, duality.  It's the word that best describes the BB world.

And another clear duality: sure Brian was the control freak who, musically, had the band and studio at his beck and call, and could guide them through to get what he wanted to hear.  But, he also was overwhelmed by the overwork and refusal to delegate - he had to finish Smile alone, but could not sort through all the piles of tape and acetates with all kinds of good ideas (and bad ones) to put it all together, with no one to help, so he cracked.  I have seen the results of this total control-freakishness  in others over the years, and the results there were very similar to what we now know went down  in the spring of 1967 - abdication and collapse.  See, e.g., the cancelling of sessions due to "bad vibes."  I think we all had a discerning discussion about this in another TSS thread.

So as an elementary-level commentator on things BB, I think there is an emerging consensus Mike got an unfair shake over the years on some key history points.  But now I would like an explanation from the partisans:  Explain, please, why in 2004 Mike sued Brian in federal court to enjoin further publication of BWPS?  (Yes he did, read the complaint again).  And explain why he kept up that fight as he lost motion after motion, eventually losing altogether and having to pay Brian and his management's attorney fees for pursuing what was found to be a groundless case? 

I will wait over here.

I don't see it as necessarily simplistic, I see it as just that simple. I didn't say Brian was a calculating dick but are we thinking he unintentionally repeatedly and over a period of several years singled out ONLY Mike from his co-authors to under credit? Are we thinking it was just unhappy coincidence and his other co-authors were rightfully credited just by luck of the draw? It is also simple that Brian benefited financially by under crediting Mike. Would that be unintentional? Maybe Brian did have intentions to correct, he simply did not. None of it is reflects admirably on Brian.

Any Murry behavior wouldn't justify or excuse Brian's behavior.

I don't know Mike's motive in the recent trial beyond whatever claims were filed in the complaint. I would guess he might have felt among other things that SMiLE was created for the group and by the group and they wanted to release it for decades and when Brian released it as a solo it stung. Pure conjecture. Maybe he did it for financial gain. Maybe for spite. I haven't heard him say. It seemed like an ill advised cluster f**k from the beginning but justice was served. I could imagine it went on because of conviction or pride or spite or some poor lawyering like Brian got in the 90s.

I think my point is: consistency is highly overrated in BB world.  Also simplicity.  I think Murry played a bigger role on this topic than Cam does  - though we agree that, regardless, Brian should have done right by Mike on his own, without Mike having to sue.

And yet: there is Mike's name on GV, on I'm Waiting For The Day, and almost all of Wild Honey.  If Brian were truly "consistent", he would have put the stones to Mike on all those songs too.  Why didn't he?  Too many witnesses?

The Mike lawsuit thing is very complicated. It stems from the unavoidable fact that Mike wrote the lyrics to California Girls and was not credited. No one disputes this. He was screwed, quite possibly by Brian.

But the other songs included in the suit raise big questions. Why are DWB and WIBN in there, for instance? Why did Tony Asher strenuously deny Mike having any part in writing those lyrics? For that matter, what did Mike contribute to Don't Worry Baby? Was it simply the bit of bass vocal? Is that really worth a co-writing credit? In these two cases, at least, it's easy to see Mike seeking a payout by attaching his name to two of the group's best-known and most-played songs.

In the other ones, it makes you wonder whether the writing process with Mike was different than the other collaborators Brian had. Perhaps Mike made minimal contributions that fell short of writing a full set of lyrics. Brian doesn't have a credit on Little Bird, for example, even though he co-wrote a chunk of it. And its not like the Beatles gave Ringo co-writing credits on Hard Day's Night or Tomorrow Never Knows, is it?

So what we are thinking is Mike may not have written a full lyric on some of the songs he didn't get any credit for. I think that is true, we don't seem to know exactly what was claimed Brian decided back then that Mike's contribution didn't merit a credit on some songs. Some songs Brian knew back then that Mike did deserve a credit but he didn't give one and didn't correct it either. This only happened to Mike, at least no other co-authors have complained except that they did get credit but didn't get as much credit [assigned by Murry] as they thought they deserved. How's that for a pull back?

No. What I'm thinking is that Mike may not have written a full lyric on some of the songs he did get credit for.

Actually, there has been one co-author left uncredited besides Mike -- Van Dyke's name was left off some Smile tunes, including Wonderful (at least in later releases). His participation in BWPS was contingent on a resolution of these publishing issues.

Mike has NEVER said he wrote half of each song.  Remember he wanted to settle out of court for a token amount, and Brian's lawyers foolishly took it to court.  Leave things up to a judge or jury and you're going to get screwed every time. 

No need for a pull back, you are just recounting the history.  The point is certainly right about the paltry percentages of publishing allotted to the acknowledged co-writers - part of being a bit of a bastard.  We know Tony Asher got next-to-bupkes plus the cachet of writing words for Brian Wilson. I would not be surprised if Roger Christian got a similar deal, though he got to do other records with the SuperStocks.  Van Dyke too, though he did more writing and also played on sessions, then got his own deal.   But now that we're thinking about it, there's his name missing off Smiley Smile on songs he clearly co-wrote, as noted above.  And also "Sail On Sailor": to this day Van Dyke says it was only he and Brian who wrote it, yet two other co-writers got shoehorned in the credits ahead of him.  He says he can't explain it.  How'd that happen?  Apparently this would be a non-Mike-related credit dilution.

But that settlement would include future credits and royalties, no doubt. It' s not like the offer was made solely out of the goodness of his heart.

There has been credit wackiness recently, too.  Andy Paley's name was left off "One For the Boys," which he claims to have composed large chunks of, on BW88. And Gary Usher's name has never been on "Walkin' The Line," even though it's pretty clear he co-wrote it. He's also not credited on "You've Touched Me," which comes from the Wilson-Usher "So Long," either.

Wow, never knew that about "One For the Boys." 

Cam's arguments make a lot of sense, and maybe what he's suggesting is more plausible than we'd like to think.  Going along those lines, my feeling is that if Brian was engaged in proactively screwing Mike out of credits, it wasn't so much a case of him being a flat-out greedy bastard and aiming to keep more of the royalties for himself - what I think happened is that Brian, being in the controlling position he was in at the time, took it upon himself to decide whether Mike's contribution to a particular song warranted being named as a co-writer.  If Mike only tweaked Brian's lyrics, or added a phrase here or there, maybe Brian decided that Mike wasn't entitled to a credit, and that's how he submitted the credits.

That being said, Brian has never struck me as a guy who really gives a damn about credits or royalties, so it's tough to say exactly what might have happened.  It's certainly not outside the realm of possibility that Murry purposely omitted Mike from credits that Brian submitted to him, and Brian either didn't notice or didn't think it was his place (being that he didn't like dealing with his Dad) to speak up and fix it.  As for why Murry would single out Mike for his underhanded deeds, one can only speculate, but perhaps he thought Mike was the least likely to discover the problems, least likely to protest, whatever.  If he tried to screw over Asher or Parks, they would happily call him out on it, but Mike was family and maybe Murry just thought Mike would let it slide.

Wirestone hit the nail on the head - we're trying to find rational motives for the actions of a highly dysfunctional family, and as much as I've enjoyed reading this discussion, I'm not sure there's a logical explanation out there to be had.

He didn't. David got screwed out of millions by signing a Murry concocted fake termination contract...which not only was phony and illegal because Dave was a minor, but was backdated to months prior to Dave's actual date of departure. Al got screwed too...being paid as a sideman until...guess when??...1973.

I'm guessing that it was likely no coincidence that Al finally got his full share in 1973 and Murry died in 1973........

Another thing I'd like to know is how the judgement worked when Mike sued for credit. The suit is Mike v. Irving Music, then as "et al" like 4 subsidiaries of Irving, a couple of lawyers [possibly Brian's lawyers from his suit against Irvng], and Brian. So who is the suit against? Who pays the judgement and how is it divied up?