The Smiley Smile Message Board

I know he was joking/being sarcastic but f***!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQHxi72DfUs&feature=plcp

You should hate the guy who wrote it. Some guy named Brian Wilson.

Brian has very strange humor..

You get used to it.

Obviously a big part of Smile was its use of humor. Its interesting that as the project turned 'dark' so did the humor. This is the most obvious example, but it runs through out Smiley Smile.

Thanks for posting a link to this... it has been years since I've heard it.  Does anyone have any info as to when this was recorded?  Was this part of the Hawaii concert re-creation sessions?

Yes it was, and it was just a joke.

the laughing on wonderful on smiley smile is so strange i love it but damn brian seemed really into the dark humor on that album i wonder if he was high .. lol

Well I don't think Mike has ever specifically commented on it. I wonder if it was hard for him to do, or if he wanted to do it. But like everyone said, Brian wrote it.

It's easy to love Mike Love!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VbvMi0rzrw

I fucking love Mike Love.

"Mike Loves To Say Dada"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTFqiQa2Wrc (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTFqiQa2Wrc)

'Ultimately the Beach boys meant so much to so many people because (edit) me'.

More or less sums it up.

'Me'.

'When you've grounded yourself in yourself'.

'Me'.

'Me'.

'The Smile'.

'Me'.

I'll never buy into that. The humor is pure Mike Love, dripping with resentment. And I have to admit, it's too funny to be Brian's.

It seems like stuff Mike Love would say..It's strange that Brian has a mike love sense of humor :brow

I just saw Myk Luhv being attacked for this in another thread in a post today. I think we should make a sticky entitled "Brian wrote the Mike Love H&V rant on Endless Bummer, okay."

The Beach Boys are the greatest band ever!!!! WOO

Disbelieve all you like, but Mike was acting under Brian's direction. Fact: it's on tape.

"Too funny to be Brian's." - ?? Brian has a somewhat bizarre but brilliant sense of humour. Staging something like this is classic BW.

If you hate him, then you better not go see the tour. You'll have a terrible time. Mike Love is up front all the time.

he's a great performer :)..out of all the boys he's the greatest showman

Oh, and one suggestion: with all the concert threads and info on the C50 coming all the time, perhaps it's not a good idea to start a thread to comment on topics that can be discussed elsewhere. There's like 98 "is Mike Love a villain?" threads, you can use one of those. Bottom line is that there's never been as many active threads as now and unnecesary new threads like this end up sending new topics to the second page of the board.

MIKE LOVE NOT WAR

Mike and the "Beach Boys" entity have been faced with some pretty difficult and/or "interesting" situations over 5 decades. Decisions had to be made, choices selected etc. Not every one might have been the best choice or perfect or one that some fans agreed with - but who hasn't made a mistake? And, there's plenty of blame to be shared, it all doesn't resst with 1 guy.
Bottomline, the "Beach Boys" have been around for 50 years in large part because its about the music (including the great harmonies) (thank you Brian!) but also to an extent because Mike Love kept the brand (and band) going as well as being a very good frotman.

The music track sounds great as did many others from those sessions. If Smiley Smile would've sounded like that, it might've been a better seller.

Where can you get the portion of the tape where Brian coaches Mike? Who here has actually heard it?

We've all heard about it, but few of us have actually heard it. WE WANT PROOF!

I have, like most other folk here.

Actually, only a few seem to have heard it, and it's those same couple of people that assure us Brian coached Mike the whole way through. But, without a transcript or audio copy of the full conversation, how can those of us not "in the know" be so sure of what in fact happened? We need the full context to understand how you and others are interpreting the situation. All we know is that it's incredibly easy to find the rough performance of "H&V" with Mike's overdubs, and yet much more difficult to find the rest/

For example, for a long time, there was that story of Brian working on Pet Sounds level material in Florida in the late '70s, only for the material to be lost/destroyed. Later, though, when some actual takes of "Calendar Girl" and other songs Brian tinkered with at the time were bootlegged, it became obvious that the person who created the story was likely starstruck and exaggerating the quality of the work. It's good to have the source material available.

I used to have it, its low quality and hard to hear, but you can hear Brian coaching Mike and laughing the whole time.

Dang, and just when I was so close to proving that Myke Luhv was evil!  :lol

Wasn't it Ed Carter who mentioned Brian was cutting such great stuff at that time ? I think I have heard something like that but I may be mis-remembering

I'm not sure, but you can hear in songs like "Calendar Girl" some of the things that were referenced to as "amazing", and while it's not bad in any way, it reminds me more of the kind of electronic wizardry Brian engaged in on songs like "Child of Winter" and "Battle Hymn of the Republic" than Pet Sounds.

Anyone who wants to hear it can hear it. I've got a copy, not from any secret network of in-the-know traders, but by the simple expedient of typing "Lei'd In Hawaii Rehearsal MP3" into Google and downloading it from the very first hit I get.

You can hear that Mike does multiple takes, clearly working off a rough script but improvising based around it, that Brian is guiding him -- in fact if I remember right it's not even an overdub, but recorded *at the same time* as the band singing -- and that this is something Brian clearly approves of (you can hear him literally screaming with laughter).

The reason that version isn't as well-known as the edited version is not because only a couple of people have access to it, but because it mostly consists of a bass-and-organ instrumental run-through of the verse riff, the bit everyone knows, and a similar-but-shorter second take which ends with Brian singing about 'I've been eating so much p*ssy'. It's *dull*. In fact, if you have any Lei'd boots, chances are you have the track but have skipped it because it starts with a long, dull, instrumental run-through.

But how do we know that Mike wasn't bullying Brian and destroying his soul [Brian's soul, not Mike's] by somehow forcing Brian to pretend to laugh and enjoy and encourage Mike and ask Mike into the booth to listen to the result [and gloat presumably]. Surely it is Mike pulling the strings to make Brian appear to be pulling the strings.

Of course! It all makes so much sense now! In fact... I bet Mike secretly wrote all of Smile himself, but told the world it was Brian, and then let it unfinished just so Brian would look like a failure, and he started rumours about how he didn't like Smile to throw us off the scent. THAT's how far Mike Love will go to destroy Brian.

In fact, the lyrics to the first verse of Kokomo are a *perfect anagram* of "Brian Wilson sings off key and I'm going to steal his band. I, Mike Love, hate Wilson!", with only a handful of letters (t,h,e,F,l,o,r,d,a,T,h,e,r,e,p,l,a,c,e,c,a,l,l,e,d,K,o,k,o,T,w,h,e,r,e,w,a,t,o,g,e,t,a,w,a,y,f,r,o,m,t,a,l,o,e,t,e,a,n,d,T,o,p,c,d,r,n,t,i,n,y,o,u,r,h,a,d,e,l,l,b,e,f,a,l,l,n,i,n,l,t,h,e,r,h,y,t,h,m,f,a,e,d,r,u,m,d,o,w,n,K,o,k,o,m and  o) left over. Conclusive proof of Mike's evil, I'm sure you'll agree.

I think you misunderstand the female vocals, that's Mike Love's daughter Ambha who was a very young girl when that was recorded. it's the typical "include children on a Christmas song" trick.

I really like the guitar solo in this song. did you know this song was officially released as a Beach Boys song on the compilation Hope for the Holidays?

I do.  Agree, that is.  Not assent to marriage. Though you are quite the handsome fellow.

Now that makes sense.

Wow, ballsy of you equating Andrew as maybe exaggerating. ;)

Beautiful, absolutely beautiful. :)

I don't think this clip is a very good justification for hating Mike - as has been said, although there's no denying the relish with which Mike speaks the words, Brian wrote 'em! There are however numerous other far more genuine reasons for disliking Mr Love...

With all due respect and deference to those making a show of yawning about how many times they've had to go over this, I don't think the fact that it was written and directed by Brian makes this recording any less compelling as a document of group dynamics.  Certainly, he wrote the words to send himself up, but he also pointedly put those words into the mouth of the very man often reported to hold not dissimilar opinions.  Why would he write it for Mike, as opposed to one of the others (or himself), if that wasn't part of the joke?

No joke, not even a Brian Wilson one, gets made in a vacuum.  It wouldn't have been funny if it hadn't resonated in some way.  And so I don't think it's completely incorrect to draw inferences about Mike's attitudes from this skit.

Wow, let's hate Mike now, because he he did a believable job doing the skit.

Yep. Ed on BBFUN newsletter.

If you believe this, then I have some great looking swamp land that I would love to sell to you. It even has a patch of (quick)sand to place your piano in.

Or does it show that Brian wasn't as precious about and in love with SMiLE and Parksian lyrics at the time as we have wanted to make him out to be and he dumped it/them for his own very straight forward reasons he claimed but we don't want to believe.

Very good point.

Well, that seems unnecessary.  I didn't say I hated Mike, after all, nor did I comment on any theories as to why Brian junked Smile.  I think this skit sounds like Brian and Mike sending up old arguments, with both of them in on the joke.

But wasn't Brian himself very disappointed that "Heroes & Villains" only made the lower half of the Top Ten, then disappeared off the charts shortly afterwards?  Mike wasn't the only one who had the attitude that the Beach Boys should sell records, especially after the huge commercial success of "Good Vibrations."

I didn't say you hated Mike. You said Mike meant what he said, he didn't, it was acting. Your last sentence here is exactly right, and I agree. You did not state it that way in your original post.

I think the voiceover is an incredible performance by Mr. Love from a decent script by Mr. Wilson. It is an example of performance actually bringing the a script to a higher level.

Oh, absolutely, but I don't think that that necessarily contradicts anything that I said.  I hope nobody thinks I'm trying to ignite some sort of tedious Brian vs Mike debate here, when I'm just trying to posit the idea that this skit having been written by Brian tells us more about actual group dynamics than if it actually had just been Mike ranting.


I really never meant to get involved in a bunfight here, but I really didn't say that Mike meant what he said, only that the fact that Brian put these words into the mouth of Mike does invite inferences about the (not necessarily, at the time, current) attitudes of both parties, not just Brian.  Which I didn't imagine would be a controversial point: after all, surely nobody imagines that Mike was chosen out of the Boys at random to deliver this monologue?

Again, read what I said; I agree. Mike is and always has been the front man of the band. While many do not believe it, it wasn't until many years later that their relationship became strained. Mike has the wisecracking sense of humor and that, I believe is why he was chosen to record the skit.

The weird part of "Lei'd in Hawaii" as the bootlg is called is not so much the Brian-penned Mike piece, but the entire project.  So, they go to Hawaii to appear in concert just to go back to the mainland and re-record it with the most lifeless, eviscerated versions ever of several Beach Boys songs.  It sounds like Brian even coached the vocalists to whisper-sing.  What was he thinking, and did any label, either Capitol or Brother Records, ever have any plans to release it?

You seem rather terse!  I bet there's a heart of gold in there somewhere, though.


A fair point, though presumably Mike's propensity towards wisecracking in his public persona may also give us some clues as to ways he might have behaved in private.

It's just the same Smiley vocal style that they had been using.

He performs it almost as beautifully as he sung "over and over the crow cries uncover the corn field"

You know, the BW-VDP creative relationship and its aftermath has never been analyzed in depth. It's always been asumed that Brian was always supportive of VDP's verse, but it may be that his support for VDP's lyrics waned. The "love is chicken" lyrics probably didn't really make it for him anymore.

In the mid 1990s Brian himself was extremely harsh on some of the OCA songs he sang on, so probably his regard for VDP is more complex than we've been allowed to witness.

"Van DYke Parks is the biggest butthead in the world".

when mike sings "over and over the crow cries uncover the corn field" it leaves me lost in the music :) it's perfect

I agree with Theydon in the sense that the skit does give a good insight on the group dynamic at that time.  Maybe Mike was chosen to be the messenger for a reason, although it's just as likely that he just had the right delivery and tone that Brian wanted.  Still, you can't really imagine any of the Wilson brothers saying any of that, so who knows?

What I find more interesting is why Brian chose to do the skit in the first place.  Even if on the surface it was "all in fun," I think it originated from a much darker emotional place.  Can you imagine having a huge hit like "Good Vibrations," everyone is calling you a genius, and then you release your months-in-the-making follow-up single and it doesn't end up lighting the world on fire like you'd hoped?  That has to sting, badly, especially for someone as competitive as Brian was at the time.  I think this skit was his way of trying to hide the fact that the failure of "Heroes" and of Smile absolutely devastated him, and the best way he knew how to deal with that was to use self-depreciating humor as his defense mechanism.

Hard to top Good Vibrations. Does anyone here think that The Beach Boys released a single that was better after the release of GV?

If you want to read on with even more disgust, go to Man vs Clown and see what Myke's bro Stephen has to say about things like the royalities lawsuit among other tidbits. :o

Why would anyone take the word of Stephen Love, who was once arrested for embezzling from the Beach Boys?  Funny how Carl Wilson, Al Jardine, and David Marks all deposed for the song-writing trial in favor of Mike.  Brian himself also admitted that Mike's name was improperly left off those songs. Not to mention the fact that Mike proposed an out of court settlement for only $700,000, which Brian's lawyers rejected.  I read that dumb, idiotic blog entry, and scanned the comments, including some from Ambha Love, Mike's teenage daughter.  These folks don't deserve to have to read the really ugly constant hate over things that happened years ago, when they themselves have obviously moved on.

that outro has to be one of the best in the bb's catalog..it feels so mystical :D

it was like his voice was perfectly made for that part..the way the instruments come in and feel like they are becoming louder when they are actually fading away is spectacular :D

I find it perfectly believable that Mike is reading from a Brian-written script.  But I do find it odd that Mike still claims, to this day, that H&V only reached 48 on the charts.  I wonder whether he might not have a false memory deriving from the script?

I wonder why Heroes & Villains and Do You Wanna Dance both reached 12 on the charts but more people know Do You Wanna Dance or Little Deuce Coupe (which was a 15 on the charts) over H&V
I showed my parents Heroes & Villains and neither one of them knew it..my mom told me to turn off that crazy music and my dad wanted to hear Smile because he's heard talk of it for decades and asked me "Is Pet Sounds or Smile their magnum opus?"  I said Pet Sounds was their magnum opus and Smile was the lost masterpiece :)
So I got my dad to finally hear Smile and he was swept away and ordered me to put it on his ipod asap lol) It's funny that my mother referred to it as  "crazy music" because I think Wild Honey(the song) sounds a little crazier than H&V and she loves that song from hearing me play the f*** out of it in the house so much...lol

This is how the performances were, though, and I think the re-recording was an attempt to go for a similar style but have the vocals a bit tighter and not sound *so* stoned out of their friggin' minds. It'd be odd to say "Here are the recordings of the shows we did in Hawaii!" and have them suddenly sound like the '64 Concert album when anyone who was there would know they didn't play a traditional Beach Boys rock show sorta thing.

Honestly, these takes of "California Girls", "God Only Knows", and especially "Surfer Girl" are some of my favorite recordings the band ever did, especially "Surfer Girl", which I very much prefer to the original (the bootlegged take, not the officially released take from the "rehearsals").

And yeah, as someone else said, you can definitely compare it to Smiley Smile, sonically. The premise alone of a Smiley Smile-esque take of "Surfer Girl" is so cool, and is perfectly executed.

This should make you love Mike again:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe5y7G8RQQ8&feature=youtu.be

The Man vs Clown blogger put up a followup post last year -
http://manvsclown.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/i-still-hate-mike-love/
It has attracted fewer comments than his best-known Mike-hating screed, but one of them is from none other than Adrian Baker. He implies that Mike's wife was the prime mover behind getting him kicked out of the BBs, though he doesn't get much into specifics.

That site is populated by a bunch of morons who don't know sh*t about the Beach Boys. Ignorance is bliss.

If Jacqueline Love was responsible for the 'ridiculous production decisions' that turned Mike's band in the space of a couple of years from a band doing horribly off-key doo-wop covers with an incompetent drummer and a falsettist who was less competent to sing those parts than I am (I am not competent at singing those parts, as my wife will attest) into one of the very best live acts I've ever seen, then I can think of a few other bands I'd like to see her get involved in...

That was great, thanks for sharing!

Soooo, those who have the balls to possess an opinion that could interfere with what the almighty, all knowing rbb comes up with as far as what he calls thinking is, is, in fact an ignorant moron.  Why then, with your reputed infinite wisdom and legendary moderatum ala Myke Luhv, how do you calculate that the baldster has earned an incredible bulk of not only bad press, but several websites based on the disaffection of him?

Mainly because people like you exist and would rather believe the gossip and hearsay, more so than listening to the historians and people who have done the research and try to tell the real story.

OK Jason, he's all yours. ;)

Ya see...? Fanboy mentallity at it's mediocre best. Gotta luhv it. :lol

It's better than being you. ;) It seems that once you get past Mike Love, you are an intelligent fan of the band. The hate, whether real or fabricated, just never adds anything of value or importance to any real conversation. But it is your thing and I guess you just can't help yourself.

As you or anyone else here can't  as well.

Actually you hit the nail on the head. There are three sides to every story - yours, mine, and the truth. "Yours" and "mine" runs against what the "truth" is. None of the band members are saints and none of them are devils. If the Dude wants to live in a world of perpetual ignorance of and disdain for a member of a band he claims to love, that's his prerogative. I'm a Beach Boys fan. However, for a guy who bashes Michael left and right in his praise of Brian...he hates Love You. I'll never wrap my head around that one. Granted...he has the right to his opinion. I may disagree with it as he does with my own, but that's life.

Hey c'mon guys love mike love like i do :) he's awesome!

As with most things, the truth always lies between to the two extremes. While I consider myself a hardcore fan, I also want to be a fan that bases his fandom on the truth. For 40 years Mike was my least favorite Beach Boy, mostly because he never defended himself properly about why he felt the way he did or why he did the things he did. Sometimes he was his own worst enemy. Over the last few years the truth has slowly made it's way out in the open, but some fans just don't want to hear it. It is bad enough that the Summer fan buys into it, but seeing some of the so called hardcores refusing to listen, really bothers me. So, I wind up having to defend a person, that in here, I should not need to defend. For the bad things that Mike did have a hand in, he seems to have confronted them and made amends. If the bandmembers can get past the bad blood, then so should we.

1. That place is like a sewer of the internet. That's why I was surprised to see Ambha, who is a lovely daughter, Steve and Baker there. Wasn't surprised to see oldsurferdude, though.

2. As said by others, if Jackie Love was responsible for some of the decisions that turned Mike's band into a more powerful and artistic unit, then all kudos in the world to her. Baker implies she fired him. If so, she did right.

That was a great watch.

This passes for "touching" in a truly emotionally shallow pool. I guess that's why so many of us prefer to swim in the deep end.

I really need to listen to "'Til I Die" to wash this slime off. Seriously, hugging your family members (wow, never tried that!) and then getting one in below the belt about several of their dad's drugs and alcohol abuse? It's become more and more clear to me that some of us are from (pick your planet) and others from (pick a very different planet, far, far away).

You can always atone for the sin of reading these posts on this Mik-ish board by going over to the Blueboard.  The Godhead worship is still happening there even with the format change.  I'm all for people who buy pony books for Brian's needy children. 

The Blue Board is hardly "swimming in the deep end!" Now, the old Surf's Up list could've handled platform divers.

Sure, when you put it that way it sounds bad. but that's not the way it was, or should be interpreted. clearly everyone in the room, many of whom were family members and close friends, didn't think of it that way. and I think they know better than we do.

You, sir...are a troll.

Uh, let me think way back how to respond to a comment like that...oh, yeah...I'm rubber; you're glue.

It's called having a different perspective. I understand that many people with certain biologically determined ideological tendencies are fundamentally incapable of understanding that the same events can be viewed independently with varying conclusions reached regarding them. So, your reaction is understandable.
For a start, you may wish to consider Kurasawa's Rashomon. If black and white or subtitles scare you, perhaps Vantage Point would be easier on your eyes.

How in the hell does a dissenting opinion (or, indeed, you being called a troll - we calls 'em as we sees 'em) mean that someone has "certain biologically determined ideological tendencies"? I am quite capable of understanding that the same events can be viewed independently with varying conclusions reached regarding them. I am also equally adept at noting your rather obvious bias in your clearly uninformed opinion. You speak as if you know Michael Love's family life and personal life more than he does. Presumption is a hideous character trait; no wonder it's found in Brianistas.

Kurosawa is also too Western for me. I prefer Dreyer or Lang, myself. You sound like a hell of a guy to talk classic films with, I'll give you that.

Ummm... Replies feed a troll. Why bother?

Because it's fun and we're all obsessed with the Beach Boys.

It's time for the Jardine faction to get a lot touchier and more militant. Extremist Jardinists! They could be crucial powerbrokers in arranging deals between the Wilson and Love camps.

I just watched this video, had never seen it before.  I found it touching.

What amazes me is how people insist on seeing things from their perspective, and not even considering someone else's.  Mike Love is not the most generous loving individual who ever lived.  In his own way, though, he feels the same emotions and love the rest of us do, and this video is his version of it.  It doesn't make it any less valid that it's not how you would express yourself.


I have Never, Ever, seen a comment from Mike Love that I didn't think was genuine.  The reason he's never defended himself is because he doesn't care if others like him or not.  He calls it how he sees it... that rubs some the wrong way.  It's hard for him to admit his wrongs, but I think he's made about as much of an effort as he can muster these last couple of years.  Good for him. 

As for the drug talk, everybody on that stage feels the exact same way, Mike's the only one who talks about it. Ask Carnie Wilson and Wendy Wilson what they think about drugs and alcohol. 

This, this, AND this.

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Wow, just utterly clueless. I said nothing about Mike's family or personal life. And then you throw in the "you're a Commie" comment. That says it all. Most telling is you then praise someone (Ron) for assuming he knows exactly why Mike does or doesn't do what he does or doesn't do. You, sir, are a waste of my time.

You're wasting our time too, Commie.

Please leave.

Seconded. The guy who got banned a couple months ago for posting endlessly about the Chicago maffia was far more respectful than this poster.

UNMUTUAL! UNMUTUAL!

(http://i436.photobucket.com/albums/qq85/cornershop15/KathleenBreck2.jpg)

Please don't feed the troll.