The Smiley Smile Message Board

I give the interviewer some credit for *trying* to ask again about the 2012 tour, but Mike kinda just spins the roulette wheel of the same explanations. PR advisor note to Mike: You're probably not going to dissuade anyone about being the "bad guy" in the scenario when you use the word "contracted" in your explanation of why the band didn't stay together. I'd also advise against using the "promoters told us not to tour too much" excuse, which just sounds lame.

Also worth nothing, Mike admits that "they wanted to go on with the tour" in reference to Brian and Al wanting to continue the reunion, so can we at least dispense with the lame contentions that Brian was the one that didn't want to keep the tour going? Mike admits Brian wanted to keep going.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/entertainment/a/30130029/the-beach-boys-return-to-perth-minus-brian-wilson/

Yeah its 100 percent confirmation that Mike ended the C50. :(

At least he credits Brian with having a great band. 

Mike seems to have gone back and forth on that one. He didn't say much of anything about Brian's band until 2012, when he praised them highly (using words like "amazing" as I recall).

Then after the tour, he basically indicated he felt the band was too big with too many musicians and vocalists "competing for parts", which wasn't really an indictment of any individual member of the band of course.

Now, after he's poached two members of Brian's band (however organically or not that process went down), Brian's got a "great" band (no mention of Al, not that that *necessarily* means anything).

I think this Mike interview pretty accurately sums up where these guys are all at, at this juncture. Estranged, a bit embittered and standoffish, but cordial, with no lawsuits flying and a few nice comments about each other that don't cost anybody anything.

In other words, I'm guessing they learned from the late 90s and early-mid 2000s that they may not all want to work together, but might try to avoid spending ungodly amounts of money on lawsuits again presently.

Whatever Mike feels about Brian's band, it seems like playing with Brian's band motivated Mike to make his band better.  The addition of Foskett and Ike surely did that. 

I think one day, probably after Mike and Brian have passed on, I could forsee somebody writing a book about the reunion - recording TWGMTR, the tour, the end, etc.

Jeff wasn't "poached". He told Brian he was leaving as soon as the Beck tour wrapped. As for what went down with lke, l have no idea.

Yes, that was definitely mentioned by Brian at the time. I purposely used “poached” in a rather loose sense.

It’s worth mentioning that there are several, sometimes competing, timelines and variant stories of that whole situation floating out there. Some variations suggest departing Brian’s band and joining Mike’s are not wholly, 100% unrelated events. In some versions of the timeline, “poach” would not be a completely inappropriate term.

Mike and Bruce got Jeff.  Brian replaced him with Matt Jardine. 

Seems like a win for both camps. 

100% agree

Jeff was with America when Mike called.

With a bit of luck, he'll stay there! Poached, scrambled, fried, f***ed-over, whatever the story and however it changes over the years as memories and bitterness marinate: Matt Jardine suits the BW band far more, way better vocal mix than with Foskett. You know I'm a huge booster of that band, but man my tolerance for JF was always pretty low. He's too shrill, strikes me as insincere and a tad creepy: a perfect fit for the Mike Love Show.  

I like BW doing more in the shows and not leaning on Curly Joe Faux Wilson quite so much. Both Jardines in the band are much better value. It's a more charming stage presentation now instead of Nurse Foskett's weird caretaker vibe.

Cut to Cam Mott in a small room with TALK and DISCUSS scribbled thousands of times all over the walls, frantically trying to crack the semantic code of Mike saying "they wanted to go on with the tour" but still being able to blame Brian Wilson for it.

Exactly Ontor! 8)

It's more like a small bunker.

The Tahoe bunker. ;)

Jeff is in fact "a tad creepy". I can personally vouch for that and more. Quite rude to boot. I'd say he's found his 'home" with myKe luHv and posse.

It's pretty clear that if Brian were to call Mike and say hey Mike let's sit and write some songs together and do some great shows, I won't let anyone, any producer or anyone else get in the way of the Beach Boys being together , then Mike would say sure Brian that sounds great I'll come right over.  Then we would have some new beach boy reunion shows and more beach boy albums. It's pretty clear that the outside influences, those who are invested in furthering an adversarial relationship between Brian and Mike, are holding the strings.

Something smells.  What is it?  Oh...I know...the post just north of my scribblings.  Professor...whatever it is you're smoking is bad for your cognitive health.  Do you dream in colour?

What tripe!!!!! ::)

It's telling how people who never had a bad word to say about Jeff when he was working with Brian are suddenly falling over themselves to slag the guy now he's in Mike's band. I'm consistent, I've never been a fan of the guy.

I'm consistent too, I like the guy, but find his falsetto doesn't sound right on Brian's old falsetto parts.

Matt Jardine is a much better fit for Brian's band, IMHO. He sounds great, and sounds better to me than Fosket. He also seems like a real nice, family guy, who is quite sincere and appreciative about having this great gig. I had the opportunity to meet Fosket, and speak with him during a personal performance a few years ago. I came away thinking "this guy is so into himself", he definitely had an attitude, spoke about his contributions to the Boys........just left me dissallusioned. I didn't care for him as a person, but so much for that. As a performer, I thoroughly enjoy Matt Jardine much much more.

Not nearly that simple. Even if all of that were true, it implies Brian should have to just submit to whatever Mike wants, which isn't really a "compromise."

But I don't think the whole "writing alone in a room" thing is particularly legit as far as the demise of the reunion. I'm sure it's a legit gripe Mike has about the 2012 reunion. But it's just another in a list of gripes, some more valid than others I'm sure (just as other members have gripes no doubt). But as others have pointed out, including folks who were inside the C50 tour at one point or another, there was nobody "holding the strings" keeping Brian from Mike during the tour. As has been pointed out several times, Mike had more time with Brian on the 2012 tour than he had since probably the 1981 tour, and there's no evidence he ever made any overtures to Brian to try to write something. And if Mike's beef is that he didn't get to write from scratch specifically on the TWGMTR album, that would ignore that it appears everybody knew what the album was going to be from the outset; that Brian and Joe got a deal based on Brian/Joe co-writes.

Sounds to me like "didn't get to write alone with Brian" is code for "Joe Thomas was hogging it."

At some point I'd be curious to see an interviewer point out to Mike, if he brings up the songwriting issue, that he had songwriting credits on 1/3 of the 2012 album (his solo track, adding lyrics to "Spring Vacation", and two ostensibly "from scratch" songs with "Isn't It Time" and "Beaches in Mind"). That he apparently wrote two songs "from scratch" with Brian but claims he didn't would suggest his problem was not having the "alone" part, which gets us back to Joe Thomas.

The more I read and analyze, the more I hear, I think some of the fundamental narratives of the C50 project will ultimately read somewhat differently. The narrative that even I more or less initially subscribed to, that Mike was all-in, 100% happy about the reunion at the start and then soured on the whole thing at some later point, I think that may not be quite the case. As has been posed a few times in the more recent past, what if Mike didn't really want to do a reunion in the first place? What if he was kind of "meh" about a big tour and album, and was simply offered a nice chunk of change to do it, and did a relatively good job for about 9/10 of the tour of playing along and being positive? Questions worth pondering.

I'm sure both Mike and Brian's autobiographies next year will offer their versions of everything C50.  And I'm sure somewhere in between those two POVs lies the truth. 

I'd love to see an intensive piece, maybe even a book, but input from all the major players - the five BB, the members of the backing bands, Joe Thomas, etc etc. 

First, it is nice to see a Mike interview where he doesn't mention drugs, lyrics that he wrote, etc.

As far as the demise of C50 - My guess is that Mike prefers being a big fish in a small pond. While it suck's for the fans, he has earned the right to make that call.

I am just thankful that Al has found a place with Brian. Through all of the crap that has occurred since Carl's death, the worst thing has been the treatment of Al. He deserved better.

I agree with that 100%.  Brian has his name and solo career to fall down on.  You really can't say that about Al Jardine.  I hope that Al remains a permanent part of Brian's band as long as Brian tours. 

Whether he has earned the right to use the BB name or not is a pretty subjective thing. But he certainly has a right to do or not do whatever he wants. He certainly shouldn't have to do a reunion if he doesn't want to (and who would want an unwilling participant?). So it becomes more a semantics argument; Mike won't just specifically say he wants to be a big fish in a small pond. Some of his comments have alluded to this (e.g. "we're doing things the way we do them, Brian's doing things his way...", and his comments back in 2012 about playing small markets).

It's all the other BS that just makes it less palatable. He says it was "always the plan" to go back to his tour. If that's the case, then what does the "promoters say give it a rest" argument have to do with anything? That's not even getting into the reports that they *were* offered more big gigs, and that promoters and people with more money than Joe Thomas were watching the C50 tour and seeing how it went with the idea of even bigger and better offers for more tours/projects. Nothing set it stone obviously, but I don't buy that huge swaths of "industry people" were telling Mike the reunion should break up to "build up demand." And again, any promoter who is telling Mike the truth would tell him that "giving it a rest" doesn't entail immediately continuing to tour under the same name and continuing to dilute the trademark's power.

Mike's "give it a rest" story sounds to me like one industry guy at a cocktail party off-handedly mentioned that big bands shouldn't "overexpose" themselves, and should try to build up demand by not constantly touring.

As I've often said, I think Mike made a decision to go back to his own thing, and then, as many people will do, has cultivated a list of technically-possible reasons he ended it. It's like a speech class where you're given a position, and then you have to come up with a list of argument points. Does anybody really think Mike ended the reunion because some promoter told him they should take a year or two off to build up demand? And if that were the case, then why hasn't he entertained going back to it, now that we're coming up on the FOURTH year of touring after the reunion ended.

yes, if they needed a "rest," they have had it and should be back out there already. . . . .No clear answers, just division.

Wouldn't they need a new BB album to tour with? A new tour would have to offer something special, like C50 did.

I agree, the "give it a rest" argument holds no water if you go back out and tour under the same name. Their is no built up demand if the "Beach Boys" are doing 170+ shows a year, whether Brian, Al and Dave are playing those shows or not.

I'm sure that it comes down to dollars and cents for Mike. I would be shocked if Mike's income wasn't bigger in 2013, 2014 and 2015, compared to 2012. Should that matter this stage in life? Maybe, maybe not. I'm sure that including additional personalities/entourages created a scenario where everything on stage may have looked great, but behind the scenes could have been very stressful.

I would love to see another reunion, but I can't complain considering I saw Brian and Al twice this year and Mike and Bruce once. I'm hoping 2016 brings more of the same, as a reunion looks complete unlikely next year.

I would say no, and no.

The TWGMTR album was solid, surprisingly strong all things considered. But I think the tour was the more impressive feat and the highest quality result from the whole project. And certainly, it did, would have, and still would net them far more money.

That a 2013 tour would have had to offer “something special” sounds, to me, like an extension of some of Mike’s arguments. I just fundamentally disagree, as did some actual tour promoters apparently.

“Due to overwhelming success, the Beach Boys’ 2012 reunion tour will undertake an encore tour performance throughout 2013!” That would have sold a ton of tickets. They could have taken it to international territories that they didn’t hit in 2012. Repeat, perhaps shorter, runs through North American and Europe. They only did TWO shows in the UK, they easily could have done more stuff there.

There was also the idea of doing a hugely lucrative Las Vegas residency. We know some possible reasons Mike would have never gone for something like that. But it was another possibility.

Lots of possibilities for how the reunion could have continued one more year, or in perpetuity. Just because Mike (and the other guys when they were in the band) diluted the trademark by touring incessantly every year and, when it comes to Mike, touring with few original or core members, it doesn’t mean a “reunion” lineup has to have some huge milestone to tout every time they do a tour.

And if they wanted to wrap the whole tour up in some sort of “special” context, there’s a million ways to do that. A good manager and PR firm could knock that out easily. There’s a “50th Anniversary” of something to do with the band built into the entire decade of the 2010s. 2013? 50 years of “Surfin’ USA!” 2014? 50 years of “Fun Fun Fun” (didn’t Mike actually use that one?). And so on….

I guess I'm not the only one with a small bunker, Ontor.

Sounds like there are many in their own small bunkers cracking their code of still being able to blame Mike Love for it.

Mike Love essentially took the blame (though he obviously feels justified) in this interview, acknowledging Brian and Al wanted to continue. Not sure why it's so hard to accept that. Mike's words acknowledge that his decision to go back to the status quo was the mechanism that prevented Brian and Al from continuing the reunion with Mike.

That may be the way it cracks in your bunker but maybe not mine.

In all honesty though, I don't think Brian should ever be left alone in a room with Mike.

How about a small bunker?

;D

At least the interview comes with an up-to-date photo of the touring BB's - quite a good one too...

Mike obviously didn't like the way he was treated by Brian's camp, whatever way that was and no matter whether he felt justifiably so or not, and Mike went back to a work mode he is more comfortable with. That is a both regrettable and comprehensible way to act, and more or less the same what Brian does.