The Smiley Smile Message Board

Hear part 1 with Mike Love of The Beach Boys on this week's Catching A Wave radio show! We discuss his new book "Good Vibrations: My Life As A Beach Boy", nephew Kevin Love, playing saxophone, band's universal appeal, being misunderstood, uncle Murry, Carl Wilson's last show with the band and more! We also hear Christmas tunes from Spechlis, Colbie Caillat, Man or Astro-man?, THE TRASHMEN, Jimmy Buffett and the Coral Reefers and rockers from Duane Eddy, Junior Brown (with The Beach Boys) and The Astronauts! Hear episode here: http://catchingawaveradio.blogspot.com/2016/12/mike-love-interview-part-1-more.html

Hot tip, if you are a fan of surf music and excellent weirdos- Man...or Astroman? are a conceptual masterpiece and have been at it for over 20 years. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_or_Astro-man%3F

Sounds very groovy!

I love the surf records on the show, but Mike's "interview" was the same stock answers he's been giving on any number of his press junkets and drop-ins promoting his book. Literally, the same answers.

And that Love-Johnston-Marks remake with drum machines and synths sounded terribly out of place among such great tracks. Why include that?

What song was played? Something from the NASCAR album?

I'll be honest as to why I included the Love, Johnston and Marks track.  I was trying to get additional tunes of Mike on the show and there's a FCC rule about not having more than 4 songs from the same artist within a block of time.  This show airs on radio stations as well.  So, "The Beach Boys" count as one artist but "Mike Love, Bruce Johnston and David Marks" count as another artist..."Mike Love" solo would be another, etc.  I was going to use The Beach Boys "Devoted To You" when we were talking about The Everly Brothers but used The Everly's "Don't Worry Baby" that also had The Beach Boys on there.  It gets challenging with interviews sometimes because of this rule.  Mainly, this is a streaming rule for stations that stream.  I don't think it applies to stations that either do not stream or are something like paid service radio like SiriusXM, etc.  I do have a couple of solo Mike Love tracks on the next show along with 4 Beach Boys and so forth.  I've actually had some folks that liked that version of "Little Honda"...and probably because it's a little obscure.  I prefer the original but just wanted to get some extra tunes included in the mix.  Anyway, thanks for listening....and for reading my ramblings here. haha

It definitely doesn't apply to non-streaming stations and other similar formats, otherwise there would be none of the streams or radio shows dedicated to The Beatles, Elvis, Sinatra, etc. That's odd, it borders on being silly as far as a "rule", and it's the first I'm hearing about this rule. Maybe it's only the service/stream host that hosts your show? I'm really surprised to hear about this considering some of the other shows I listen to on a weekly basis.

Cheap joke: Were the folks who liked the NASCAR remake named Mike and Bruce?  :lol

But back to the interview with Mike, again kudos on a solid show and format in general, especially the classic stuff and playing The Trashmen and The Astronauts (I'm a big surf/garage/protopunk/rockabilly fan myself) for listeners, but I don't understand why Mike gives literally the same answers repeatedly in these interviews, I'd go as far as call them stock answers and comments at this point because some of them I've heard repeated since he's been on the book promo junket. It's like reading a transcript and there are so many more things to talk about. I don't blame the hosts/interviewers at all.

The thing about the rule is that it definitely is there but many stations choose to ignore it.  I had long conversations with folks that host specialty shows (Beatles, etc.) and they are aware of the rule but so far the stations they are on choose not to enforce it.  I have a few that are really strict (one here in Nashville actually) about it but the majority don't care and so far there isn't a record of any station getting penalized by it.  But...as some of the stricter stations tell me often....they don't want to be the first. haha  In fairness, I can understand that though if I were running a station.  FCC fines could get costly and I don't want to be responsible for a station getting in trouble or going off the air.  There are stations from all over that carry this show but like I said...only a handful that are super strict with that particular rule.  I agree too that it's a silly one.  I was only made aware of it late last year in fact.  So, it makes for some creative programming sometimes.  I just did an interview with Cliff Richard for my rockabilly show (Rockabilly N Blues Radio Hour) and had to include some tracks of "Cliff Richard & The Shadows", "Cliff Richard & Phil Everly", etc. so as to have a few more on the show.  The other rule is that you can't have more than 3 songs from the same album within a 3 hour block and no more than 2 back to back.  Again, many stations will ignore that but it's definitely a rule.  I did a couple of shows with Dean Torrence recently and I had to do the same thing...play some stuff by "Laughing Gravy", Dean solo, etc. to put around the Jan & Dean tunes in there.

Here's an interesting article that touched on some of this:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160111/18000633302/why-radio-stations-probably-couldnt-just-play-david-bowie-music-as-tribute-copyright-law-is-messed-up.shtml

Honestly, I imagine some stations aren't aware of this but they should be to avoid potential fines.  I really don't agree with the rule and many are complaining about specifically for legacy artists like Beach Boys, Beatles, Bowie, etc.  It probably makes more sense for current acts with new singles/albums and they want to level the playing field a bit on that end. 

I wonder if that rule applies to Christmas music.  I'm pretty sure the local FM station here has played more than four Bing Crosby tracks in a three hour period. 

Technically, if they are also streaming online then it should although I'm finding there are some that either aren't familiar with the rule or choose to not pay attention to it.  It's unlikely the FCC would make a case for it especially for older Christmas tunes and even legacy acts that aren't competing on the charts.

That makes sense. 

Also when classic rock stations will play a complete album side. 

That rule is interesting. I had no idea.

As for no record of enforcement, it makes sense that without complaints there wouldn't be any. After all, the FCC isn't just sitting around listening to random radio stations to see whether there are violations: they depend on complaints. (For example, I've heard of socially conservative groups watching television to send in complaints about violations they see in the Simpsons, or whatever other shows offend their sensibilities.) If nobody on the listening or business end is submitting complaints about the issue, even FCC employees who are aware probably just don't care much.