The Smiley Smile Message Board

Showed up in my news feed. Mike looking a bit rough these days

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/mike-love-beach-boys-talks-180000189.html

Unfortunately, it's "rift", not "riff".

But, you could say that folks have been riffing on that rift for a while now.

:lol Oops

SBonilla :lol

Aging

Yahoo: "Where did the rumor come from that you didn't like Pet Sounds?"

Mike: "I think it came from the heavy drugs taken by some members of the band."

:lol I'm not even kidding this is basically word-for-word said in the interview.

I do find it amazing that a major publisher of online news acknowledges that there are different camps in the fanbase (Mike vs Brian fans). I wish someone would write a completely unbiased book that reviews the history of Brian and Mike: where the differences started, the contents of the lawsuits, how Mike didn't get credited for a lot of songs, how Mike got 1/3 credit on an entire song for 4 words...no opinions from the author, just straight up facts so anyone could get a really solid overview of why this feud started and an honest look of why these guys are still separated to this day.

Yeah. A little different, and I haven't read it yet, but I'd love a Beach Boys book like Erin Torkelson Weber's Beatles and the Historians: An Analysis of Writings about the Fab Four.

How about a Wes Anderson movie about C50? ;D

Possible titles:

Darjeeling, Limited By a Set End Date
Rushtour to Get Back to M&B
A Room Alone With Mike and Brian at The Grand Budapest Hotel

 

Nothing new in the interview, but agreed - I hope Mike's doing ok.

What he actually says is "I think there was a them and us thing that arose through drugs" and that a schism arose in the group that wasn't there before...which is absolutely true and I think that is a huge factor in why Mike resisted some of the Smile material, which eventually morphed into "he hated Pet Sounds too" (with the help of unsubstantiated quotes like "Don't **** with the formula").  

I still think it's weird that both he and Al continue to deny ever taking heavy drugs when we have the original session for "Our Prayer" released on TSS.  :hat

Well also, the fact that Mike to this day in recent interviews talks about how he should have added more lyrics to Pet Sounds (or maybe he said he wishes he'd have written all of them, I don't recall exactly), thus implying that his magic touch was missing and needed on that album... added to the other incident that Brian was nudged/coerced (?) to promise Mike "next time" for Mike getting to be the primary lyricist again (a promise that was thankfully broken on SMiLE)... even if some want to assume that Brian happily made that promise without prodding, that's still evidence of Brian trying to appease Mike... it's hard for Mike to make an argument that these things aren't pretty prime evidence of Mike being somewhat unhappy (even just passive aggressively) with a non-Mike direction, if only based out of ego and fear of no longer being as useful as Mike wished he'd be.

A bandmate who is happy with a direction of an album and genuinely loves/supports that album wouldn't continually be getting their bandmate to promise that they'll write in a manner different from said album next time around (twice in a row). Nor would they accept it (assuming the ridiculous argument some might make that Brian happily and without prodding made such a promise). It doesn't make much sense. Mike wants it both ways.  

In fact I'd say all of these are pretty obvious evidence of the general sentiment of the rumor being at least partially true, even if only from a passive aggressive standpoint.  "I love and fully support this great work of art you made, that's why next time I want you to write in a way that differs greatly from it, in a manner that suits me, my artistic sense, and my pocketbook".  Something doesn't add up with the (at least partially) revisionist history.

It's not that I don't get that Mike probably felt jealous and felt left out; he's only human. It's an understandable emotion that I assume he felt. Doesn't make him a jerk to feel jealous.  He just needs to own it, and then realize why these rumors grew out of some logical conclusions and extrapolations.

He says, "I didn't get into all the heavy drugs and stuff like that, and some others did." I guess I'm failing to see the connection between Pet Sounds and Brian's cocaine addiction...As marijuana and LSD are considered soft drugs, and marijuana was the primary drug of choice during the making of Pet Sounds.

My point in highlighting him bringing up heavy drugs is that Mike continuously has to bring up the heavy drug use of the Wilson brothers in interviews when it literally has nothing to do with the question he is being asked.

This is why the good will I try to muster up toward Mike sputters out so fast. It's obvious he still blames drugs on everything going wrong, and he extends that even to Brian using drugs now that he specifically needs to deal with mental illness. He's conflated those two in the past and said that's the reason he and Brian don't get along, when it should be obvious that they just have conflicting personalities that would more than explain the feud without dragging their drug use (recreational AND medical!) into it.


Are those recordings the main evidence for the whole band taking acid? Because when I listen to it, it sounds like Brian joking about his music making you feel like you're on a trip, which he was definitely intentionally trying to do for some songs... I could see it either way.

Gotta stick to the narrative for all the uneducated "fans" watching this kind of thing who don't know the history. Show me one reporter or interviewer who would push back and challenge Mike on the usual talking points, just one.

Howard Stern should get all of the surviving members together and have them argue it out.

Would we see a repeat of the striped shirt debacle if they did? Or if they did a group Stern interview, Brian and Al should come in sporting those vintage "I'm A Fuckin' Genius" yellow T's... ;D

Yeah, and I think any fan will acknowledge that drugs were a problem for the band...but it's not the ONLY answer to why there were issues. There was jealousy, betrayal, tears shed, hostility, creative differences, personality differences, anxiety problems, ego problems...some of this stemmed from drugs but some of it stemmed from many, many other places. Drugs just seem to be any easy way for Mike to say in not so many words "none of this was my fault, it was the drugs taken by other people and the people who took those drugs."

And you're so right: it's really sad that Mike's petulance about the drug issue extends to Brian's current prescription drug regimen. Brian is 76 years old, after a lifetime of schizophrenic episodes, depression, life threatening drug abuse, major obesity, anxiety, you name it, Brian is still able to chug along with touring, recording, helping write a book and helping with an upcoming documentary...and considering his history that is friggin amazing that he almost in his 80s and still able to do this. But if you ask Mike about Brian's current condition you'd think Brian was being propped up like Bernie Lomax in Weekend at Bernies ("Brian is controlled and still medicated, it's not the street drugs anymore but prescription drugs"). It's just pretty sad when you think about it.

Gonna frame this post. It says everything I wanted to. Brian is in agreement with Mike that he shouldn't have taken drugs when he was young, but Mike wants to continue using it as the defining difference between them -- which leads him to say completely whack stuff about mental illness that's frankly hurtful to a lot more people than just Brian. I just think Mike has had plenty of time and opportunity to learn more about it if he truly wanted to.

That happened today in the Whitehouse.....oh wait.....That was Trump, Pelosi and Schumer.  :lol

It's just so great to watch that old, silly clown make a complete fool of himself in interviews. He knows he hated Pet Sounds because HE wasn't called to write lyrics. He's lucky he was allowed to even sing on PS and no one could have written more cohesive lyrics than Tony Asher. It's ironic but Mike uses the drug issues to exonerate his tacky behavior and digs himself into far deeper territory with every revisionist sentence. I can envision an angry, jealous, ego infested ML stomping his feet on the floor screaming at Brian to include HIM and being a royal pain in the ass when Brian didn't. Sorry, this wart gets no mercy from me whatsoever. By the way, he looks like he's got one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.

:lol

Well, Mike said a couple of times in recent interviews that he did his share of drugs before he met Maharishi, then he stopped. I believe he also said, that Al was the only Beach Boy who never did drugs. Don't know about Bruce though, as his not being at the '67 Hawaii shows sometimes gets connected to him not being happy about the drug situation.

luHv Estrangement Syndrome. It's a great thing!

I think he has said he smoked a fair amount of weed and drank whiskey until around 1967.....Although he drinks now, he posts about wine tasting and stuff. I assume he just means "to excess" and not really 100% abstaining these days...i remember someone on here i think saying they saw him at a hotel bar in 1981 and he was drinking a beer...I wonder if his whole "i dont drink" thing is sort of bullshit and more just a thing to say to seem better/above the "smoking" beach boys

There's a huge difference in drinking to wind down after a show and drinking to get plastered and/or to purposely escape yourself like both Dennis and Brian did on far too many occasions.

I totally agree 100% and i dont fault him for it. I'm just saying when he says "i dont drink" its slightly disingenuous. He should say "i dont drink like i used to. I have a drink or two at dinner" or something