Sounds like a Mike vocal to me, actually.

I'm with you.  I'm expecting there to be some new stuff.  Mark said much of this is going to be new.  You can argue what he meant by that, of course...

If you've read the quotation in its context, there is not much to quibble over. He suggests that most of it will be new for fans who haven't poured over the bootlegs. I would imagine there will be a few things that I haven't heard before - or, maybe, some edits that we haven't heard before (either by Linett/Boyd or, less likely, '66 Wilson). Most of it though will be glorious audio of some great tracks and I can't wait any longer!!!

[seventy-nine]

Thirty-seven, actually... and in an interview before the court case, Mike mentioned a total of seventy-nine !  I can only assume his council managed to talk him into contesting only those claims that looked winnable.

Good God. The 37 are suspicious enough. I can't imagine what the 79 would have looked like.

Huh? What "doesn't count", Jay? You mean Surf's Up? Surf's Up was going to be on Smile - only things basically different in '71 was Carl's additional vocals and the tag. Otherwise, pretty much the same music and lyrics as Brian sang on the '67 Bernstein special. The '71 version of Surf's Up, along with the released versions of Cabinessence and Our Prayer, and I think Wonderful were included on early SMiLE bootlegs in the early 80's.

Ever heard the Beach Boys do Surf's Up live in the early 70's, Jay?

I think he means that you can't count "Child Is Father of the Man" as a Smile song played by The Beach Boys.

You can't tell that it's Mike Love singing the 'Over and Over' part at the end of Cabinessence? 

Yes, but that was recorded during the 20/20 sessions, no?

And as for the session not going well, if you go by the production notes of the Inside Pop reels, no mention of a fight or argument, or anything out of the ordinary was documented. So who knows exactly what Siegel was talking about.

Well, again, we have a documented vocal session for that day for Cabin Essence and Surf's Up but those vocals, as far as I know, are nowhere to be found (...yet). It's quite possible that Mike did indeed refuse to sing that day. He certainly didn't object to it being portrayed that way in that horrible Made for TV movie.

And yeah, if you read Anderle's comments, he went to Brian and told him that he needed a single. What songs did Brian work almost exclusively on after the first of the year? Heroes and Vege-tables. The 2 songs that were talked about as being the first single from the album .

Well, I agree that Brian was working specifically on those songs with the plan that they would be singles but that doesn't explain why he would pretty much  abandon the album after December 15th. Maybe there was a single deadline but there was a much bigger album deadline looming.

@Erik H.

I am by no means a Mike hater. As to my "coattails" comment: I meant it as there would not have been a Beach Boys were it not for Brian. He wrote, arranged and produced them. Except for the actual singing and playing, all of their success was through Brian. We all know this as fact.

Mike doesn't.

I don't blame Mike for Smile. Never have, never will. Just the fact that Smiley Smile was released, along with the Smile music released on subsequent albums kind of proves that, at least to me. Everyone can think whatever they want, and 45 years later, it doesn't change a thing. Brian had issues with Mike on Today and Pet Sounds, yet all were released, because that's the way Brian wanted it. Like Sinatra, he did it his way. Ultimately, no matter all the underlying factors, it was Brian's decision to abort Smile.

I will say this for ya, your argument is consistent.

Wow...really? Because I agree with this

Brian get's his due and will continue to get his due: no one can change that. But there are fans out there who actually like Mike. It's possible and real. Therefore the stale old "Mike is evil" bullmerda can be a bit insulting to these silly fans.

?

What's wrong with that statement? My issue with Fishmonk was the fact that he stated that I wasn't a real Beach Boys fan because I didn't share his opinion. I was agreeing with Erik in that NOT ALL BB FANS WILL HAVE THE SAME OPINION OR LIKE THE SAME THINGS.

What the hell is up with the hostility on this board?

I hope the Smile box set gets cancelled. Maybe then people can quit being buttholes to each other and remember how to treat people with basic respect.

Sorry, Billy. I actually misread Erik's quote there so I'm in the wrong on that one.

I feel lit simply pays to remember: just out of plain consideration, that there are people out there, actual Beach Boys fans (misguided or not) who think Mike is a talented person, like his singing, his lyrics, his vibe, his style as a frontman, and somehow contribute these feelings to their overall appreciation of The Beach Boys as a group made up of individuals. Brian get's his due and will continue to get his due: no one can change that. But there are fans out there who actually like Mike. It's possible and real. Therefore the stale old "Mike is evil" bullmerda can be a bit insulting to these silly fans.

Shades of the sheriff??

No, just a fan with an opinion.

One I happen to share, as well...

Good - I'm glad the guy who dumped all over Fishmonk can agree with the poster who claims that Beach Boys fans are misguided if they don't share his point of view.

Your rant has proven my entire point

Goodnight

Thanks. Just so you know, blowing a bunch of rhetorical smoke to hide the fact that you are merely repeatedly evading my points and neglecting to engage with the substance of posts that actively deal with direct points that Love himself has made is unconvincing to me, but I hope it makes you feel better.

He was unwilling, yet he sang the lyrics.

Did he? I mean, I can't say for sure, but it's certainly interesting that no vocals seem to exist for Surf's Up and Cabin Essence despite the vocal sessions that have been noted (the one that apparently didn't go well)

I think the reason it fell apart was because from that point on, as Anderle has said, they had to have a single out.

In December? That surprises me because four months elapsed between Sloop John B. and Wouldn't it be Nice and it had only been two months since GV. Why did there need to be a single out? Wasn't the album also meant to come out in January? I really find it hard to believe that the album due out in a month was less of a concern than a single.

I don't need to respond to your direct quotes

No, because your only goal here is to demonize a particular position rather than actually deal with the reasons people have for holding that position.  In other words, you are an intellectual charlatan.

You're just spouting the party-line that has been repeated to death and will never change.

In fact, what I’m doing is directly discussing the very things that Mike Love has said, which you refuse to address. But I suppose it’s easy for you to make things up when you’re not actually engaging with my points.

Myke haters are so quick to anger and take offense when anyone tries to suggest another possibility, no matter how tactful or well reasoned their opinions might be.

As far as I can tell, the only “other possibility” you have suggested here is that we’re just “Myke haters” and therefore our points shouldn’t be taken seriously. That’s hardly a strong counter-argument.

I feel lit simply pays to remember: just out of plain consideration, that there are people out there, actual Beach Boys fans (misguided or not) who think Mike is a talented person, like his singing, his lyrics, his vibe, his style as a frontman, and somehow contribute these feelings to their overall appreciation of The Beach Boys as a group made up of individuals

I have already praised Mike Love on this thread alone for his singing and his songwriting but clearly anything short of zero criticism isn’t good enough for you.

Therefore the stale old "Mike is evil" bullmerda can be a bit insulting to these silly fans.

This will be easy. Find one single quotation is this entire thread that states that Mike is evil. Then, when you don’t find it, your options are to apologize for constructing a strawman argument or to let your lie sit in silence like a coward.

I'm sorry, but NO ONE in the Beach Boys was riding Brian's coattails. Especially not the guy who regularly wrote with the guy and who founded the damn band and was pretty much the co-lead singer in the band and who busted his ass as a live performer as a part of The Beach Boys.

Like I said before, there is no reasoning with you people.

I was merely responding to a poster in this thread who was defending Love and said the following:

The whole band rode on the coatstrings of Brian's compositions

If you have a problem with it, you should take it up with him, not me because I’m not the one who made the claim. But, like someone on this thread said, “it’s much easier to find a handy villain,” you giant hypocrite.

If known by Pet Sounds, then why did it not sell well?

I don't know for sure but I would be very surprised if Pet Sounds isn't the biggest selling non-compilation Beach Boys album. Maybe someone can confirm this.

People may know now by Pet Sounds, but not then.

So what are you saying? That you are now changing your claim to say that the Beach Boys were known for their hits?

Mike said writing songs, which include lyrics.

Brian wasn't writing lyrics and he was talking about Brian.

He has always knocked the lyrics, but I've also heard him praise the music and say how dynamic it was, etc.

He said that Heroes and Villains was dynamic, probably because it did well in the charts. I haven't heard him comment about the music other than what he said above about not resonating with it, and it not making sense to him.

I'm sure he did not like everything Brian wrote for Smile, but on the whole, I think Mike respected Brian as a composer.

He didn't respect him enough to avoid implying that The Beach Boys succeeded in spite of Brian Wilson.

As for the hit records, I thought we were talking GV or Smile era onward, not Pet Sounds.

You were the one who brought up the phrase about Brian departing from the formula, which calls to mind Mike Love's supposed line from the Pet Sounds era. Love felt that Wilson was straying from the formula well before GV and Smile.

Also, I wasn't talking #1's, but overall Top 40. Sure they had a few through 69, but in the US it would be 1976 and "It's OK" before they scored another Top 40 hit.

I'm not sure on your point here. Are you saying that Mike wanted Brian to be writing songs like "Fun, Fun, Fun" and "I Get Around" in 1969 and 1970? If he did (and I doubt it), then Love would really have absolutely no clue about how to go about making a hit record.

As to my "riding coatails" remark, you might think things work your way, but in the real world people have opinions and feelings. If the band members had concerns, I'm sure they were expressed, coatails or not.

Right and some "opinions and feelings" are valid and some are not. Thus, anybody who rides on the coattails of someone else has zero right to complain about where that person decides to go next. If Mike Love felt differently, then he's despicable.

obviously mike didn't kill smile, but obviously his unwillingness (and the others, mike had more clout) to go with brian didn't exactly make it easy.   

Yes.

I'll ask again: Is it a coincidence that the Smile project which had been running fairly smoothly began to fall apart almost immediately after the December vocal sessions?

Yup, and the words "easy" and "handy" don't require much thought or investigation.

Just like it has been really easy for you to avoid responding to a single quotation of mine that I brought up to defend my position to you earlier in this thread. Instead you decided to just make some snide comment about how easy it is find a villain without actually dealing with anybody's reasoning. You are an expert in what is easy and handy.

Good point, BUT..... it's much easier to find a handy villain.,

And no one makes it "easier to find a handy villain" than Mike Love.

OK, if you say so. I don't read it that way. I think he didn't like the drug scene Brian was in , not the music itself.

Well, then you're misreading the quotation because he's specifically talking about the songs that were influenced by that drug scene. So if he's putting down the drug use, is he not also putting down the things that were influenced by that drug use?

Do you think that the sentence would make sense if he said this?:

"I didn't resonate well with what was going on at that time. He was writing these great sounding songs under the influence of various substances and it didn't make any sense to me."

Well, I guess so. I suppose he could be saying how confounded he was about how Brian could make such great music despite not resonating with Brian's drug use that happened to be influencing those songs.

Pet Sounds? Maybe! You ask most Fans and you'll get song titles, not albums

I think most fans would say Pet Sounds. I think your average fan of 60s oldies would give you the song titles.

Brian scored one big hit single aside from the formula. I see what your saying, but one hit doesn't cement the point.

He didn't just score one big hit single. The Beach Boys had three singles in the top 10 in 1966, which was the same as 1965.

In a job, if things are bad and you complain, it either gets fixed or you get fired. Remember, they were family and that is a strong bond. They were in it together.

Saying that "they were in it together" is different from saying that four people were riding on one person's coattails and then complained when the one person started going in a direction they didn't like. That's not being "in it together" at all. So which one was it?

Mike wasn't thrilled with the lyrics written for Smile. He never really put down the music in any interview that I ever read.

From Mike Love:

“I didn’t resonate well with what was going on at that time. He was writing these songs under the influence of various substances and it didn’t make any sense to me.”

I think it's safe to assume that he didn't like any part of Smile.

Say what you will about Mike, but the music that the band is most noted for is during the time when Mike was one of the main lyricists for the band.

I don't know. I'm pretty sure the band is most noted for Pet Sounds.

To Mike, when the music was upbeat the band was popular.

To be honest, I think the idea that Mike had his finger on the pulse of the nation has been dramatically overstated. I don't think Mike Love had or has much of a clue as to what could or couldn't make a hit single.

When Brian went away from the tried and true formula, things began to change in a big way and not all good.

No, but there was a lot of good. Brian scored the most massive hit single of the Beach Boys' career up to that point. By the end of 1966, the band was one of the most popular in the world, and they had just put out the best album of their career.

The whole band rode on the coatstrings of Brian's compositions. Brian's new music and different behavior probably caused great concern within the band. In hindsight, I can see Mike's point of view on things.

Not me. I don't think that anyone who rides on another person's coatstrings has any right to complain about where the coat happens to be going next.

Well you're right about that. However, FWIW, he had and probably would still have a great knack for writing with Brian.

There's no doubt, they wrote some great songs together but you must admit that the balance of greatness on those songs is hardly equal. In other words, I think the caliber of the music on a song like I Get Around vastly outweighs the caliber of the lyrics. This is not to say that the lyrics for IGA aren't good. They are! They suit the music nicely, they have a sense of exuberance and joy but the music composition is in an altogether different category.

Plus, it was difficult to write with Brian in the early to mid 60s and not produce something great. Brian's talent to create great music just happened to be growing substantially during the three albums that he wrote with Love and continued to grow when Brian replaced Love with Asher and then replaced Asher with Parks.

I don't care if he is the biggest scumbag west of the Hudson...

I do. And I know that I certainly wouldn't want to re-ignite my partnership with a man who has implied that our band was successful because of him and in spite of me. I might just be happy to continue doing stuff on my own while he plays county fairs.

On the other hand, with VDP ripping Mike every chance he gets, he might end up being the one who stalls this beast in mid trax... It's all ridiculous.

Brian and Mike haven't had a solid songwriting partnership since 1965 and even then they had only been exclusive collaborators for a year. I doubt VDP's comments have anything to do with Brian and Mike not writing together. And VDP has had plenty of opportunities to put Mike down where he didn't. Look at the A&E Bio - there, it's Tony Asher who claims that Love was a problem during Pet Sounds. Parks refuses to mention Love by name. Clearly though the testimony of both Asher and Parks through the years says enough.

What did Dylan say at the R&R induction ceremony about forgiveness??

Yes, but such behaviour has continued to repeat itself in different ways over the years. He has made enough comments to confirm that his haze induced outburst at the HoF was just a significant part of his character shining through.

I guess the pendulum is swinging again on Mike.

I can only speak for myself, of course, but my pendulum has been firmly in place since late the 90s. It became apparent to me, then, that The Beach Boys were finally getting their due as an important rock band from the 60s. In order for that to happen though, the centre of attention had to be Brian. Mike's attempt to save face through this, by saying that he was the one responsible for the band's success (pretty much suggesting that the band was successful in spite of Brian rather than because of Brian) was beyond the pale. It became clear to me, at that point, that the excuses given to cover up Mike's egomaniacal past behaviour were paper thin. As far as I'm concerned, he is exactly the type of personality that irks me the most - he talks a big game but has little to back it up and what is worse is that he actively attempts to take credit from those who are much more deserving. I really don't know how anybody could support such behaviour.

But if I were part of a successful team, and had invested quite a lot of work in that team, and then other members would go on to develop all too big a liking for drugs, and collaborators from outside would be brought in without me being asked, and then indecisiveness and deathborn projects would be the end result of all that.... I might be not that happy with these things.
Mike is not the Satan himself. And he can't be blamed for the self-destructive tendencies in other band members.

OK, we have to stop with this business about "Mike is not the Satan himself". No one is seriously suggesting anything like this. I have been accused already of hating Mike Love without having said anything of the sort. Without realizing it, you are exaggerating our point in order to trivialize it.

At any rate, you are correct that "he can't be blamed for the self-destructive tendencies in other band members." That being said, it's not like he was the one swoop in and save the band from total obliteration. When Brian began his slow bow out, it was really Carl and Dennis who stepped up to the plate as producers and songwriters. Hell, even Bruce could help solidify an album with songs and production. Love couldn't do any of that. I think that alone suggests that this business about him being a "key creative force" is dramatically overstated. The music produced by the band post-Smile just simply doesn't give a lot of weight to the suggestion that Love was a key creative talent who had to deal with self-destructive band members. As far as I'm concerned it was those band members who actually kept the band going and produced some of their best work.

I honestly can't see how you can claim that a guy who sang innumerable lead vocals or key vocal parts in innumerable Beach Boys songs while also writing innumerable lyrics NOT a key creative force in the band. It just doesn't hold up under simple math.

Well, for one, he did not write "innumerable lyrics". The number of lyrics he wrote are quite numerable and even the lyrics he claims to have written are highly suspect in my opinion. He was the main lyricist on three Beach Boys records. Even if you just include the period from Surfin' Safari to Smile, that represents less than a third of their albums. There's some more simple math for you.

I don't really consider his vocals or key vocal parts to be creative - he was basically directed to sing those parts and to do so in a particular way. It doesn't take too much energy to do that. Yes, he had a natural talent for singing a certain kind of vocal but I don't think there's much creativity there.

And I did say A key creative force. Not THE key creative force (that would be Brian up until 1967 and still a bit beyond that) The Beach Boys were a family affair where each guy got his shot at greatness and it should be embraced as such.

Thanks for telling me how I should appreciate one of my favourite bands.

Brian was in a position of immense power during Smile

He was in a position in immense fragility which anyone should have been perfectly aware of, given Brian's own history of anxiety attacks.

and it's demise can't simply be accounted for due to Mike's questioning a lyric or not being 100 % enthused.

I never said it could. But it certainly doesn't help to hear from both your lead singer and your cousin that the album you have been pouring all your talents into over the past few months isn't very good. Brian has always put a lot of stock in the opinions of others and hearing negative remarks about Smile, I'm sure, only heightened his well documented insecurities.

Is it any surprise that the Smile project, which for the most part had been running smoothly, began to fall apart immediately after the disastrous vocal sessions in December? I mean, is that just a coincidence to you?

Many a rock masterpiece has been brought to completion under much more trying circumstances.

Good for them.

And you mean to tell me no one else in the Beach Boys had an ego? Please!!!!

I don't know if any other member has taken responsibility for the group's success, do you? And some have much more of a right to do so than Mr. Love.

You simply choose to hate Mike and that's it.

As opposed to someone forcing me? Yes, I suppose you're right.

It's useless trying to reason.

Oh, how difficult it must be to deal with us unreasonable fools!

It's a sadistic self-punishing pursuit to "love" a band where you regard one of the key creative forces and vocal contributors with nothing but spittle inducing violent hatred.

Well, for one, I don't consider Love to be a "key creative force" in the band, despite the fact that he takes credit for the Beach Boys success.

I do think he's a great lead vocalist but that doesn't alleviate the fact that he's a guy with a massive ego, with zero artistic sensibilities, and more than likely was a key figure in souring Brian's optimism about Smile.

Mike may strike-out 99 times out of a hundred on his own, but with Brian he makes great art almost always...

I think you're unintentionally speaking volumes here.

I find these facts very strange. (about Beatles Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever - from Wikipedia)

"In the UK, the pairing famously failed to reach #1 in the singles charts, stalling one place below Engelbert Humperdinck's "Release Me". In the US the song reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for a week before being knocked off by The Turtles song "Happy Together"".

EH more popular than the Beatles? And only one week at the top in the US?
Those songs are some of the most well-written pop songs ever!

Well, according to Wikipedia, the SFF/PL single ultimately outsold "Release Me" by a ratio of 2 to 1 but because the "BBC counted the two songs as two individual singles", the EH song outranked them on the list.

I think your post shows that the success or lack of success of a lead-in single does not necessarily allow us to accurately predict how well an album will do. Sure, a single in the top 10 will help sell albums. But Sloop John B ranked as high as Surfin' USA as a single in the charts and yet Pet Sounds went to #10 while S USA went to #2.

I think too that while Good Vibrations has hit single written all over it, you can't really say the same for other Smile tracks no matter how great they are. I'm really not sure how successful the album would have been. I think, like people on this thread are saying, that the Monterey Pop festival would have been crucial, particularly the film. After all, it was the Woodstock movie that really brought The Who and Tommy widespread success in the United States. I think a film like Monterey Pop could have possibly done the same for The Beach Boys and Smile if their performance was up to snuff (it would have been difficult to out-perform The Who and Hendrix on film) but I'm not sure if the album could have done it alone.