Is just me or do many of the Brian fanatics equivocate Mike bashing as a bizarre way of showing their support for Brian? You CAN like and respect both ya' know!
Very good. I must admit that I fell into this trap quite a number of years ago. In my mind, Brian was a guy whose true potential was only realised for, say, 20% or so. And who was to blame for the other 80%? The guy who had, according to reports, his problems with Pet Sounds and the concept of Smile, of course! Nothing as good as a complete and unquestioned story, that's it.
Now I feel that Brian's psyche must be foremost seen as one, and indivisible. Which means: his gigantic talent and uniqueness have a darker side to them: extreme sensibility and vulnerability, and thus an appetite for self-medication (the use of drugs). To compare: people with schizophrenia (not Brian) in general have a lack of inhibitory capacities in their brain (imbalance in neurotransmitters), and the result is that they have unusually high capacities for association; this can lead to great abilities in language, pictural arts, and music, much greater than is seen on average. But it can also lead to delusions (paranoia, psychosis).
And that is Brian, one and indivisible. And Mike is certainly not guilty of Brian's incapacitation.
Indeed. Look at Syd Barrett, or Skip Spence. Both of them produced ground breaking albums before they went under, and they both made completely different, twisted albums, later. The 60's produced a lot of mental illness, and a lot of drug casualties. Both LSD and the green stuff can bring out mental illness in people that are already "in tune" for such a thing.
Author
