Mike Love in 1969

[Ron]

Yeah, lol.  Crazy.  We know nobody in the 60's looked like Jesus Christ.  Wearing white?  Wow!  What a jerk!  And a Rock Star had an ego?  Noooooo.  You're right, Dennis was probably the sane one who didn't have an ego and stopped Mike's.  LOL 

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

I have to play devils advocate and chuck this one in here, but couldn't it also be that he was trying desperately hard to be hip. A bit too hard.

He already was; he didn't have to try.  

Devils Advocates are good!  

Now the term, "hip" is a "dated" word.  If you look at the art scene, and fashion becoming so global at that point, a real "anything goes" attitude was the norm.  It was a very cool time to be young, and experimental with dress and develop your own style.  

By 1968, the Beach Boys were not hip, in the states anyway. I just feel Mike's trying too hard to be credible here.

I think this might be possible, however if he really was just desperately trying to be hip, he would have quickly lost the whole TM thing and moved onto something else, yet he did not. The man is seriously devout and doesn't care what anyone on a Beach Boys message board thinks about it.

[oldsurferdude]

By 1969 Mike Love was in the centre of his own universe. His ego had been swelled beyond what can be considered normal for a pop/rock artist. His white robe jesus look and eccentric stage personality damaged the reputation of the band. I think that ended witht he Sunflower/SU era. Someone prob told him to shut up (I suspect Dennis) and one sees a much more reclusive figure of Mike in the early 70's. Perhaps he realised that Dennis and Carl really were the main guys. The Inclusion of Ricky and Blondie along with expulsion of friend Bruce probably contributed as well. Thank God.

"Damaged the reputation of the band"? You obviously weren't around back then, were you?

I was and he did. Rock and Roll's original jack ass. Nobody's done it as well as Myke.

[Magic Transistor Radio]

By 1969 Mike Love was in the centre of his own universe. His ego had been swelled beyond what can be considered normal for a pop/rock artist. His white robe jesus look and eccentric stage personality damaged the reputation of the band. I think that ended witht he Sunflower/SU era. Someone prob told him to shut up (I suspect Dennis) and one sees a much more reclusive figure of Mike in the early 70's. Perhaps he realised that Dennis and Carl really were the main guys. The Inclusion of Ricky and Blondie along with expulsion of friend Bruce probably contributed as well. Thank God.

"Damaged the reputation of the band"? You obviously weren't around back then, were you?

I was and he did. Rock and Roll's original jack ass. Nobody's done it as well as Myke.

Perhaps it had a lot to do with Brian stepping back after abandoning SMiLE. As much as I love Smiley, Wild Honey and Friends, the other guys were not ready to make hit records. By the time their music improved, they were unhip. People thought of them as an oldies act. Now back to the news!

[Dave in KC]

I don't know how much these meet and greet VIP packages cost, but the patrons will be treated like cattle. In and out after a few pics or autographs. Glad I got that done from 1969 through 1992 on my terms. That's all I need at this point. I wish them well and I hope the fans get a thrill. For me , the thrill is gone.

[Jason Penick]

By 1969 Mike Love was in the centre of his own universe. His ego had been swelled beyond what can be considered normal for a pop/rock artist. His white robe jesus look and eccentric stage personality damaged the reputation of the band. I think that ended witht he Sunflower/SU era. Someone prob told him to shut up (I suspect Dennis) and one sees a much more reclusive figure of Mike in the early 70's. Perhaps he realised that Dennis and Carl really were the main guys. The Inclusion of Ricky and Blondie along with expulsion of friend Bruce probably contributed as well. Thank God.

Ya had to be there.  With all the stuff going on at that time, a white robe was not such a big deal.  Likely it was a
Maharishi influence, who also influenced the Beatles, as well. I think I saw him only once in the robes, and not in the
Summer of 1969.  Maybe the fall of 1968.  People were on downtown street corners in Krishna garb, so it was really no big deal.  Living in a college town exposes one to divergent ideas, dress and ways of life.

The guys wore what they wanted by that time in the summer of 1969.  I was one of those poor unfortunates whose Maharishi Tour was cancelled.  Boston.  That said, much of what Mike has supported, has taken 40 years to become mainstream.  Now, doctors prescribe meditation.  Meditation is being made part of the curriculum in schools.  It is being used for violence prevention in violent school settings, as a coping strategy. 

It is often a sign of a leader to make a statement for the public which, at the time, might appear radical, but, upon examination, over time, proves to be just one solution to a problem in society.  TM is now becoming mainstream.  Not so much, back then. 

Listen to this man, he knows of which he speaks.  Trying to understand where Mike was coming from back then from a 2012 perspective is fruitless.  His rishi approach was a bold move, and well in keeping with the times.  If anything, the rest of the touring band was lagging, Dennis excluded.

[Alan Smith]

filledeplage is female  

[Jason Penick]

He already was; he didn't have to try. 

Devils Advocates are good!   

Now the term, "hip" is a "dated" word.  If you look at the art scene, and fashion becoming so global at that point, a real "anything goes" attitude was the norm.  It was a very cool time to be young, and experimental with dress and develop your own style.   

By 1968, the Beach Boys were not hip, in the states anyway. I just feel Mike's trying too hard to be credible here.


It all depends with whom you are speaking.  I'd say it is fair to assess that they were in a "different mode."
That does not mean they were not "hip." Do It Again came out in the summer of 1968.  The US was in a different mode. Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated within months of one another.  Is it significant for music? You bet. 

FM radio, was discovering, at least, WBCN, in Boston, was playing Smiley.  Boutiques in Harvard Square were playing the entire album.  That was "hipper than hip." But in a different way.  Not the hit parade hip, but a consciousness-raising "hip."

They were being accepted, gradually, as serious musicians. Not the trite West Coast icons courting surf bunnies.  That is the difference. 

I thought I would faint, when I heard them being played, in a boutique in Harvard Square, (smirking smugly to myself.)

They weren't "square," on hippie radio. It was impossible.  And, the beginning of an inexorable brush fire in a drought.  I bet they were not even fully aware of what was happening.  They were on FM.  Unheard of. Hip FM.  Pet Sounds, as well.  On FM!

Right again, you have touched on something that I've seen overlooked in even the most in depth Beach Boys bios.  Their courting of the counterculture was a brave move.  They could have easily turned into the Buckinghams in 1967 and cranked out a slew of "Darlin"-styled blue eyed soul singles and had some consistent chart success.  (I love "Darlin'" by the way.)  But instead they pushed themselves creatively as a band.  Pet Sounds is a completely different album from Smiley is a completely different album from Wild Honey is a completely different album from Friends and so on.

There were a lot of fab bands in the sixties, but how many would re-invent themselves from album to album and still create a wholly satisfying body of work?  Maybe Dylan, Beatles, the Who, the Stones (Aftermath-Let It Bleed)... The very top tier.

That Joe Public couldn't swing with it was their own damn fault.  The good folks programming hip underground FM stations knew better, and they programmed what they wanted to.  An album like Smiley Smile fit perfectly into what they were trying to accomplish.  The problem was most of those stations had a 50 mile radius on a good day, and were only based out of the biggest markets.  In the mid 70s that would all change, but the real "heads" knew where it was at, and Smiley was revered in certain hip circles, paving the way for the ultimate (relative) success of the Surf's Up LP.

Mike's robes were really not that far out, if you look at the hip cultural trends of 1969.  Ever seen pictures of Peter Green and Danny Kirwan from that era?

[Wild-Honey]

filedeplage is female 

 

[Jason Penick]

One point that stands out about 1969 through maybe 1974 was Mike's demeanor: Is it just me or did it seem like he was acting stoned a lot of the time? I'm not being facetious or trying to stir something up, but I'm just curious if others may see that too. This was someone who was anti-drug in 65-66 and there is some proof of that both from that time and later interviews, yet a few years later that same guy is on stage acting and talking like an experienced stoner. Was this playing to the crowd? Or was it something to do with the TM studies? Even the Mike heard and seen in Hawaii 1967 sounds different from the bearded and white-robe wearing Mike of a few years later. And isn't it true that he did not take drugs at that time?

Craig, I've re-read your post several times, so that I can adequately get to the heart of what you're getting at.  Hopefully this can answer your question:  Mike in the mid-sixties was a dilettante, a dabbler.  He was never immersed in the drug culture and had a healthy suspicion of those who were (Schwartz, V.D. Parks and whomever else) .  It doesn't mean he was a choir boy as you clearly understand, but he probably toked up a bit here or there to see what all the fuss was about.  Regardless the extent of his drug use, clearly it did not come to dominate his life, but when he was exposed to TM for the first time in 1968 it all changed.

Whether or not you or anyone views TM as a crutch, a sham or a divine source of enlightenment, one thing is for sure:  the teachings as read in The Science of Being and The Art of Living absolutely frown upon the use of external inhibitants to achieve enlightenment.  For someone who is a willing student of TM, meditation is the only way to get in touch with Being, aka cosmic consciousness.  And since we know Mike was and to this day is a huge practitioner of Maharishi's teachings, it only makes sense that he would have followed the path so to speak and gone on the straight and narrow.

A lot has been made of the Mike/ Al nexus as pertaining to the eventualities that went down in 1978.  While Mike and Alan are consistently viewed as the squares who stood in the way of the Carl/ Dennis progressive nexus, not many people seem to consider that the negative karma of the Wilson drug lust was negatively impacting the positive, drug-free, uplifting ideals of the meditation practitioners.  Simply put, as someone who practices meditation myself in the hopes of achieving a slight bit of enlightenment, the last thing I want around me is a bunch of junkies, hangers-on and soul suckers trying to bring me down from my aspirations.  It's a perfectly valid argument!

All of this I guess is a roundabout way of saying, Mike in 1969 was trying to achieve an ideal with his robes and beard.  We can laugh today at how silly he looked, but I would still bet heavily that he was doing his best to keep clean; and if you listen to his patter from most of the shows of the era, his tone is that of the "big brother" who has seen the damage drugs can cause and was trying to advise his younger peers, in a non-judgmental way, to steer clear of that sh*t.

[Jason Penick]

John Stebbins can probably fill some of the details in here, but I also remember reading in The Lost Beach Boy about Mike drinking and maybe a little toking with Dennis in the early '60s. I don't think in the '60s Mike was totally anti-drug, whether he partook or not. I think the issue with Brian, and later Dennis and Carl's, drug use was that it started to interfere with their work. When Brian started spending more time with the more than causal users, that's when Mike started coping an attitude. When these other people started sharing ideas and writing songs with Brian, that's when Mike started getting vocal about it. When Brian backs away from that scene after Smile and starts working with the guys in the band again, Mike seemed to get cool again.

Regarding his stoner act and banter on stage, I always figured that was just playing to the crowds. A way to get a few easy laughs or cheers. His anti-drug stance now probably is a bit of revisionism. His way of saying, "I never got messed up on drug, and look at me now."

Spot on.  I've only read a few of your posts here, but I feel like you have a better working understanding of the subtle dynamic of the Beach Boys than so many others I read on the boards.  No offense intended towards any posters here of course, but I read a lot of BB information throughout the whole of the internet written by people who are certain they have it figured out what band member X was thinking when they did action Y and so on.  Maybe I present a bit of that vibe too, but I feel like what I say comes more through an understanding of the human condition-- as relates to the brothers Wilson and their cadre-- and I sense that same understanding in what you post.

At any rate, I think it's important we all should all strive for higher understanding.  Of course this stuff is fun to speculate about, but in the end Mike was a guy who said what he thought, while Brian was outwardly shy but quite passive/ aggressive when he wanted to be.  No heroes, no villains.  Just shades of grey.  I just want to reiterate that Mike's 1969 apparel had nothing to do in the way of drugs or the condoning of their usage.  If anything it was a holistic, opposite approach.

[MBE]

He can be seen toking on stage in the Central Park 1971 film very briefly. What that means I have no idea, but I don't think he ever did hard drugs which obviously was a wise decision.  He probably was just a social or occasional pot smoker maybe tried acid if the "Our Prayer" session tape is anything to go by, and left it at that.

As much as I love the Wilson brothers musically and admire quite a number of things about them personally, I wouldn't have wanted to tour with Dennis after 1976 or so, nor Carl from 1977-78, nor Brian from 1976-82. I actually feel sorry for Mike when I see that Good Morning America clip from 1980. I have all the sympathy for them in the world as people, but in a group if you can't do your job properly it's understandable that your bandmates would be angry.

[filledeplage]

He already was; he didn't have to try. 

Devils Advocates are good!   

Now the term, "hip" is a "dated" word.  If you look at the art scene, and fashion becoming so global at that point, a real "anything goes" attitude was the norm.  It was a very cool time to be young, and experimental with dress and develop your own style.   

By 1968, the Beach Boys were not hip, in the states anyway. I just feel Mike's trying too hard to be credible here.


It all depends with whom you are speaking.  I'd say it is fair to assess that they were in a "different mode."
That does not mean they were not "hip." Do It Again came out in the summer of 1968.  The US was in a different mode. Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated within months of one another.  Is it significant for music? You bet. 

FM radio, was discovering, at least, WBCN, in Boston, was playing Smiley.  Boutiques in Harvard Square were playing the entire album.  That was "hipper than hip." But in a different way.  Not the hit parade hip, but a consciousness-raising "hip."

They were being accepted, gradually, as serious musicians. Not the trite West Coast icons courting surf bunnies.  That is the difference. 

I thought I would faint, when I heard them being played, in a boutique in Harvard Square, (smirking smugly to myself.)

They weren't "square," on hippie radio. It was impossible.  And, the beginning of an inexorable brush fire in a drought.  I bet they were not even fully aware of what was happening.  They were on FM.  Unheard of. Hip FM.  Pet Sounds, as well.  On FM!

Right again, you have touched on something that I've seen overlooked in even the most in depth Beach Boys bios.  Their courting of the counterculture was a brave move.  They could have easily turned into the Buckinghams in 1967 and cranked out a slew of "Darlin"-styled blue eyed soul singles and had some consistent chart success.  (I love "Darlin'" by the way.)  But instead they pushed themselves creatively as a band.  Pet Sounds is a completely different album from Smiley is a completely different album from Wild Honey is a completely different album from Friends and so on.

There were a lot of fab bands in the sixties, but how many would re-invent themselves from album to album and still create a wholly satisfying body of work?  Maybe Dylan, Beatles, the Who, the Stones (Aftermath-Let It Bleed)... The very top tier.

That Joe Public couldn't swing with it was their own damn fault.  The good folks programming hip underground FM stations knew better, and they programmed what they wanted to.  An album like Smiley Smile fit perfectly into what they were trying to accomplish.  The problem was most of those stations had a 50 mile radius on a good day, and were only based out of the biggest markets.  In the mid 70s that would all change, but the real "heads" knew where it was at, and Smiley was revered in certain hip circles, paving the way for the ultimate (relative) success of the Surf's Up LP.

Mike's robes were really not that far out, if you look at the hip cultural trends of 1969.  Ever seen pictures of Peter Green and Danny Kirwan from that era?

Thanks, Jason...it is one of those difficult things to "project yourself into the past" with a book or video, or History of Rock and Roll intro course.  And that is what is often going on.  That is not intended to insult anyone's body of study.  But, no more could I go back and relive (nor would I desire to) live in the 1950's la-la land of stereotypical life, can someone who did not experience, hands-on what was really going on during those turmultous, war-driven years of real rock and roll. 

And, this forum is for music discussion.  I like to think of a person's private life, as private, and largely off limits.  They are "ours" whe they are onstage, and via a recording or video, but, go back to their private lives, when they go off stage. 

Yes, filledeplage is a girl!  We need more, as ladies are badly outnumbered.  Or, not. 

That made my day! 

More foreign language classes! 

[Amanda Hart]

Spot on.  I've only read a few of your posts here, but I feel like you have a better working understanding of the subtle dynamic of the Beach Boys than so many others I read on the boards.  No offense intended towards any posters here of course, but I read a lot of BB information throughout the whole of the internet written by people who are certain they have it figured out what band member X was thinking when they did action Y and so on.  Maybe I present a bit of that vibe too, but I feel like what I say comes more through an understanding of the human condition-- as relates to the brothers Wilson and their cadre-- and I sense that same understanding in what you post.

At any rate, I think it's important we all should all strive for higher understanding.  Of course this stuff is fun to speculate about, but in the end Mike was a guy who said what he thought, while Brian was outwardly shy but quite passive/ aggressive when he wanted to be.  No heroes, no villains.  Just shades of grey.  I just want to reiterate that Mike's 1969 apparel had nothing to do in the way of drugs or the condoning of their usage.  If anything it was a holistic, opposite approach.

Thanks, Jason. Are you trying to make nice with all the ladies this morning by complimenting our posts?   

At the base of it all, of course they are humans. I find the Lovester to be so interesting. Even though he has this huge rock star ego, I think the band still comes first for him and always has. I know I brought this point up a few years ago during a discussion about Mike and Dennis' relationship and got some heat for it, but I think it really illustrates Mike's professionalism and band-first attitude. During this late '60s time frame, one of his band mates, who also happened to be his first cousin, slept with his wife. Can you imagine? Think about how unbelievably upset you would be if your spouse was boning someone else. I wouldn't be able to be around that person, but here Mike was playing music with him on a near nightly basis. I don't want to get into a whole thing about that situation, but I think it illustrates the ridiculous lengths Mike went to because he believed in the band.

Obviously I don't agree with a lot of decisions that Mike as made in the past 50 years, but I have tremendous respect for him. There was a lot of chaos going on around him at all times during his adult life, so if he gets a little weird sometimes to deal with it, who cares? If he was writing "All I Wanna Do" in 1969, I don't care what he wore or how he spent his free time.

[guitarfool2002]

One point that stands out about 1969 through maybe 1974 was Mike's demeanor: Is it just me or did it seem like he was acting stoned a lot of the time? I'm not being facetious or trying to stir something up, but I'm just curious if others may see that too. This was someone who was anti-drug in 65-66 and there is some proof of that both from that time and later interviews, yet a few years later that same guy is on stage acting and talking like an experienced stoner. Was this playing to the crowd? Or was it something to do with the TM studies? Even the Mike heard and seen in Hawaii 1967 sounds different from the bearded and white-robe wearing Mike of a few years later. And isn't it true that he did not take drugs at that time?

Craig, I've re-read your post several times, so that I can adequately get to the heart of what you're getting at.  Hopefully this can answer your question:  Mike in the mid-sixties was a dilettante, a dabbler.  He was never immersed in the drug culture and had a healthy suspicion of those who were (Schwartz, V.D. Parks and whomever else) .  It doesn't mean he was a choir boy as you clearly understand, but he probably toked up a bit here or there to see what all the fuss was about.  Regardless the extent of his drug use, clearly it did not come to dominate his life, but when he was exposed to TM for the first time in 1968 it all changed.

Whether or not you or anyone views TM as a crutch, a sham or a divine source of enlightenment, one thing is for sure:  the teachings as read in The Science of Being and The Art of Living absolutely frown upon the use of external inhibitants to achieve enlightenment.  For someone who is a willing student of TM, meditation is the only way to get in touch with Being, aka cosmic consciousness.  And since we know Mike was and to this day is a huge practitioner of Maharishi's teachings, it only makes sense that he would have followed the path so to speak and gone on the straight and narrow.

A lot has been made of the Mike/ Al nexus as pertaining to the eventualities that went down in 1978.  While Mike and Alan are consistently viewed as the squares who stood in the way of the Carl/ Dennis progressive nexus, not many people seem to consider that the negative karma of the Wilson drug lust was negatively impacting the positive, drug-free, uplifting ideals of the meditation practitioners.  Simply put, as someone who practices meditation myself in the hopes of achieving a slight bit of enlightenment, the last thing I want around me is a bunch of junkies, hangers-on and soul suckers trying to bring me down from my aspirations.  It's a perfectly valid argument!

All of this I guess is a roundabout way of saying, Mike in 1969 was trying to achieve an ideal with his robes and beard.  We can laugh today at how silly he looked, but I would still bet heavily that he was doing his best to keep clean; and if you listen to his patter from most of the shows of the era, his tone is that of the "big brother" who has seen the damage drugs can cause and was trying to advise his younger peers, in a non-judgmental way, to steer clear of that sh*t.

A well-reasoned and well-thought out post! Great points. I'm of the mind if someone finds something that affects their life in a positive way, and helps them find that elusive inner peace and satisfies that search for something more, then more power to that individual. Whether it be a traditional religion like Christianity or Buddhism, a study of meditation, or any other worthy pursuit, they should definitely aim for their goal of spirituality, inner peace, knowledge, relaxation, or anything else.

I do see something else that wasn't mentioned with Mike in all of these posts: As much as he was pursuing his goal, through TM, that pursuit did actually affect the band more than once in a public way. There are a few cases where Mike's fasting caused him to act erratically, to the point where he could not perform live and in the case of the R&R Hall Of Fame, where he went off on a rant that - agree or not with his sentiments and opinions in that speech - it did become a negative PR issue for the band as people began to hear and read accounts of it. Howard Stern would actually open his show regularly around 6AM at that time with a collage of sound clips that included Mike's speech. It wasn't good press for them, and whether Mike was right, it probably wasn't the right forum to get up and say that. Besides interrupting Brian and futzing with his microphone. It just didn't look right.

Add those into perhaps a few or many more examples of this, and not only did the substance abuse issues affect the band as a whole, but also Mike's fasting which led to erratic behavior which also affected the band. I don't like relativism, comparing apples to oranges so both look the same in the end, but the TM as good as it may have been for Mike had also caused harm to the band, which was part of the issue of mentioning the substance abuse as it related to how the band was affected.

Perhaps the bottom line is that as big as they were as stars, these were and are human beings with the same issues everyone faces, and there but for the grace of God go we...

I've written enough already, but wanted to mention the radio airplay as well...later.

One important thing to mention as well is that at that time, it was not entirely out of place to see men going for the Jesus look, for lack of a better term. "Jesus Christ Superstar", the Jesus freak pseudo-movement, folks looking to various interpretations of Christianity in the wake of trying and failing to find what they were looking for through chemical means - it actually became part of a movement to make Jesus cool. I really don't like using that phrase, but it's as close as I can find to a description.

One scene from All In The Family that stands out was when Mike brought home some college friends who were into Jesus in the way I mentioned above, and Archie tore into them, saying things like "Jesus is the Lord, not a superstar!". You had to see it to get how funny it was on the show.

But seeing guys with long beards, sandals, and robes, and looking very religious in 1970-71 was not as unusual as it seems today, depending on where you lived.

[Wilson Love]

By 1969 Mike Love was in the centre of his own universe. His ego had been swelled beyond what can be considered normal for a pop/rock artist. His white robe jesus look and eccentric stage personality damaged the reputation of the band. I think that ended witht he Sunflower/SU era. Someone prob told him to shut up (I suspect Dennis) and one sees a much more reclusive figure of Mike in the early 70's. Perhaps he realised that Dennis and Carl really were the main guys. The Inclusion of Ricky and Blondie along with expulsion of friend Bruce probably contributed as well. Thank God.

"Damaged the reputation of the band"? You obviously weren't around back then, were you?

I was and he did. Rock and Roll's original jack ass. Nobody's done it as well as Myke.

Then you must not have been paying much attention to the bands reputation and career in '68-'69. And if you're that down on "Myke" as you oddly call him, how'd you ever effin' get to be a Beach Boys fan in the first place?

[oldsurferdude]

"Effin" Wilson, Wilson, Wilson, Jardine and Marks-that's how I got into 'em. Luhv never did it for me if that's ok with you, and even if it isn't.

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

What about Brooce?

[Magic Transistor Radio]

Personally, when I am watching a video of the Beach Boys in a concert from the late 60s through the 70s, my eyes are drawn to Mike in a completely heterosexual way.    But seriously, nobody else in the band could come close to Mike as a front man except for maybe Dennis. I am sure if Dennis was made the front man early on, he might have become better then what Mike did, but who knows. Actually, I would include Blondie Chaplin as a solid front man as well. But part of Mike's appeal for me was his beard, the clothes he wore, his sarcastic humor, etc.

[SMiLE Brian]

What about Brooce?

Its Bruth in OSD terms.

[SBonilla]

...nobody else in the band could come close to Mike as a front man except for maybe Dennis...

Dennis was charismatic, but he didn't move that well and he was moody. Mike was the only one that worked the stage, danced and nearly always kept up his front man persona. And while some of his moves and patter were at times hokey, it worked.

While I liked hearing Dennis introduce songs and seeing him in the front lineup, he wasn't qualified for for the front man role. That job required responsibility

[Wilson Love]

"Effin" Wilson, Wilson, Wilson, Jardine and Marks-that's how I got into 'em. Luhv never did it for me if that's ok with you, and even if it isn't.

Wow, that's quite a feat. Did you just not listen to the songs with Mikes' lead vocals, or to say it another way, 3/4 of their early catalogue. And how about all of those pesky backing vocals of his in the other songs?
BTW, is that the "olde English" spelling of Mikes' name you're using?

[Wilson Love]

Myke, Alle, Bruth, Dennise, Brhyan, and Carrrl.

[oldsurferdude]

"Effin" Wilson, Wilson, Wilson, Jardine and Marks-that's how I got into 'em. Luhv never did it for me if that's ok with you, and even if it isn't.

Wow, that's quite a feat. Did you just not listen to the songs with Mikes' lead vocals, or to say it another way, 3/4 of their early catalogue. And how about all of those pesky backing vocals of his in the other songs?
BTW, is that the "olde English" spelling of Mikes' name you're using?

Uh, yeah, that's it, old english, sure. I always liked the ballads with the Brian, Carl, Dennis, and Al leads. Myke's leads were hokey and irritating-like fingernails on a chalkboard. Brian could have found someone who could have done the baldster's parts and looked more like a Beach Boy instead of a dirty old man with an ego the size of the United States.

[urbanite]

Instead of all the fluffy questions, I'd like some reporter/journalist to ask Mike about that era, his clothes, etc.  The picture of him in the white robe with flowers on the Sunflower album is odd, but admittedly it's hard to put into words all the weirdness that went on in the late 1960's and early 1970's  in America.  I remember a hippie clothing store near my house in New York called "My Thing," it sold groovy threads.