interesting article: "Mike Love states his case"

[elnombre]

When your first album in 20 years goes top 3, why would the possibility of another one not be discussed? I can't imagine any scenario where it wouldn't, but maybe that's just me.

[Cyncie]

It really is a weird piece and contradicts everything that everyone (including Mike) has said about the tour and follow up plans.  I don't know who did what to whom related to the C50. Maybe "No Pier Pressure" is a subtle dig at Mike from Brian. But, it's Mike, not Brian, who seems to be spinning out in an effort to rewrite what we know of the story. It's not pretty.

Did Brian pull in a bunch of other Beach Boys for this album? Sure. Why should they all sit around collecting belly button lint while Mike tours the Beach Boys name? They wanted to go on. He didn't. So they went on without him. I, for one, don't blame them.

Then there's Mike's transparent attempts to "out Brian" Brian this year.

Cousin Bri's got a new album coming out? So what! I've got one coming out in… ah…. a few years. Yeah.

Cousin Bri's got a book coming out? Well……. Me too! So N'yah!

Brian did a Q&A on a message board?  Well…. come on over to the newly created and creepily named "Vibe Room" and post your questions to the Lovester! (Seriously. Get a PR guy, Mike. He would have told you that "Mike Love's Vibe Room" was not a good name for a forum).

One thing is sure, though. These guys definitely need to get in a room. Not to write songs, because I think that ship has pretty much sailed. They need to sit down and settle these silly issues that keep getting played out in public, decide how they want to ultimately be remembered, set their own egos aside and do what's best for the band's legacy.

Not going to happen.

[HeyJude]

It really is a weird piece and contradicts everything that everyone (including Mike) has said about the tour and follow up plans.  I don't know who did what to whom related to the C50. Maybe "No Pier Pressure" is a subtle dig at Mike from Brian. But, it's Mike, not Brian, who seems to be spinning out in an effort to rewrite what we know of the story. It's not pretty.

Did Brian pull in a bunch of other Beach Boys for this album? Sure. Why should they all sit around collecting belly button lint while Mike tours the Beach Boys name? They wanted to go on. He didn't. So they went on without him. I, for one, don't blame them.

Then there's Mike's transparent attempts to "out Brian" Brian this year.

Cousin Bri's got a new album coming out? So what! I've got one coming out in… ah…. a few years. Yeah.

Cousin Bri's got a book coming out? Well……. Me too! So N'yah!

Brian did a Q&A on a message board?  Well…. come on over to the newly created and creepily named "Vibe Room" and post your questions to the Lovester! (Seriously. Get a PR guy, Mike. He would have told you that "Mike Love's Vibe Room" was not a good name for a forum).

One thing is sure, though. These guys definitely need to get in a room. Not to write songs, because I think that ship has pretty much sailed. They need to sit down and settle these silly issues that keep getting played out in public, decide how they want to ultimately be remembered, set their own egos aside and do what's best for the band's legacy.

Not going to happen.

As Howie Edelson has pointed out numerous times, this happens because the *band* doesn’t have management. They apparently have a guy that runs BRI (Elliott Lott), but they don’t have a manager that appears to even attempt to get all the guys on the same page, even during times when they can’t or won’t work actively together. As Edelson has mentioned, there are other unifying things they could be doing (merchandising, getting songs in movies, in other words, improving the BRAND) even if they aren’t working together.

It’s just sad. Does anybody think that a Mike book where his recounting of C50 reads anything like that article is going to help the chances of the guys all working together again. Is it even possible in, say, 2016, for the band to do even a tiny “Pet Sounds” tour (or whatever sort of project) while a new Mike Love book is on the shelves that says the things about Brian that Mike has said in the last couple of years. And, to some degree, the same would be true for Brian’s upcoming book. Neither book will likely help relations.

It’s far from a perfect analogy, but it probably isn’t a total coincidence that once Brian’s 1991 book came out, he went from at least occasionally appearing live with the BB’s to not playing a gig with them for five years or so. 

I’m just still astonished that Mike still portrays himself as so disenfranchised. I mean, doesn’t he have pretty much everything the way he wants it now, as far as the “Beach Boys” empire is concerned?

Why is he so concerned with Brian’s new SOLO album, the one that he will no doubt proclaim to never listen to?

[Ang Jones]

Some of the above posts just make me wish that Hey Jude was writing Mike's biography. And if Mike is going to include the sort of comments made in this article perhaps a change of title would be in order because those Good Vibrations seem to  have been in short supply upon occasion.

[HeyJude]

Some of the above posts just make me wish that Hey Jude was writing Mike's biography. And if Mike is going to include the sort of comments made in this article perhaps a change of title would be in order because those Good Vibrations seem to  have been in short supply upon occasion.

The thing is, I have no doubt Mike has plenty of interesting and genuinely informative and interesting things to say. But an interviewer (or autobiography co-author) has to snap the person out of the uber-defensive mode.

When it seems like someone is actually stoking those defensive flames even more by asking about the most passive of mentions in a Brian album press release that he wanted to do another BB album , then we just get more defensiveness.

Seriously, the thing comes across as if someone showed Mike a draft of the NPP press release where Brian called Mike a huge a**hole or something. 

[Amy B.]

Pretty much. I’m calling BS on this interview and Mike’s comments as well. If Mike’s book reads anything like this interview, it won’t answer or solve *anything* relating to the end of the C50. The whole interview (and I’m not exactly sure if Mike is prone to writing or saying the “NPP” acronym for Brian’s new album, that’s a bit odd) reads like a lawyer and a defensive internet Mike Love fanboy collaborated on a “response” to Brian’s new album.

If a lawyer wrote that email, he or she is not a good lawyer. It's poorly written, both in terms of the expression of ideas (it's all over the place) and the syntax. I don't know why the press release for NPP needed to mention the BBs, but if it was stirring the pot, it was doing so in a pretty innocuous way. As quotes in this thread have demonstrated, there WAS talk of a follow-up album after TWGMTR. So either Mike is remembering wrong, or he's not being truthful. But why bring it up at all?

[SMiLE Brian]

It is crazy with how many excuses Mike continues to bring up for the ending of the C50. All this stuff he keeps making up on the go is really uncovering the the real reason for why the reunion didn't work:
Mike Love

[Cyncie]

I’m just still astonished that Mike still portrays himself as so disenfranchised. I mean, doesn’t he have pretty much everything the way he wants it now, as far as the “Beach Boys” empire is concerned?

Why is he so concerned with Brian’s new SOLO album, the one that he will no doubt proclaim to never listen to?

This is what baffles me, as well. Mike made his choice to go back to the way things were. What did he expect Brian to do? Go home, curl up in a ball and cry? Brian's not that guy anymore. He picked up and moved on… without Mike. And, he moved on in grand style: movie, album, book deal. Boom! Boom! Boom!

Mike got what he wanted: The Beach Boys name and control over the touring band with no Brian Wilson. Brian moved on solo. What about that bothers Mike?

[elnombre]

If a lawyer wrote that email, he or she is not a good lawyer. It's poorly written, both in terms of the expression of ideas (it's all over the place) and the syntax. I don't know why the press release for NPP needed to mention the BBs, but if it was stirring the pot, it was doing so in a pretty innocuous way.

Because people have heard of The Beach Boys who haven't heard of Brian Wilson by name, and also because casual fans will be waiting on a follow-up to TWGMTR and will wonder why they're getting a solo album instead of that. Simple as that.

[Autotune]

Brian did a Q&A on a message board?  Well…. come on over to the newly created and creepily named "Vibe Room" and post your questions to the Lovester! (Seriously. Get a PR guy, Mike. He would have told you that "Mike Love's Vibe Room" was not a good name for a forum).

Actually:

1. Mike nods at a message board several times.

2. Brian's people put on a Q&A in it.

3. Vibe room is a cool name, if one gets rid of the supercilious, nitpicking-ad-nauseam, BW nerd fanboy pose.

4. Something happened for Mike not to like Joe. I think Joe was Mike's guy initially (1996?) but something happened during the tour.

5. Pleasure Island was to be mostly a covers album. The C50 album was going to be a covers album initially. Pleasure Island, perhaps. People that heard "Rave on" and other covers post TLOS praised them. Brian mentioned he had arrangement ideas for Honeycomb (in a group interview, 2012). Why shouldn't Mike be stoked to work with Brian on an album of favorites from their youth?

[Autotune]

Some of the above posts just make me wish that Hey Jude was writing Mike's biography.

Then it would probably be too long.

[Cyncie]

Brian did a Q&A on a message board?  Well…. come on over to the newly created and creepily named "Vibe Room" and post your questions to the Lovester! (Seriously. Get a PR guy, Mike. He would have told you that "Mike Love's Vibe Room" was not a good name for a forum).

Actually:


3. Vibe room is a cool name, if one gets rid of the supercilious, nitpicking-ad-nauseam, BW nerd fanboy pose.

That's a Beach Boys FanGIRL, and as a GIRL I find the name creepy. And who's being supercilious here?

[SMiLE Brian]

What happens in the vibe room, stays in the vibe room. 

[HeyJude]

Mentioning the Beach Boys (and not just Brian being a founding member) and specifically referencing the demise of the 2012 reunion in the NPP press release is not inappropriate at all.

Joe Thomas has mentioned in an interview that least one song on the album may have been specifically informed by and/or influenced by the demise of the BB reunion. Additionally, if Brian wrote (or did additional writing, or arranged) any of these tunes with the BBs in mind, that’s worth mentioning as well.

In a more general sense, the press release describes Brian’s train of thought and where his thinking was going back a few years. Brian came off the 2012 tour with a bag of songs and hoping/thinking it could form the basis for another BB album. Then, as the press release extremely PASSIVELY mentions, that was “not to be”, so Brian decided to push through and reformat his vision for the project. I figured this was specifically mentioned in the press release because it was a specific change to how Joe Thomas described Brian’s ethos for some of the “TWGMTR” songs. That is, going back as far as 1998 at least, Brian was specifically setting aside tracks as “Beach Boys” tracks that he refused to cut as solo tracks. I always found that very slightly poignant, because it was clear at that time that Brian didn’t have a huge desire to work with them. Yet, he still set aside some tracks. So with this new album, he did NOT do the same thing. They are indeed making it sound like at least some of these songs were specifically targeted as BB tracks, and then Brian decided to cut them anyway as solo tracks and/or duet or guest vocal tracks.

Make no mistake, Brian’s camp makes “statements” too. The 2013 “BAD” tour was certainly one. “No Pier Pressure” could easily be a dig, maybe at specific people, or maybe just exasperation with the demise of the reunion. But for chrisssakes, the album isn’t called “No Peer Pressure from that D**khead Mike Love.”

[SMiLE Brian]

The problem is that Mike imagines its called “No Peer Pressure from that D**khead Mike Love.” and sends out lawsuits accordingly. For a man who cheated the founder of the BBs out of the group and keep the name, Mike Love is a miserable man.

[HeyJude]

Why shouldn't Mike be stoked to work with Brian on an album of favorites from their youth?

Setting aside the argument that it’s more artistically valid, and/or more interesting for fans, to do an album of NEW material instead of lazily doing a covers album (which sounds like a good “bonus disc” idea or something), I think one theoretical argument is that it wouldn’t be so much that Mike is excited about doing an album of covers, but rather could be more off-put by an album of NEW songs where only a few have his name on them, and where the vast majority have Joe Thomas’ name.

[Ang Jones]

No PIer Pressure - I think that spelling of 'pier' is not accidental. Perhaps Brian is making a point 'I, not my peers'

[bossaroo]

the Rolling Stone article stated that 28 songs were recorded during TWGMTR sessions. that's enough for two more freaking albums! I love how Mike forgets all of these facts that were reported and published, and thinks he can just have a clean slate every time he opens his mouth to defend his pathetic self. he contradicts his own previous statements as much as anyone else's. what a guy.

[CenturyDeprived]

Mike is the king of straw grabs. There's more straw-grabbing going on here than at the root beer stand from Chug A Lug.

[urbanite]

Maybe he sounds defensive because so much criticism has been directed towards him.  He has a right to set the record straight every now and then.  Personally, I think all the members of the band should forget about 2012 and move one, it's pointless to rehash their falling out.

[Generation42]

"... as I understand it, I could be wrong, but the suites, per Joe, for TWGMTR and NPP is the result of their collaborations from many years ago."

Interesting...

"I will elaborate more on the 50th anniversary and it's end in my book."

Fascinating...

Interesting, indeed.

Two things, actually.

One, that Mike hints the suite tracks date from "many years ago."  I know that's a sort of vague statement, but I thought the suite tracks were rather recent?

The second interesting thing is, of course, the notion that NPP may contain suite material.


And oh, I sure hope so.  Ever since we first heard word of a "Life Suite" I was interested.

And then when I actually listened to the suite tracks on TWGMTR, my interest in hearing the rest of the piece went from a case of "anticipation," to a state of full-blown, unabashed desperation.  


Fast-forward to NPP.  When the track listing for the various editions of Brian's new album was first published, I recall someone here suggesting that the three additional tracks on the deluxe version might have come from the suite.  Maybe they were right, after all?

Whatever the case may be, I just hope that any suite tracks on the new album will be acknowledged as such, officially.

And then I'd very much want to know whether we'd heard the entire suite, or if there is still more yet to come?

And finally, if we ever do have the entire suite made available, I'd very much like to know Brian's suggested running order for the darned thing!

[HeyJude]

I read through the article again, and one point I initially missed out on was Mike contending that Brian didn’t write the press release. Setting aside the fact that he seems oddly touchy about the simple passing mention of a Beach Boys album that was “not to be”, I’m left pondering the following: Does Mike write all of his press releases personally? Of course other people write these things. The pertinent parties approve it. I would imagine Brian would not have approved anything that said something negative about Mike Love. The press release doesn’t mention Mike Love at all. The press release simply mentions that, in Brian’s mind, he was hoping/considering another BB album. Even if *everything* Mike says here is accurate and nobody ever discussed another album (even though someone already produced a 2012 interview where Mike specifically says they HAD discussed another album), what would possibly be wrong with Brian, in a press release for his own album, mentioning that he had envisioned another BB album?

While we know the reason a BB album was “not to be”, the press release doesn’t elaborate on that at all. A non-fan reading that would have no idea why it was not to be, or who to blame, or even if blame needed to be placed.

It’s interesting that Mike seems so aghast at the album press release, within an interview in which he makes much more obvious negative comments about Joe Thomas and Brian. The bit about how Brian couldn’t have written the press release is just another in a long line of interviews where there is a passive or direct implication that others are controlling Brian.

Objectively, Mike’s interview is FAR more inflammatory than the press release for NPP.

[ontor pertawst]

Yeah, I don't get this pre-emptive damage control. I guess David Beard means well but he seems to be making it worse for EVERYONE, most of all Mike Love. Nobody who wasn't already swilling Bruce's prize Pacifico already would walk away from this piece with a positive impression. What kind of Vibe Room is this, I ask you!

Looking forward to his outbursts about the movie.

The comments at the bottom are a hoot. So who is who?

"weak. Mike either really doesn't get it, or has a really hard time being honest. It's no secret that Brian wanted to continue touring and recording as a Beach Boy after the success of the C50 tour and TWGMTR's top 3 status.

It was also stated at the time that although Brian had originally envisioned the album to be their last (with a title of Summer's Gone) he changed his mind after working with everyone in the studio. He really thought (as did millions of fans the world over) that the band was going to continue forward with all the surviving members. It seemed a perfect last chapter to this, America's greatest band led by one of its greatest composers, rich and storied career.

But after all Mike's crowing during the reunion about "the whole being greater than the sum of its parts" and it feeling "just like 1965" in the studio, we are once again subjected to the fraud that is Love, Johnston, and Stamos masquerading as The Beach Boys on a nightly basis... while the man who wrote Pet Sounds and every hit the band ever had (but one) is forced to pursue a solo career.

Seeing as Brian's new album contains at least twice as many Beach Boys as the Mike Love Show, I think the truth is clear to most anyone who's been paying attention... despite disingenuous and backpedaling "articles" such as this."

"Its obvious that Brian Wilson and Al Jardine are the Beach Boys. Mike Love is just a greedy, self-serving jerk who got lucky and hired excellent lawyers."

at least one good one: "Thanks for the article, nice to hear Mike's side of things."

"There's nothing nice about the self-serving bull he coughs up."

"What a creep. Mike Love keeps digging a bigger hole for himself. Maybe he can invite John Stamos into the hole instead of Brian."

"Mike's 2017 album will be called No Pisces Pressure."

"David Beard, washroom attendant of Club Kokomo... putting out fires. Most of it doesn't even sound like Mike Love. I wonder who actually came up with this drivel... all ending in a plug for his book. Act now before it's pulped! Hopefully no autotune? Says the guy who needs help with his vocals. Listen to the first shows of C50, Mike was singing through some processing himself. He sounded like an Autobot on "Don't Back Down."

Now he tries to pretend those offers for further shows were nebulous or he never saw them? Yeah, he'll never see them again either. He didn't get the deal in writing? The professionals were dealing with that while he was off pointing at people and trying to sleep with girls a third his age. He can take his cutrate hasbeen act to some Indian casinos and chicken wing parties. Nobody from MSG is going to be buggin' him in this lifetime. Now go meditate, Michael Edward! On an ego so big no baseball cap can hide it: unlike baldness."

""Joe" is mentioned five times in this article ... who is "Joe"?"

"I was hoping for more from Mike Love. Rather than ruminate with the interviewer on the potential of working with his cousin again, he resorts to technicalities about contracts and gig bookings."

"BOO. I'd love to throw rotting garbage at this guy."

Well. I guess that damage control is gonna need some tweaks.

[DonnyL]

I think it's interesting that Mike Love is opposed to Autotune, and noticed it's detrimental affect on the 2012 BB record.

[elnombre]

Regardless the dig about Al and autotune certainly seemed unneccessary. The rest reads to me like someone defending themselves against something they weren't actually accused of. Not by Brian or that press release anyway.