Why do you hate Mike Love?

[filledeplage]

Every print and electronic media source is subject to scrutiny and bias.

You say the story wasn't fact-checked - you know this for a fact? Uhhhh no you don't. I'd be hard pressed to believe the reporter (who again works for the most respected and well known and 2nd most circulated newspaper of all time) didn't call up Mike and/or fax the story over to give Mike the chance to deny it and tell his side of the story. That's how it's usually done when it comes to major newspapers. But great that you magically know this story wasn't fact-checked.

I still don't understand how Park's getting some trivial facts wrong on a few Twitter posts has anything to do with him recalling a story from 8 years prior.

Those twitter posts are apparently there to educate the public.  And, they are false. Those are two I picked up on because I've done some research in both areas.

And, I don't put too much stock in the LA Times.  They (the media) are subject to error and manipulation like ABC news and George Stephanopoulos, being a Clinton operative and donor to the Clinton foundation and still working the political beat. Unbiased? Not. I think it is naive to think the media is all on the level.

Again, you still aren't telling me what some trivial wrong facts from a few Twitter posts in 2014+ has to do with a newspaper article in the New York Times from the year 2000. You keep monotonously reiterating this Twitter argument without making a clear connection between the two.

As for your outlook on certain newspapers and news outlets, I couldn't care less what your opinion is about them. I see that Mike has never publicly denied this story, nor was the NYTs forced to the redact the story. And it's a pretty popular story that has circulated numerous times on this very board that Mike supposedly reads while he eats his Wheaties in the morning. So again, I'm hard pressed to believe that this is all a fabrication.

Whatever the story is, doesn't affect me.  So I don't care.

Posts #379, #382, #386, and #393 refute that.

Rab-he made two boo-boos in less than a week. He was called out on the Abner Doubleday on his twitter. I'm won't be joining twitter to joust with him.  He can't even tell you what his lyrics mean. Fans wondered for decades, what do they mean. It is not unimportant.

Where is the cred of a lyricist who cannot explain his work? Writers can generally tell where their imagery is coming from or what inspired them. He can't.

That is three strikes in my book!

He is O-U-T!  

Three strikes and VDP is out according to you. How many strikes does it take to get Mike out?

As for the Cabinessence lyric, sometimes we have to search for our own meanings, which doesn't mean the lyricist didn't include them. This from Wikipedia:

"Over and over the crow cries uncover the cornfield
Over and over the thresher and hovers the wheatfield

"If the listener rearranges the last half of each line, they get "over and over the crow cries and hovers the wheatfield / over and over the thresher uncovers the cornfield", which makes them clearer. Parks penned additional lyrics to Cabinessence not heard on any official release, nor bootlegged. They are unknown to have ever been recorded during tracking sessions..."

[\quote] (quote)
VDP is the one complaining. Not Mike.  And, whatever happened (which I don't care about) it was hardly discrete of Parks not to resolve his dealings privately.  Or, file a claim and arrive at a settlement. Adults in business conduct themselves accordingly.

[rab2591]

Rab - it wasn't my story to fact check.

I never said it was lol. You're the one claiming the story wasn't fact-checked. You have no basis for this claim.

[SMiLE Brian]

All this defense and blaming other people for Mike being a cheap scumbag. What is the point of defending this nasal lounge singer?

[filledeplage]

Rab - it wasn't my story to fact check.

I never said it was lol. You're the one claiming the story wasn't fact-checked. You have no basis for this claim.

"The Beach Boys are riding their biggest wave in two decades. They're coming off their first No.1 single in 22 years("Kokomo") "genius" Brian Wilson is back in the fold, they've re-turned to Capitol Records and are on the road with Chicago for a hot ticket summer tour." LATimes

No - not fact checked. Brian was not on Kokomo. The reader is led to believe otherwise.

[rab2591]

Rab - it wasn't my story to fact check.

I never said it was lol. You're the one claiming the story wasn't fact-checked. You have no basis for this claim.

"The Beach Boys are riding their biggest wave in two decades. They're coming off their first No.1 single in 22 years("Kokomo") "genius" Brian Wilson is back in the fold, they've re-turned to Capitol Records and are on the road with Chicago for a hot ticket summer tour." LATimes

No - not fact checked. Brian was not on Kokomo. The reader is led to believe otherwise.

What on earth are you talking about? We're discussing quotes by Van Dyke Parks from an article in the New York Times from the year 2000. Not an LA Times article from 1989.

[Mike's Beard]

  SIP: the worst album ever released by a major rock band. The fact that it has been disowned by its makers tells you the whole story.

Again, if it was completely disowned why was a live recording of it's title track included on the career spanning MIC box?

[filledeplage]

Rab - it wasn't my story to fact check.

I never said it was lol. You're the one claiming the story wasn't fact-checked. You have no basis for this claim.

"The Beach Boys are riding their biggest wave in two decades. They're coming off their first No.1 single in 22 years("Kokomo") "genius" Brian Wilson is back in the fold, they've re-turned to Capitol Records and are on the road with Chicago for a hot ticket summer tour." LATimes

No - not fact checked. Brian was not on Kokomo. The reader is led to believe otherwise.

What on earth are you talking about? We're discussing quotes by Van Dyke Parks from an article in the New York Times from the year 2000. Not an LA Times article from 1989.

The article that I was referring to is on page 15 of this thread. Posted by mod Guitarfool. It is clear, authenticated. Dated.

What you're referring to is a one paragraph "whatever," merged among other commentary. No author that I could find. No precise date.

[rab2591]

SIP: the worst album ever released by a major rock band. The fact that it has been disowned by its makers tells you the whole story.

Again, if it was completely disowned why was a live recording of it's title track included on the career spanning MIC box?

Moon Dawg said the album has been disowned. And it has been...it is no longer sold. If that same live version of the title track had been on the studio album your argument would actually have merit.

[filledeplage]

Rab - it wasn't my story to fact check.

I never said it was lol. You're the one claiming the story wasn't fact-checked. You have no basis for this claim.

"The Beach Boys are riding their biggest wave in two decades. They're coming off their first No.1 single in 22 years("Kokomo") "genius" Brian Wilson is back in the fold, they've re-turned to Capitol Records and are on the road with Chicago for a hot ticket summer tour." LATimes

No - not fact checked. Brian was not on Kokomo. The reader is led to believe otherwise.

What on earth are you talking about? We're discussing quotes by Van Dyke Parks from an article in the New York Times from the year 2000. Not an LA Times article from 1989.

That is the LA Times paragraph 1. Inaccurate. No Brian on Kokomo.

[Mike's Beard]

SIP: the worst album ever released by a major rock band. The fact that it has been disowned by its makers tells you the whole story.

Again, if it was completely disowned why was a live recording of it's title track included on the career spanning MIC box?

Moon Dawg said the album has been disowned. And it has been...it is no longer sold. If that same live version of the title track had been on the studio album your argument would actually have merit.

No the fact that they chose to feature a live version of a song from that album when they could have picked 1000 different songs from any other time period proves that they are not totally ignoring it's existence.

[rab2591]

filledeplage, let me refresh your memory:

Exactly. It's no contest. KTSA, BB85, Still Cruisin all had hits and charting songs on them (Wipeout, Getcha Back, Goin On, etc). Each of these albums charted. Again, that Summer in Paradise was the first Beach Boys studio album that failed to chart says a lot - not to mention most critics, fans, Beach Boys historians call it their worst album as well. Not to mention it's not sold anymore. Not to mention no one in the Beach Boys management seems to be eager to re-release it.

Lest we forget how godawful the lyrics are on some of these songs:

"Yeah I'll take you to the movies
But I'm no fool
First I'll get you on the beach
Or in a swimming pool
Doing unto others is the Golden Rule
But doing it with you would be so
Very cool"

I think Peter Carlin put it best, "But even the lite-metal guitars on Dennis's once-understated ballad weren't quote as painful as Mike's "Summer of Love" which climaxed, so to speak, in a hail of yucky sexual references (Mike in Señor Suave mode, crooning about the joys of doing "it" in disparate, summery venues, including a beach and a swimming pool) that seem designed to excite the wrath of the same Parents Music Resource Center Mike had once supported."

And partially getting back on the main topic at hand: this was the same album that featured Van Dyke Parks playing accordion on one song....here is part of that story from a 2000 article:

"Parks recalls he saw Love one final time when Melcher called him to Monterey to play synthesizer on the Beach Boys' final album, recorded without Brian, 1992's dreadful Summer in Paradise. A neighbor offered to fly the musician to Monterey in his one-engine plane if Parks agreed to cover gas and other expenses. When he got there, Love was meditating in Melcher's living room. "For the first time in 30 years, he was able to ask me directly, once again, 'What do those lyrics -- Over and over the crow flies, uncover the cornfield -- mean?'" Parks said about that meeting in '95. "And I was  able to tell him, once again, 'I don't know.' I have no idea what those words mean. I was perhaps thinking of Van Gogh's wheat field or an idealized agrarian environment. Maybe I meant nothing, but I was trying to follow Brian Wilson's vision at that time." Parks says Love asked if he could fly back to L.A. in the plane with him. "We had a nice chat and he insisted that he wanted to split the cost of the flight with me, so he gave me a card with his number on it. The next morning, I called to discover it was a disconnected number. And that was the last time I saw Mike Love.""

And from last month's PR 'I-Need-To-Back-Pedal-And-Let-People-Know-I-Love-Brian' bonanza:
“By the way,” Johnston chimes in, “he plays a 100-year-old accordion on ‘Kokomo.’ ”
“That certainly gives a lie to this idea that we don’t like Van Dyke,” - Mike Love

ok Mike

And notice even the New York Times writer calls Summer in Paradise "dreadful" - HE MUST BE A BRIANISTA

It's hard to take VDP verbatim after all the crap he's been posting recently. I think it's a poetic license in order to stab ML and fulfill his fixation with Mike.

Exactly- it is not fact checked.

You not only quote Autotune's post but my post as well. Autotune was clearly referring to my Van Dyke Parks story in his quote. You agreed with him that the story wasn't fact-checked. There isn't one single mention of Van Dyke Parks in your LA Times article yet that is the only thing we've been arguing about this entire time...so why you'd even bring up the LA Times article not being fact-checked in your discourse with me is way beyond me.

edit: noticed Autotune never said the story wasn't fact-checked, you are the only one to make that baseless assertion.

[rab2591]

SIP: the worst album ever released by a major rock band. The fact that it has been disowned by its makers tells you the whole story.

Again, if it was completely disowned why was a live recording of it's title track included on the career spanning MIC box?

Moon Dawg said the album has been disowned. And it has been...it is no longer sold. If that same live version of the title track had been on the studio album your argument would actually have merit.

No the fact that they chose to feature a live version of a song from that album when they could have picked 1000 different songs from any other time period proves that they are not totally ignoring it's existence.

That there are no studio versions of any song from SIP on MIC makes it obvious they did ignore the studio albums existence.

[filledeplage]

filledeplage, let me refresh your memory:

Exactly. It's no contest. KTSA, BB85, Still Cruisin all had hits and charting songs on them (Wipeout, Getcha Back, Goin On, etc). Each of these albums charted. Again, that Summer in Paradise was the first Beach Boys studio album that failed to chart says a lot - not to mention most critics, fans, Beach Boys historians call it their worst album as well. Not to mention it's not sold anymore. Not to mention no one in the Beach Boys management seems to be eager to re-release it.

Lest we forget how godawful the lyrics are on some of these songs:

"Yeah I'll take you to the movies
But I'm no fool
First I'll get you on the beach
Or in a swimming pool
Doing unto others is the Golden Rule
But doing it with you would be so
Very cool"

I think Peter Carlin put it best, "But even the lite-metal guitars on Dennis's once-understated ballad weren't quote as painful as Mike's "Summer of Love" which climaxed, so to speak, in a hail of yucky sexual references (Mike in Señor Suave mode, crooning about the joys of doing "it" in disparate, summery venues, including a beach and a swimming pool) that seem designed to excite the wrath of the same Parents Music Resource Center Mike had once supported."

And partially getting back on the main topic at hand: this was the same album that featured Van Dyke Parks playing accordion on one song....here is part of that story from a 2000 article:

"Parks recalls he saw Love one final time when Melcher called him to Monterey to play synthesizer on the Beach Boys' final album, recorded without Brian, 1992's dreadful Summer in Paradise. A neighbor offered to fly the musician to Monterey in his one-engine plane if Parks agreed to cover gas and other expenses. When he got there, Love was meditating in Melcher's living room. "For the first time in 30 years, he was able to ask me directly, once again, 'What do those lyrics -- Over and over the crow flies, uncover the cornfield -- mean?'" Parks said about that meeting in '95. "And I was  able to tell him, once again, 'I don't know.' I have no idea what those words mean. I was perhaps thinking of Van Gogh's wheat field or an idealized agrarian environment. Maybe I meant nothing, but I was trying to follow Brian Wilson's vision at that time." Parks says Love asked if he could fly back to L.A. in the plane with him. "We had a nice chat and he insisted that he wanted to split the cost of the flight with me, so he gave me a card with his number on it. The next morning, I called to discover it was a disconnected number. And that was the last time I saw Mike Love.""

And from last month's PR 'I-Need-To-Back-Pedal-And-Let-People-Know-I-Love-Brian' bonanza:
“By the way,” Johnston chimes in, “he plays a 100-year-old accordion on ‘Kokomo.’ ”
“That certainly gives a lie to this idea that we don’t like Van Dyke,” - Mike Love

ok Mike

And notice even the New York Times writer calls Summer in Paradise "dreadful" - HE MUST BE A BRIANISTA

It's hard to take VDP verbatim after all the crap he's been posting recently. I think it's a poetic license in order to stab ML and fulfill his fixation with Mike.

Exactly- it is not fact checked.

You not only quote Autotune's post but my post as well. Autotune was clearly referring to my Van Dyke Parks story in his quote. You agreed with him that the story wasn't fact-checked. There isn't one single mention of Van Dyke Parks in your LA Times article yet that is the only thing we've been arguing about this entire time...so why you'd even bring up the LA Times article not being fact-checked in your discourse with me is way beyond me.

Rab - if I am in error, mea culpa.

The facts remain that the media is largely unreliable.

If you want a NY Times article in the mix, follow GF's lead. Copy the whole article.

There is an April 6, 1984 NY Times article where Parks refers to himself as a "wounded cult hero of the 1960's music racket."
Written by Stephen Holden.

[Mike's Beard]

SIP: the worst album ever released by a major rock band. The fact that it has been disowned by its makers tells you the whole story.

Again, if it was completely disowned why was a live recording of it's title track included on the career spanning MIC box?

Moon Dawg said the album has been disowned. And it has been...it is no longer sold. If that same live version of the title track had been on the studio album your argument would actually have merit.

No the fact that they chose to feature a live version of a song from that album when they could have picked 1000 different songs from any other time period proves that they are not totally ignoring it's existence.

That there are no studio versions of any song from SIP on MIC makes it obvious they did ignore the studio albums existence.

If I was going to ignore an album's existence I would not be featuring material drawn from it be it a demo, live recording or the actual studio recording.

[Moon Dawg]

  SIP: the worst album ever released by a major rock band. The fact that it has been disowned by its makers tells you the whole story.

Again, if it was completely disowned why was a live recording of it's title track included on the career spanning MIC box?

  Why was it omitted from the band's official C50 discography?

[Mike's Beard]

No idea but I'm guessing you and Rab will draw your own conclusions.
We do know that a label called Brother Entertainment was set up to handle it and that a company called Navarre distributed it. Navarre went belly up a long time ago so it's a mystery who owns the rights to SIP. It could be in litigation hell for all I know. Or whoever owns it wants more money to license it then Capitol are willing to pay (hence why a live version of SIP was included on MIC).

It's also worth a mention that Stars & Stripes (remember that album that Brian helped produce) is omitted from the band's official C50 discography and that no songs from it are included on MIC. Again, could be a rights thing.

[Autotune]

filledeplage, let me refresh your memory:

Exactly. It's no contest. KTSA, BB85, Still Cruisin all had hits and charting songs on them (Wipeout, Getcha Back, Goin On, etc). Each of these albums charted. Again, that Summer in Paradise was the first Beach Boys studio album that failed to chart says a lot - not to mention most critics, fans, Beach Boys historians call it their worst album as well. Not to mention it's not sold anymore. Not to mention no one in the Beach Boys management seems to be eager to re-release it.

Lest we forget how godawful the lyrics are on some of these songs:

"Yeah I'll take you to the movies
But I'm no fool
First I'll get you on the beach
Or in a swimming pool
Doing unto others is the Golden Rule
But doing it with you would be so
Very cool"

I think Peter Carlin put it best, "But even the lite-metal guitars on Dennis's once-understated ballad weren't quote as painful as Mike's "Summer of Love" which climaxed, so to speak, in a hail of yucky sexual references (Mike in Señor Suave mode, crooning about the joys of doing "it" in disparate, summery venues, including a beach and a swimming pool) that seem designed to excite the wrath of the same Parents Music Resource Center Mike had once supported."

And partially getting back on the main topic at hand: this was the same album that featured Van Dyke Parks playing accordion on one song....here is part of that story from a 2000 article:

"Parks recalls he saw Love one final time when Melcher called him to Monterey to play synthesizer on the Beach Boys' final album, recorded without Brian, 1992's dreadful Summer in Paradise. A neighbor offered to fly the musician to Monterey in his one-engine plane if Parks agreed to cover gas and other expenses. When he got there, Love was meditating in Melcher's living room. "For the first time in 30 years, he was able to ask me directly, once again, 'What do those lyrics -- Over and over the crow flies, uncover the cornfield -- mean?'" Parks said about that meeting in '95. "And I was  able to tell him, once again, 'I don't know.' I have no idea what those words mean. I was perhaps thinking of Van Gogh's wheat field or an idealized agrarian environment. Maybe I meant nothing, but I was trying to follow Brian Wilson's vision at that time." Parks says Love asked if he could fly back to L.A. in the plane with him. "We had a nice chat and he insisted that he wanted to split the cost of the flight with me, so he gave me a card with his number on it. The next morning, I called to discover it was a disconnected number. And that was the last time I saw Mike Love.""

And from last month's PR 'I-Need-To-Back-Pedal-And-Let-People-Know-I-Love-Brian' bonanza:
“By the way,” Johnston chimes in, “he plays a 100-year-old accordion on ‘Kokomo.’ ”
“That certainly gives a lie to this idea that we don’t like Van Dyke,” - Mike Love

ok Mike

And notice even the New York Times writer calls Summer in Paradise "dreadful" - HE MUST BE A BRIANISTA

It's hard to take VDP verbatim after all the crap he's been posting recently. I think it's a poetic license in order to stab ML and fulfill his fixation with Mike.

Exactly- it is not fact checked.

You not only quote Autotune's post but my post as well. Autotune was clearly referring to my Van Dyke Parks story in his quote. You agreed with him that the story wasn't fact-checked. There isn't one single mention of Van Dyke Parks in your LA Times article yet that is the only thing we've been arguing about this entire time...so why you'd even bring up the LA Times article not being fact-checked in your discourse with me is way beyond me.

edit: noticed Autotune never said the story wasn't fact-checked, you are the only one to make that baseless assertion.

To be fair, I think I read that story in the 90s. And to be blunt, part of me wants this story to be true. But it sounds either exaggerated or incomplete.

[CenturyDeprived]

For those people bending themselves into a pretzel to try to prove the "shared blame" idea for all the lame ideas that Mike may have spearheaded most, above everyone else in the band… well, I'll admit there is some truth to that, but  how would you feel about the notion of Mike having full control over the band and brand name?  If he could somehow had found a way to do a power grab, circa 1980, and get total and complete control of the band from that point on, studio-wise, release-wise, etc... and nobody else in the band was able to do anything about it... do you think the musical output and direction of the band would have benefited, stayed the same, or been worse, in the time since then? And why?

[GhostyTMRS]

17 pages of this crap?

Mike made some decisions/comments that some of you don't care for.  Big fu*king deal. Geez, you guys act like he shot and killed someone. Manson attracts less criticism on this board.

It's one thing to be disappointed in things a band member does or says. That's understandable, but hardly relevant to a fan's life unless that band member has moved into your house or is dating your sister....but to obsess over it like this day in and day out....stuff that may or may not have happened 20, 30, 40 even 50 years ago...I mean, we get it. You hate a member of a rock band you also claim to be a fan of.

...and amazingly the Beach Boys 60's catalog is STILL the greatest collection of American pop/rock music ever written or put on wax, regardless of how you feel about anyone or anything today, tomorrow and forever.

Thank God, nothing can ever tarnish the music Brian wrote and the group recorded. Thank God!

Go outside. Eat a popsicle. Watch the sun go down. Listen to Pet Sounds.  

[Cam Mott]

No idea but I'm guessing you and Rab will draw your own conclusions.
We do know that a label called Brother Entertainment was set up to handle it and that a company called Navarre distributed it. Navarre went belly up a long time ago so it's a mystery who owns the rights to SIP. It could be in litigation hell for all I know. Or whoever owns it wants more money to license it then Capitol are willing to pay (hence why a live version of SIP was included on MIC).

It's also worth a mention that Stars & Stripes (remember that album that Brian helped produce) is omitted from the band's official C50 discography and that no songs from it are included on MIC. Again, could be a rights thing.

Alan or Mark probably know.

[SurfRiderHawaii]

  SIP: the worst album ever released by a major rock band. The fact that it has been disowned by its makers tells you the whole story.

Again, if it was completely disowned why was a live recording of it's title track included on the career spanning MIC box?

That's easy: Mike insisted on it being included. Just like the turd, "Going to the Beach". All the band members had say so on tracks for MIC. Anyway, the live version is much superior to the studio version IMO. And "hate" him or not, he is certainly entitled to pick some tracks for such releases. Some claim he had nixed WIBNTLA from being released prior to MIC.

[CenturyDeprived]

17 pages of this crap?

Mike made some decisions/comments that some of you don't care for.  Big fu*king deal. Geez, you guys act like he shot and killed someone. Manson attracts less criticism on this board.

It's one thing to be disappointed in things a band member does or says. That's understandable, but hardly relevant to a fan's life unless that band member has moved into your house or is dating your sister....but to obsess over it like this day in and day out....stuff that may or may not have happened 20, 30, 40 even 50 years ago...I mean, we get it. You hate a member of a rock band you also claim to be a fan of.

...and amazingly the Beach Boys 60's catalog is STILL the greatest collection of American pop/rock music ever written or put on wax, regardless of how you feel about anyone or anything today, tomorrow and forever.

Thank God, nothing can ever tarnish the music Brian wrote and the group recorded. Thank God!

Go outside. Eat a popsicle. Watch the sun go down. Listen to Pet Sounds.  

The only reason Mike gets defended to the degree he does by a tiny contingent is because the music of this band is so incredibly kick-ass. The actions in question would not be defended (outside of perhaps relatives, or people on a payroll) if the musical output he was involved with was mediocre, or just okay. IMO, I think the ability for some people to tolerate and defend some of his widely-viewed-as-indefensible actions is intrinsically tied to certain people's ability to look the other way, and allow an understandable immense love for the great music to lead to a ridiculously high tolerance level for crappy behavior.

I find this phenomenon very strange… There have been other bands which I also deeply love the music, and  have also similarly been deeply disappointed with some of the band members' personal conduct… And I have no more sympathy or defense for crappy behavior from them then I do for anyone in this band. It's not because of anybody's last name, or any other nonexistent predisposition to liking or disliking anybody. Decades of actions pile up to a pretty clear picture of why somebody is judged in a particular way.  I have no problem in saying that a particular artist has acted unconscionably, even if I love the art they make.

And before anyone tries to apply this to Brian and Dennis's behavior, not that it's a contest, but they have consistently shown a history of having their hearts in the right places significantly moreso than their cousin, wiith the added bonus of not ever having exhibited a holier-than-thou-attitude about their overall conduct.

[Cam Mott]

Even if the airplane story is true as told by VDP, it doesn't seem to be the worst stiffing he has gotten by a Beach Boy.

[bgas]

Even if the airplane story is true as told by VDP, it doesn't seem to be the worst stiffing he has gotten by a Beach Boy.

Dennis probably gave him that

[Cam Mott]

Even if the airplane story is true as told by VDP, it doesn't seem to be the worst stiffing he has gotten by a Beach Boy.

Dennis probably gave him that

Would he "stiff" and tell?