Ian Lee interviews Mike Love

[Emily]

Mike gravitates towards interviewers like Mr. Lee for the same reason he gravitates towards, say, Bill O'Reilly. They're sympathetic to Mike. It's going to be, in part, a "Hey Mike, let's talk about how *other* people are a bunch of a**holes." 

Look at that O'Reilly interview with Mike from back around the mid-2000s "Smile" lawsuit. Similar thing to what would now be a "So Mike, I think you're unfairly criticized by some fans."

Hardly anyone in the media, and sadly not a great deal even within music critic/writer circles, is well-versed enough on the history of the BBs to both *get* an interview with Mike *and* ask the important questions. So what you get is mostly local paper fluff pieces that just advertise Mike's upcoming show (and most any artist on a big tour gets such coverage, including Brian, though Mike often gets some inflammatory stuff in on even some of those otherwise-innocuous pieces), and then occasionally Mike seeks out an opportunity that will be comfortable to him to go into more detail. Thus, the Wink Martindale thing from last year (is *that* guy really the guy anyone wants to see interview a major musical figure?), the John Stamos Q&A on Facebook, that "Love Lounge" thing or whatever it was called that never went anywhere, and so on.

On rare occasion, somehow an interviewer/writer gets down to something more noteworthy and something that gets to the core of Mike a bit more. Not hit pieces, but rather just writers that know their s**t and will be fair to Mike but not suck up to him or write a puff piece. These pieces are pretty rare. Howie Edelson got some good coverage during C50 on Mike. A few book authors have gotten some tidbits from Mike. Jason Fine's 2012 Rolling Stone article on C50 also was quite good, as was this year's February Rolling Stone piece.

Even when it has nothing to do with a "pro-Mike" agenda, the mainstream media stuff is a losing battle from the outset. They don't know and/or don't care about much but either the common told-a-million-times BB story, or something recent and controversial (C50 "firing" headlines, the Manson stuff from Mike's book).

I suspect some of Mr. Lee's time here was effectively an audition for the interview.

[Rocker]

Thus, the Wink Martindale thing from last year (is *that* guy really the guy anyone wants to see interview a major musical figure?)

Well, you tell me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XieaQc6jQ8



 

[Robbie Mac]

Thus, the Wink Martindale thing from last year (is *that* guy really the guy anyone wants to see interview a major musical figure?)

Well, you tell me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XieaQc6jQ8



 

Well, Elvis didn't waste any time sticking around, did he?

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Mike gravitates towards interviewers like Mr. Lee for the same reason he gravitates towards, say, Bill O'Reilly. They're sympathetic to Mike. It's going to be, in part, a "Hey Mike, let's talk about how *other* people are a bunch of a**holes." 

Look at that O'Reilly interview with Mike from back around the mid-2000s "Smile" lawsuit. Similar thing to what would now be a "So Mike, I think you're unfairly criticized by some fans."

Hardly anyone in the media, and sadly not a great deal even within music critic/writer circles, is well-versed enough on the history of the BBs to both *get* an interview with Mike *and* ask the important questions. So what you get is mostly local paper fluff pieces that just advertise Mike's upcoming show (and most any artist on a big tour gets such coverage, including Brian, though Mike often gets some inflammatory stuff in on even some of those otherwise-innocuous pieces), and then occasionally Mike seeks out an opportunity that will be comfortable to him to go into more detail. Thus, the Wink Martindale thing from last year (is *that* guy really the guy anyone wants to see interview a major musical figure?), the John Stamos Q&A on Facebook, that "Love Lounge" thing or whatever it was called that never went anywhere, and so on.

On rare occasion, somehow an interviewer/writer gets down to something more noteworthy and something that gets to the core of Mike a bit more. Not hit pieces, but rather just writers that know their s**t and will be fair to Mike but not suck up to him or write a puff piece. These pieces are pretty rare. Howie Edelson got some good coverage during C50 on Mike. A few book authors have gotten some tidbits from Mike. Jason Fine's 2012 Rolling Stone article on C50 also was quite good, as was this year's February Rolling Stone piece.

Even when it has nothing to do with a "pro-Mike" agenda, the mainstream media stuff is a losing battle from the outset. They don't know and/or don't care about much but either the common told-a-million-times BB story, or something recent and controversial (C50 "firing" headlines, the Manson stuff from Mike's book).

I suspect some of Mr. Lee's time here was effectively an audition for the interview.

I'll go one further and say all of it was!

[Debbie KL]

Mike gravitates towards interviewers like Mr. Lee for the same reason he gravitates towards, say, Bill O'Reilly. They're sympathetic to Mike. It's going to be, in part, a "Hey Mike, let's talk about how *other* people are a bunch of a**holes." 

Look at that O'Reilly interview with Mike from back around the mid-2000s "Smile" lawsuit. Similar thing to what would now be a "So Mike, I think you're unfairly criticized by some fans."

Hardly anyone in the media, and sadly not a great deal even within music critic/writer circles, is well-versed enough on the history of the BBs to both *get* an interview with Mike *and* ask the important questions. So what you get is mostly local paper fluff pieces that just advertise Mike's upcoming show (and most any artist on a big tour gets such coverage, including Brian, though Mike often gets some inflammatory stuff in on even some of those otherwise-innocuous pieces), and then occasionally Mike seeks out an opportunity that will be comfortable to him to go into more detail. Thus, the Wink Martindale thing from last year (is *that* guy really the guy anyone wants to see interview a major musical figure?), the John Stamos Q&A on Facebook, that "Love Lounge" thing or whatever it was called that never went anywhere, and so on.

On rare occasion, somehow an interviewer/writer gets down to something more noteworthy and something that gets to the core of Mike a bit more. Not hit pieces, but rather just writers that know their s**t and will be fair to Mike but not suck up to him or write a puff piece. These pieces are pretty rare. Howie Edelson got some good coverage during C50 on Mike. A few book authors have gotten some tidbits from Mike. Jason Fine's 2012 Rolling Stone article on C50 also was quite good, as was this year's February Rolling Stone piece.

Even when it has nothing to do with a "pro-Mike" agenda, the mainstream media stuff is a losing battle from the outset. They don't know and/or don't care about much but either the common told-a-million-times BB story, or something recent and controversial (C50 "firing" headlines, the Manson stuff from Mike's book).

I suspect some of Mr. Lee's time here was effectively an audition for the interview.

I'll go one further and say all of it was!

Between the three of you, it was said perfectly.  We are posting at one of the few places where anyone actually cares enough to have an attention span beyond 3-second about this subject.

I'm guessing Mike thinks that he'll tap into the interest in the show "Aquarius."  We'll see if he succeeds beyond a few book sales.  In any case, I’m sure he can afford his new darling, Iain Lee.

Emily and Billy - It was hard to miss that Iain Lee was likely buying his way into some weird deal with Mike to promote him.  Thanks so much for reminding us of the rather obvious manipulation of this place by this person.

Lee appears to be just another guy out on the market for a gig.  They're everywhere.  It's as sad as it is annoying in a number of cases, especially when it involves exploiting people (like us, for instance), and it almost never has anything to do with the truth - any integrity.  The magical part that we experienced was when the perpetrator whined about being wounded – by us!  He only said he wanted to kill us publicly.  But we were apparently "mean to him."  The usual spin.  I guess he learned something at BBC before they canned him.

Like I said, it doesn’t add to my confidence on the “GV” project…

[SMiLE Brian]

We were played to Mike's "persecution" fiddle....

[Debbie KL]

We were played to Mike's "persecution" fiddle....

His relentless "talking point."  Beware, please!

I've done my best to avoid it, but it's easy to have anything one might say to be interpreted as an attack on Mike with enough spin.

I've seen it all before.  I have a Presidential campaign in front of my eyes everyday in the media.  It's the same crap.