BB relationship with Van Dyke Parks

[Andrew G. Doe]

Mike didn't need to be on set. They have telephones in California. 

[Dancing Bear]

Andrew, I didn't deny the influence. Whatever original Beach Boy Mike Love had to say surely would be listened to. But it's different from claiming that Mike was the mastermind behind American Family - which you didn't anyway.

[endofposts]

I don't think Mike comes off entirely well in AF, but that might be to compensate for making him look like a Beach Boys mastermind, which is almost as egregious as making Brian look like a fool and bedbound veg from 1967 on.   I don't think Mike micromanaged the project, but the people behind the scenes knew who dominated the corporate side of the Beach Boys. 

[Julia]

Not to defend Mike Love (believe it or not ), but I wonder why Parks felt it was necessary to make that story public? Of all the Beach Boys-related stories to discuss, it's interesting he would choose that one. 

Because it's something that happened to him that hurt his feelings and spoke to Mike's shitty character, which he thought ought to be exposed. It's not his place or in his interest to tell us about whatever else Mike mayve done to others that's worse but not his story to tell. Im not sure why thats weird

[Don Malcolm]

Not to defend Mike Love (believe it or not ), but I wonder why Parks felt it was necessary to make that story public? Of all the Beach Boys-related stories to discuss, it's interesting he would choose that one. 

Because it's something that happened to him that hurt his feelings and spoke to Mike's shitty character, which he thought ought to be exposed. It's not his place or in his interest to tell us about whatever else Mike mayve done to others that's worse but not his story to tell. Im not sure why thats weird

Well, the tut-tut stuff we find in that discussion is, I think, an artifact of nearly twenty-year-old posts featuring folks who have historically tended to bend over backwards for Mike, many of whom are now mercifully ensconced in their bubble world over at the nearest faraway place...you have to consider the context (if not the source)! 

I think we can all agree that VDP is extremely voluble, and he has certainly had bitchy moments about his experiences over the years--the trauma of the SMiLE experience has never left him,  and I suspect even the BWPS catharsis did not provide him with a complete remedy for what went down at the time. As he says a few times in the quotes appearing in Leaf's SMiLE book, all of those in the BBs orbit were really young (and clearly quite intense!) at the time, and the sum total of the energy swirling around that orbit in 1966-67 quite probably was upwards of 7.9 on an emotional Richter scale...

[Zenobi]

Not to be the dismissing curmudgeon here, but some people have been known to move along past events even more traumatic than the SMiLE times...