History of Mike's reputation

[Surfer Joe]

TdHabib, I think you and I are on the same page here.  How you react to a guy- it's a highly subjective thing, we're never going to arrive at an agreement and all see Brian or Mike the same way. And there's no correct answer, and one thing being true (or reasonable) doesn't make another thing untrue (or unreasonable).  

Did Mike contribute to the "downfall" of the Beach Boys? Sure. Here's a mild statement for debate: all six of the original Beach Boys contributed to the rise, and the "downfall" of the Beach Boys.  But to what degree? In what way?Back to subjectivity.

Mike did this, so he's a bad guy.  But Brian did this other thing, so Mike's a good guy. Mike and Brian are not functions of each other. Brian's issues are not a rebuttal to Mike's, or vice-versa. I think they're too different to even compare- totally different stresses, different talents, different challenges, different responsibilities. Life placed them in different situations.  They were both raised by a dominant and troubled Wilson parent, but they responded differently. They had very different ambitions that harmonized for a while, until they didn't.

One guy led the Beach Boys in the studio, and one led them on the stage. Brian wrote and produced a lot of brilliant songs that will live forever, and Mike contributed a lot to them as one of his better lyricists, and kept those songs in front of a lot of people for a lot of years, and did a great job with that. Along the way they've screwed each other over a few times and said  a lot of snarky things and pulled in different directions. Choose which one you like and put on your blinders...

[Sheriff John Stone]

I'll make it a New Year's resolution to do a better job, to be less disrespectful, more reasonable, and less dilusional. Maybe I can work my way up to your standards.

Not meant to be taken that way at all, SJS.  Apologies if I was too blunt.  Sarcasm aside, do you think I have a point at all? If not, fair enough.

I'm a member on another Beach Boys-related message board, and lurk on another couple. Honestly, the posts/posters on this board aren't that bad. I mean, we're rarely edited or moderated, and I can't remember the last person who was banned. The tone is usually civil; yeah, it can get a little heated, but that's the nature of any message board. I'll probably get into trouble for this, but it's the Honored Guests who bother me the most. They take too much exception to being questioned, even if it's done respectfully. Sometimes they are (shudder) not accurate with what they report on here, and, if you try to have some give and take with them, they have a tendency to become frustrated, above the fray, and take their ball and go home. Anyway....

Yeah, you have a point, but, again, that's a message board. People have a tendency to see things in black and white (I don't mean racially), and have a hard time budging or admitting that there might be another side. And, yeah, I'm guilty of this. It - meaning the debating - can be done respectfully. I think sometimes, because we're not "professional writers", things don't come out right, points aren't made accurately, and you can come off looking like a jerk. And, of course, emotions get in the way....There's almost an art to posting, I think. It's like walking a fine line, walking on egg shells, not wanting to appear delusional, stubborn, or disrespectful, but, at the same time time, you wanna get your point across. You only have so much time, so many words, a real life to live, so you have to get RIGHT TO THE POINT sometimes.

This I do feel strongly about - If people are gonna come on this or any message board and state their opinion, and I don't mean which song or album they like, but topics like Mike Love or SMiLE or the state of the band, they better be prepared to defend their point. I mean, there is a difference in expressing an opinion and telling untruths. I'm not as concerned as some about accuracy when it comes to recording dates or which musicians played on this or when that concert was, but, if somebody makes a statement (or opinion) about the behavior of a band member, well, that's open for debate. Don't you think so? I guess I do take that very seriously. It's like, the truth hurts sometimes, and, people don't want to hear/read the truth, especially about Brian Wilson. The funny thing is, we can debate and argue and write and talk and read and....we'll probably never agree on "the truth". But it's fun trying, isn't it?

[Surfer Joe]

Kudos to us.

Kudos to good conversation, Cam- that's how I finally made it to the middle. Too many good points on all sides, over the years.  And anyone who disagrees with me on that lacks insight, information, or any sense of fairness, and is a product of bias, ignorance, and a broken home.

(Agree that this is a cotillion, too!)

[Surfer Joe]

Thanks, SJS- great post, agreed on all points. Glad we're square. I swear I wasn't trying to get off any big crusher or anything.  As you say, there's an art to posting and I sort of failed it on that one.  Too pompous on my part, even if I had a decent point, which was simply that we all have to go carefully in characterizing each other's arguments. Message boards catch a lot of hell, and rightfully so, to some degree- but a few years on this board is a better education on the Beach Boys than anything in print.

[Mr. Cohen]

I think the truth is that Mike positively contributed the BBs in their first few years. Brian, by all accounts, just wanted to make songs that all of the teenagers would like, and Mike's lyrics and attitude helped him to achieve that. You can't argue with that. It's a shame that when Brian's artistic interests changed in the mid-60s, Mike had to oppose it. By that point, he had great interest in the BBs as a commercial entity and he wanted to protect those interests. It was his livelihood. He had doubts about Pet Sounds, but Brian talked him into giving the material a chance. For whatever reason, it didn't even go gold at the time, and on top of that, it was embarrassing at points for the band to try and recreate such incredibly complex music live. It probably helped to put Mike on edge. He had to deal with that challenge all year long, recreating that strange music, every year.

Then, Brian confronts him with even weirder, more esoteric music that would be even more difficult to perform accurately live. Mike doesn't know what to do. He freaks out. His formerly dependable world is crashing down. In such a state, he argues with Brian and Van Dyke Parks vehemently about their new direction. It's a shame, but it happened. The band then watches Brian crash and burn, canceling Smile. They try to be supportive of Brian at this point, but with their commercial prospects diminishing to a fraction of what it was before, people are understandably distressed. It must be hard, during this times, to see Brian completely out of his mind on drugs, oblivious to commercial concerns. Occasionally, people do things they regret later but are ashamed to admit. Was it fair to put that pressure on Brian, just one person? No, but it happened. Afterwords, after reality has had more time to set in, the band tries to make amends and find an inner harmony. Sometimes, they find a relative balance, and other times, there is chaos. Eventually, the roller coaster becomes too much (some time in the mid to late-70's), and the relationships between some of the bandmates disintegrates beyond repair.

That's their story, by God, and I'm sticking to it.

[TdHabib]

Just one thing I'm going to say as just a fact, you can add the spin: Carrie Marks posted this on Shut Down (I hope she doesn't mind me just bringing it over here)

David really loves playing with that band and genuinely appreciates how much Scott, John and Randell care about authenticity and how they resuscitated the band's live sound. However, to be totally honest, Mike did something rather insensitive that hurt David...and then made jokes about it to fans! So as much as he will miss putting on his "Beach Boys hat" and playing with them whenever they are in the area...I think the whole sitting-in thing is pretty much over.

[Amy B.]

I can understand both sides. I can understand Mike feeling threatened over Brian's changing direction. What would that do to the live act? And would the music sell?
On the other hand, I can understand Brian's yearning to change and grow, drugs or not. He was just too brilliant not to grow artistically, and too brilliant not to outgrow the type of music that a pop band could reasonably perform on stage. As a music fan, I feel it would have been a crime if Brian had spent his whole career doing car/surfing/girls songs, great as those songs are.

And in the end, Mike may have supported the changes, but the newly complex music made him (Mike) seem LESS than Brian in the talent department, because he was left behind.So as he goes on and creates the traveling jukebox and makes some bitter statements over the years, he kind of looks like a chump. Maybe the solution would have been for the BBs to break up in 1967, Brian to create his music and Mike to be a lyricist for someone more traditional and less "out there." (In fact, I don't understand why Mike DIDN'T work with other people, if only to write songs, particularly after Brian drifted away.) But then, Brian needed the BBs harmonies. Anyway, Brian, being the artist with mental illness, got romanticized, while Mike, being the ordinary guy with talent, ... didn't. There. More musing.

[Nicko]

Was it really Mike who worried about whether the group would be able to play the stuff on stage? I know he was obviously worried about how the fans would react but I would have thought that Carl (and the other guys who played instruments) would have had the bigger issue with how it was to be performed.

[Smilin Ed H]

Wasn't one of the reasons Carl quit (briefly) because they weren't rehearsing properly?

[The Heartical Don]

I think the truth is that Mike positively contributed the BBs in their first few years. Brian, by all accounts, just wanted to make songs that all of the teenagers would like, and Mike's lyrics and attitude helped him to achieve that. You can't argue with that. It's a shame that when Brian's artistic interests changed in the mid-60s, Mike had to oppose it. By that point, he had great interest in the BBs as a commercial entity and he wanted to protect those interests. It was his livelihood. He had doubts about Pet Sounds, but Brian talked him into giving the material a chance. For whatever reason, it didn't even go gold at the time, and on top of that, it was embarrassing at points for the band to try and recreate such incredibly complex music live. It probably helped to put Mike on edge. He had to deal with that challenge all year long, recreating that strange music, every year.

Then, Brian confronts him with even weirder, more esoteric music that would be even more difficult to perform accurately live. Mike doesn't know what to do. He freaks out. His formerly dependable world is crashing down. In such a state, he argues with Brian and Van Dyke Parks vehemently about their new direction. It's a shame, but it happened. The band then watches Brian crash and burn, canceling Smile. They try to be supportive of Brian at this point, but with their commercial prospects diminishing to a fraction of what it was before, people are understandably distressed. It must be hard, during this times, to see Brian completely out of his mind on drugs, oblivious to commercial concerns. Occasionally, people do things they regret later but are ashamed to admit. Was it fair to put that pressure on Brian, just one person? No, but it happened. Afterwords, after reality has had more time to set in, the band tries to make amends and find an inner harmony. Sometimes, they find a relative balance, and other times, there is chaos. Eventually, the roller coaster becomes too much (some time in the mid to late-70's), and the relationships between some of the bandmates disintegrates beyond repair.

That's their story, by God, and I'm sticking to it.

I admire this post. Perhaps I even contradict myself in some spots, but... I do have the benefiet of hindsight. Hey, I do have only the benefit of hindsight. I learned about the beautiful music when I was 14 or so, in 1973. Which means it was a backwards exploratory route. First I fell in love with the hits, California Girls and such. Then I heard 'Surf's Up' on a Warner Bros. 4 LP collection of their stars ('Superstars Of The 70's'). I did not think much of SU then (and now it is my all time favourite pop song). I then read that Pet Sounds was the greatest pop album ever. Bought it. Thought: mmm... not bad, but where are the singalong hits?

I now have the weird feeling that Mike might have thought exactly the same in 1966. He experienced it all in real time. I did not. That's all the difference. But our reaction might have been the same after all.

Moreover, I can't expect Mike at age 25 to have been an expert in psychiatry. I wasn't, at any rate. So I might have been quickly wary of my ueber-cousin being stoned more each passing day, and handing over much more weirder music after the only moderately successful Pet Sounds to me, to work with.

It's a bit of the irony of history. I might, after all, have reacted exactly the way Mike did in the mid-60s.

But I stick to the three points of criticism I wrote on the first page here.

[Dancing Bear]

Mike did worry if the albums and singles would keep selling or not. And in the end of the day, Brian did too, and each one of us do as well...

[urbanite]

It's not Mike Love's fault that Pet Sounds was a commercial failure.

[Wilsonista]

Mike did worry if the albums and singles would keep selling or not. And in the end of the day, Brian did too, and each one of us do as well...

They may have wanted the same thing, but they wanted the same thing for very different reasons (the big flaw in the "Brian was just as much of a sellout asshole as Mike" argument).

Mike wanted to sell records for one reason: he was always afraid that he was one flop away from losing everything and having to get a real job.

Brian wanted to sell records because that meant that he could finally please his father and a way of boosting his own self-esteem.  This is the guy who told Earl Leaf in an interview that he never wrote his hits because he thought they would make money. He also said that hearing someone else's great record made him "feel insignificant" which  llead to him wanting to improve his stuff.  Gary Usher in his diaries points out that while Mike went for commerciality when  he wrote and Brian wrote from a more pure place. Usher correctly points out that while one isn't neccesarily better than the other, music that is more pure and organic will have a longer shelf life than something born out of commerciality.

[Wilsonista]

It's not Mike Love's fault that Pet Sounds was a commercial failure.

No one said it was.

[Dancing Bear]

I think Mike did love music and did care about the musical quality of their records. He just was too much of a Mike Love to admit it. I guess one of his self appointed roles in the band was being the one who cared about practical stuff, which he progressively carried on to cartoonish proportions. Anderle spoke a little about that. Not that he was good at it, as the Maharishi tour shows.

[Autotune]

When it comes to Mike's reputation, it's as simple as this:

*we won't justify any poor performance of his

*we won't forgive or justify any embarrassing public appearance

*we will not excuse him for choosing inappropriate acquaintance

*we wouldn't forgive him had he snorted his talent away

*we wouldn't forgive him for purposefully ruining his voice

*we wouldn’t forgive him in a thousand years had he (mentally ill or not) tried to give drugs to his children

[Surfer Joe]

Once again, Mike is apparently just a function of Brian. Any alleged shortcomings of Mike are directly rebutted by the shortcomings of Brian. If Brian screws up one more thing, Mike might achieve sainthood.

Again, I just don't see the comparison of a very seriously and chronically mentally ill person to one who isn't.

[Dr. Tim]

It's not Mike Love's fault that Pet Sounds was a commercial failure.

Point of order: while Pet Sounds was thought at the time to be a commercial failure, by comparison with Party!, we now know that, for various reasons, Capitol underreported sales.  So while this remark was assumed to be true then, we now know it is false.  And of course Pet Sounds killed in the UK.  So neither Mike nor Brian was "responsible."

Besides, I thought the topic was Mike's reputation going up and down over the years, not whether he deserves to be thought a righteous dude vs. a finger-lickin-chicken-bittfvcker.

[Surfer Joe]

It's not Mike Love's fault that Pet Sounds was a commercial failure.

Point of order: while Pet Sounds was thought at the time to be a commercial failure, by comparison with Party!, we now know that, for various reasons, Capitol underreported sales.  So while this remark was assumed to be true then, we now know it is false.  And of course Pet Sounds killed in the UK.  So neither Mike nor Brian was "responsible."

I was waiting for someone to raise that. Complicated story, hashed out here in good detail several times.

Besides, I thought the topic was Mike's reputation going up and down over the years, not whether he deserves to be thought a righteous dude vs. a finger-lickin-chicken-bittfvcker.

Good point, and absolutely correct.  But the other topic always beckons to this board, like the tar baby that it is.

[Autotune]

Once again, Mike is apparently just a function of Brian. Any alleged shortcomings of Mike are directly rebutted by the shortcomings of Brian. If Brian screws up one more thing, Mike might achieve sainthood.

Comparisons arise because the "Mike Love is evil" assertion was the other side of the "it's Brian and four morons" coin.

[Wilsonista]

Once again, Mike is apparently just a function of Brian. Any alleged shortcomings of Mike are directly rebutted by the shortcomings of Brian. If Brian screws up one more thing, Mike might achieve sainthood.

Again, I just don't see the comparison of a very seriously and chronically mentally ill person to one who isn't.

I agree completely. Apples and bell peppers.

People should be held responsible for their actions.  But when that one person has severe and chronic mental illness, then to deny them anything resembling understanding, let alone compassion, is just cruel and mean spirited.

[Surfer Joe]

Once again, Mike is apparently just a function of Brian. Any alleged shortcomings of Mike are directly rebutted by the shortcomings of Brian. If Brian screws up one more thing, Mike might achieve sainthood.

Comparisons arise because the "Mike Love is evil" assertion was the other side of the "it's Brian and four morons" coin.

 

I think they arise because people divide into two rival teams and try to promote their own team by throwing dirt on the other and calling each other hypocrites for seeing the two men differently.  "Brian Rules, so Mike Sucks!" "No, Mike Rules, because Brian Sucks more!" Either way, it's ignorance for ignorance. Much better to argue with the best points the other side has to offer (and each side has far better points than the dirt-throwing) instead of the catcalls from the cheap seats, which will always be plentiful- though this is a very intelligent board.

It actually demeans Mike to make him a pure function of Brian.

Mike and Brian are two vastly separate people with vastly separate issues. Different achievements, different problems.  I respect them both, and try to keep them both in perspective. To view them differently and apply different standards to them, though, is not hypocritical.  It's discerning.

[MBE]

Good thread it gets us all thinking.
Brian is a sympathetic figure as far as how much pain he has suffered, but he did make some choices that helped  him go the way he went.  Sometimes people that are ill still can deliberately make wrong or hurtful choices. That doesn't make Brian a "bad" man just human. I think he deserves a lot of admiration for giving us songs that have changed our lives for the better, but that doesn't mean I have to kiss the ground he walks on. I guess what makes me feel worst for Brian is that he was put on display so often when he shouldn't have been. That extends to now.

Mike had to deal with his own problems and he does deserve some understanding as well. He too made some piss poor choices over the years that I am sure he is not proud of. He has been a real jerk sometimes, downright nastyYes Mike may have had the benefit of rational thinking most of the, but Marty hit on something here. We forget Mike has had periods where he was seriously ill mentally. In fact due to Brian not full declining as of yet, there may have been a certain period in 1970 where he was doing better then Mike. It's not simple is it?

My view of Brian and Mike is about the same. They both gave the Beach Boys some of their finest moments and some of their most horrid. They both have very many things to admire and both have many things to scorn. Brian Wilson is a one of a kind talent but Mike at his best was no hack. I'm glad that we have so many good songs from their partership and hope they can achieve some sort of personal peace with each other.

[Mr. Cohen]

Brian Wilson is a one of a kind talent but Mike at his best was no hack.

Sure, sure, but could Mike ever come up with the melody and chords of a hit song? Don't say "Kokomo", he had very little to do with the writing of that song musically. Can he arrange 5 part harmonies? Yeah, he's not talentless, but I still think people try to give him too much credit in reaction to all of the Brian favoritism that ruled the roost for years.

[Wilsonista]

Brian Wilson is a one of a kind talent but Mike at his best was no hack.

Sure, sure, but could Mike ever come up with the melody and chords of a hit song? Don't say "Kokomo", he had very little to do with the writing of that song musically. Can he arrange 5 part harmonies? Yeah, he's not talentless, but I still think people try to give him too much credit in reaction to all of the Brian favoritism that ruled the roost for years.

Here, here.