seems that mike love just came out with a book. the first
review i read was predictably and deliciously hilarious, basically finding mike to be a huge, clueless narcissist. one might even say, a shameless weasel on par with the greats. even the article header image is tremendous:
as i've probably said earlier in the thread-- it takes a lot for me to vilify a person, usually because i can relate / understand enough of the stuff that led to their assholiness. but mike love kind of just blows that possibility out of the water.
i mean, you'd think that having a cousin like brian who single-handedly formed bands and chorus groups starting in middle school sends a pretty clear message about who the founder and soul of the band is. brian's brothers weren't unimportant musically, but they pretty much were just... available... when the band was formed. any number of brian's other friends and understudies (like al jardine) would also have worked. the pool of talent was pretty large, as i say because brian personally formed that whole extended ensemble right in school, with the school's blessing, apparently.
and then you have mike. a guy who was basically getting in trouble at the time, whose foreseeable future was as a gas station attendant. however, brian's tyrant / dad murry basically ordered mike to be included as well, for whatever (probably wacky) reasons he might have had. easily the most fortunate moment of mike's life, and you'd think he'd have a lot of gratitude and humility looking back on all that.
but no.... no. when brian started evolving his compositions in the mid to late 60's, mike was evidently front and center giving brian grief about that and playing the passive-aggressive stick in the mud to the hilt. as the book in the OP made very clear-- mike wanted to stay with surf rock the rest of his career, and resented brian's evolution and (my personal speculation) competition with the beatles. thus, he became a driving force behind brian's disconnect with the group and even isolation and drug use.
this new book also seems to make clear that mike is just... not very good at awareness about all this stuff. of course, maybe some part of him realises what a selfish, ungrateful dickhead he was towards his cousin, and he just can't take that on at this stage of the game.
...
incidentally, i just learned that the song "kokomo" is not actually mike's. turns out it was written and performed by john phillips (of the mamas and papas) and finally released in 2010, on his posthumous album "many mamas, many papas." it's on youtube if you're curious.
unlike many BB fans, personally i love kokomo. it's a more emphatic and fetching version than phillips, for me. but now i feel that much better about liking it!
