The Thread to Ruminate About Mike Love's Rape Van

[Flex]

Long Promised Road is great tho. Incredibly sweet and subtle Carl vocal and the lyrics are personal and poetic - the opposite of what Kokomo is doing in almost every way with its big, dumb bluster. They're emotional polar opposites lyrically and sonically. And great guitar work (there's a reason Blondie Chaplin takes the song in Brian's live shows) achored by the dark, moody production of the Surf's Up record. Just so much more textured, interesting and enjoyable than what Kokomo is trying to do.

[matedog]

I guess post maybe "I Can Hear Music" Beach Boys is pretty blah to me. A few things rise to the level of "good", but most of it is pretty mediocre. Kokomo rips because the chorus is so damn good and the lame verse is just a big setup for that massive drop. The lyrics are lame, but at least inoffensive. There's no edge to them, but I don't go to the Beach Boys for edgy lyrics.

[matedog]

I probably shouldn't be debating with a Beach Boys superfan...

[Flex]

I probably shouldn't be debating with a Beach Boys superfan...

I really need WWK or Flex to chime in here as they are the BB nerds.

[Flex]

I guess post maybe "I Can Hear Music" Beach Boys is pretty blah to me. A few things rise to the level of "good", but most of it is pretty mediocre. Kokomo rips because the chorus is so damn good and the lame verse is just a big setup for that massive drop. The lyrics are lame, but at least inoffensive. There's no edge to them, but I don't go to the Beach Boys for edgy lyrics.

Yeah, there's definitely a dividing line in how much a person likes or doesn't like 70s Beach Boys. I wouldn't say 70s BBs are better than 60s, certainly not the relative peaks, but it would be closer than I'd have thought when I first got into the band years ago and my ideal beach boys period is probably something like '64-'77 (if we could only excise 15 Big Ones from consideration). Which encompasses a lot of different styles they'd dig into, but I find all that 70s stuff better and more interesting than pretty much everything that came after 77 and a good chunk of their early 60s stuff (though I still love the early 60s stuff).

[matedog]

I probably shouldn't be debating with a Beach Boys superfan...

I really need WWK or Flex to chime in here as they are the BB nerds.

You didn't respond how I wanted you to.

[Dr. Medulla]

I probably shouldn't be debating with a Beach Boys superfan...

I really need WWK or Flex to chime in here as they are the BB nerds.

You didn't respond how I wanted you to.

This has eerie echoes of Heston gloating about KISS.

[matedog]

What a weird ass clip. An oddly humorless Phil Hartman intros a very unique lineup of Bruce, Mike (of course), but also deep Beach Boys members Glen Campbell and David Marks, and the shameless John Stamos to poorly lip sync a terrible medley of their hits while Carl Wilson is a couple weeks away from dying.

[Dr. Medulla]

What a weird ass clip. An oddly humorless Phil Hartman intros a very unique lineup of Bruce, Mike (of course), but also deep Beach Boys members Glen Campbell and David Marks, and the shameless John Stamos to poorly lip sync a terrible medley of their hits while Carl Wilson is a couple weeks away from dying.

Two comments:
(1) If Phil Hartman introduces something, I instinctively think what follows is going to be awful and he's there to encourage you to mock it. I don't know if that's a Simpsons effect or not.
(2) One of the terrible achievements of the Beach Boys is that they turned surf rock into elevator music.

[matedog]

What a weird ass clip. An oddly humorless Phil Hartman intros a very unique lineup of Bruce, Mike (of course), but also deep Beach Boys members Glen Campbell and David Marks, and the shameless John Stamos to poorly lip sync a terrible medley of their hits while Carl Wilson is a couple weeks away from dying.

Two comments:
(1) If Phil Hartman introduces something, I instinctively think what follows is going to be awful and he's there to encourage you to mock it. I don't know if that's a Simpsons effect or not.

Makes sense. It was just kinda out of character which threw me off initially. Oof, I forgot he was killed like three months after this video.

[WestwayKid]

What a weird ass clip. An oddly humorless Phil Hartman intros a very unique lineup of Bruce, Mike (of course), but also deep Beach Boys members Glen Campbell and David Marks, and the shameless John Stamos to poorly lip sync a terrible medley of their hits while Carl Wilson is a couple weeks away from dying.

Brian has mentioned that he watched that Super Bowl with Carl and that it was the last time he saw his brother alive. Also, as a Packer fan, that was not a good Super Bowl. Hartman sounds like he's doing a Bill McNeil voice.

[matedog]

It's Friday!

1989's "Still Cruisin'" from The Beach Boys 1989 album "Still Cruisin'"
Lead Vocal - Mike Love and Carl Wilson 

Riding the wave of their first #1 single in 22 years, the superlative "Kokomo," The Boys rushed out a half-themed compilation "Still Cruisin'". The idea was to sort of compile soundtrack songs both new and old. I say "sort of" because Mike, Al, and Brian get their own non-movie songs in there which Mike remained bitter about in spite of the fact that he got one of his songs (which we will review next week) on as well. Oh and "Wipeout" made the comp too because why not? The title track was featured in that summer's "Lethal Weapon 2" so at least it qualifies. Solely on the strength of "Kokomo," this album is one of only three albums in their lengthy discography that is certified as platinum(!). The title track however, stalled at #93 and would be the last time they scraped the Hot 100 for the rest of their career.  Let's see if the public's post-Kokomo hangover was properly shrugged off or if they missed out on a secret Melcher/Mike banger...

 Lyrics: 
The entirety of this vapid song is just driving around, making out with a girl, and having fun in the summer. Whereas "Kokomo" shrewdly updated the Beach Boys ideology for middle age, this seems to merely be a retred of their early 60s subjects. This adds a sad, creepy "I'm still young!" edge. It also has one of the worst stanza's Mike Love has ever written:People dancin' in the sand
Rockin' to a reggae band
Lovers walkin' hand in hand
Party all summer long 
Just vapid vapid shit. They do the chorus like eight times in the song. It's like an early Rancid song, but with none of the charm. 

Music:  Seeking to duplicate the success of "Kokomo", Love/Melcher employed a near identical intro - Mike Love solo vocal over minimal percussion (this time snapping!). The vocal is heavily treated with an almost reverse echo sound effect for...reasons. At least they eschew the Florida resort vibe of Kokomo and go for some kind of weird straight rock vibe. Gone are Van Dyke Parks' immaculate accordion and steel drums. In its place are a standard guitar/bass/drums arrangement along with some tasty guitar leads and hints at a rockabilly guitar style. The lead guitar line is followed by an endearingly lame drum fill into the full band chorus, again similar to Kokomo. Mike throws the band small bones by giving shitty Bruce Johnston a shitty feature high harmony because even Mike knows he sucks. Al at least gets a solo line, albeit a lame ass one. The chorus ends with a two bar drums and solo Mike vocal that will be used as a transition piece throughout the song. Another nice guitar fill leads us into the song's only verse. Nothing really noteworthy about the verse, it does have one of those two bar breaks in the middle, and it also ends with an absurdly deep vocal line by Mike with the "toss in your favorite tape." Just fucking weird how deep he gets on this. Regardless, Carl swoops in to save the day with the song's only good vocal as he often does by rocking a Bb major triad and sounding like a boss when he hits that F-note. Mike comes back in with his shitty intro vocal to remind us how much worse a singer he is, though the rumbling guitar line underneath is kinda fun. Carl returns this time with harmonies then Mike does that solo vocal thing except this time it's twice as long and the band falls back into the lame as hell chorus. The chorus is followed by a really nice instrumental section featuring (I believe) some good 12-string work. Mike has to interrupt the instrumental with another one of those two bar bits and we are back into another instrumental section, this time with a nice guitar solo. Carl comes back in and the transition from the instrumental into Carl's vocal has to be the high point of the song, probably because it's the longest stretch where we don't hear Mike. Another four bar break for Mike and we are back into the chorus, fade out and end.

It's a bizarrely structured song and I appreciate that. You only have one verse and all these drums/vocal transition pieces and a long ass instrumental part in the middle. Stylistically it's generally rock, but it's still a weird sounding song and doesn't really sound like anything else at the time or ever I guess. The guitar work and Carl are the bright spots because the minimally melodic chanty chorus is weak as hell. 

Video: So the back story of this video is that VH1 did a promotional tie in context where a winner would get 36 Corvettes, one from every year from 1953-1989. Who the fuck needs 36 corvettes? No one apparently as there was a winner who quickly sold them and the cars have been sitting collecting dust in a garage for decades now:

The video consists of an uninspired fake live performance (though Carl looks dope as hell, if a bit hot, in all black) along with actual live footage and shots of Corvettes. Honestly, the helicopter shot of the Vettes at 2:11 is pretty cool. 

Song grade: D+ I went into this thinking I liked this song, but it's baaaaad. I like that it has a weird ass structure even if it doesn't come together at all. The extended instrumental break is surprising and more complex than it needed to be, which I also admire. And Carl does that belting thing that sounds so good. But fuck they sing the chorus ad nauseum and it's just bad. It goes for the heavy anthemic feel of Kokomo, but guys, this isn't Kokomo. Chorus falls flat, song sucks.

Video grade:  C- It's boring a as hell performance piece slightly elevated by some great helicopter shots of Vettes.

Choice Youtube Comment: "lmao... Mike wasn't even 50 yet and he was already dressing like a Florida retiree." -skakirsk
Brian status - He has a real brief cameo in the video, probably due to Kokomo FOMO, but it was wisely minimal. No idea if he sings on the track, but I'm guessing not.
Mike Love venom - Oh right, Mike Love sucks. Kokomo had me fooled there for a minute.

Next week - The downward trajectory continues with the very uncomfortable "Somewhere In Japan."

[Flex]

It's like an early Rancid song,

More to react to, but want to immediately give a hearty "lol" to this

[Dr. Medulla]

There's just such a shocking shamelessness to it all. There's no way they'd find something like this passed muster back in the early or mid 60s, but they want to pass it off as legit. Remember when we were young and you were young and it was great? We're still those guys! No dignity at all.

I guess that short blast of guitar towards the end was okay-ish, tho.

[Flex]

Watched the video, man what excrement. It's mind boggling that this era you're documenting represents them at something like at least one peak of their commercial power. This one is somehow even worse than I remembered. I will say, Carl's voice is in really nice shape here, which makes it even worse that they wasted some nice harmonies from him on this piece of shit.

One thing that's underrated is just how sexually repulsive the band became around this time. The Beach Boys have always been a (somewhat surprising, if you have their 60s public image in mind) pretty libidinous band in real life. But on record and in publicity materials and so forth they never really came off as leering creeps (I mean, other than in the lowkey way that Mike just naturally exudes at all times). That definitely changes by this point. Scantily clad ladies all several decades their junior dancing around their videos and in promotional materials and so forth, pretending to find any of these sacks of shit desirable (okay, Carl has some pretty GILFy energy). As that funny comment points out, Mike (and the whole band outside Carl really) are dressing like someone let them have a day pass out of the retirement castle to go perform their little concert. You can see Mike sticking his upper-middle-aged paunch out while ladies in their early 20s dance around him in bikinis. It's all quite repulsive and feels very rapey. Unfortunately, the vibe of "desiccated husks trying to get with high school girls" vibe the band (well, mostly Mike and Bruce) gives off here only get progressively worse from this point on - thankfully mostly relegated to live performances of the Mike and Bruce Boys, fortunately.

The corvette stuff is all quite funny. I'd be happy to take one if the guy is looking to clear some space.

I vaguely remember Somewhere Near Japan as, musically, one of the less-bad numbers on Still Cruisin' so I'm interested in hearing how bad my memory is.