So how would you like to see Mike Love perish?

Kill him by drowning him in Sunkist.

>>Back to Pleasant Screams, THERE IS REALLY NO ALBUM QUITE LIKE THIS IN THE HISTORY OF THE MUSICAL WORLD. "Sounds like the Ramones?" Get the hell out of here, kids, and listen to me close. Five reasons this is the best Beach Boys album since Beach Boys Today: (1) Best rockin'-nasal Mike Love vocals since "Drive-In." (2) Beach Boys never had hard-rock/punk-rock wall-of-sound guitars like this to back up their prime '63-'64 material. And they never opened an album with a song trashing their former bass player (rumors of "Brian's a Fuckin' Burnout" outtakes to the contrary). (3) "I Never Got the Girl" is the greatest straight-ahead '64 Beach Boys tune/hook since, well, "I Get Around"/"Don't Worry Baby" (pick either, pick both). And the outside-writer tunes are stupendously good. I still don't know where the fuck that Donovan rock song ("You Just Gotta Blow My Mind") comes from; I'll bet 50 cents it didn't sound like that on the original version. But the song that really astonishes me is track #10, "Don't Want You Hanging Around"—How the fuck'd Ben Weasel write a song that hot? What an astounding model of simplicity and musical oomph—it's a lyric about his ex-wife bugging him, always a relevant topic to about 50% of the population once you include ex-husbands as well. Riverdales and Screeching Weasel discographies do not show any precedent; I almost suspect Joe King tweaked or rearranged the melody line. Weasel/King did a great job of finishing the half-written Joey Ramone song ("I Wanna Be Happy") too—it's 50 times better than anything on that lame metal-brained solo Joey album. (4) Exactly the right ratio of vocal/lyrical obnoxiousness (see: Mike Love) to pop hooks, and of distorted guitar to rockin' beats. (5) Pet Sounds sucked. (Dave Marsh spared no bones telling the world 30 years ago what a waste of filing space that album was, but the emo people of the world just never take a hint. I'm still waiting for the '60s Beach Boys comp titled Mike Love Was Right—meaning, TM certainly slightly less worthless than psych drugs, even I will agree on that . . . and car/girls/beer, obviously, no contest. Does anyone seriously think 1951 Chicago blues would have been as rockin' if Muddy Waters had been tripping on LSD instead of juiced out of his mind on hard liquor? I mean, come on.)

Five reasons this is the best album the Ramones never made: (1) Kickass Mike Love vocals top punk-rock Peter Noone any day. I don't care if poor fuckin' Joey's dead, sorry. But the obvious point is that what the fuck's Joe King got to do with Joey Ramone (vocally)? Not to mention that '64 braggart M-Love (as opposed to basketball pro Stan Love from the really bad side of the family) would have made a much better 1977 Ramones lead singer. (2) Short songs, great '64 Beach Boys/'77 Ramones-derived hooks (à la the "Sheena" prototype, but harder, tighter, punchier), and the flow of this album (beats, BPMs, variations of tempo from track to track) plays like one great long 31-minute song. (3) Killer drumrolls all over the place (in the old previously missed mid-'90s style of Hugh O'Neill, R.I.P.)—they came up with a drummer doing the exact type beats/rolls the old dead drummer had perfected, and he rocks like holy fuck. Since I always dug the Rancid drummer (hired because he looked like someone who'd make a great drummer once he learned the instrument, remember) I have a slight trainspotter track record in this category. The Clash couldn't play their axes for shit, so they needed a drummer who also couldn't play, so as not to upstage them. And I think we can count the number of drumrolls in the entire early Ramones discography on less than one finger. (4) When "Babysitter," "I Wanna Be Your Boy-friend," and "I Remember You" weren't hits, the Ramones got confused and never made the album like this one that they should've. (5) In actual truth, Rocket to Russia is half snooze city.

Oh yeah, those Kix albums though -- gold from start to finnish!

Though Kix did make four or five albums better than Rocket to Russia.

"When it comes to Rock 'n' Roll and in particular the brawny sun-tanned fivesome (a nod to the Surfin' USA LP...), I'm basically a meat n' potatoes DANCE DANCE DANCE/GOOD TO MY BABY/PAMELA JEAN type of Joe. You know, Little Richard sang it and Dick Clark brought it to life? Still man, I dig Smile and I dig it cause takin' into account alla yer aveage garden variety procolharummoodieblues overblown gobbledegook dungo dirges cosmically conceived in its wake (it's still enuff feat havin' a wake without ever bein' born!), Smile is still hot shit and you wanna know how come, hmm? ADVENTURE. Ya gotta be a little nuts, now show 'em whose got guts kinda ADVENTURE. AD-VEN-TURE, Jack. Yeah, it's about sone guy grabbin music by he nuts and yankin' for far more than his fair share 'cause destiny kicked his ass way way harder'n any big daddy ought to be whomped and it's about the same guy flippin' destiny the bird, and takin' his ball and goin' home...Smile's primo hoot is that it woulda put 'em all in second place - Spector, the Beatles, the biased "these guys stand for fun and we don't want to know from fun" critics, Papa Murry, and yep, the BB's themselves. Brian had 'em all against the ropes, ripe for clobberin' but he never threw his big punch and any hodad'll hip you - you can't have a knockout without a punch. Now I betcha marbles to Maharishis there woulda been a whole diff twist to the Beach Boys tale...had there been a Smile LP way back when. There's enuff questions about Smile to fill Mike Love's hat closet a dozen times over and I figger if it came out tomorrow, the questions wouldn't get no easier to answer. And that's just part of the adventure, bub."