The "bad guy" in the band: who are the other Mike Loves in music?

without even trying, I imagine

Was it you who called somebody "Wapner" on another thread, Bill? That cracked me up.

yeah "nice try Wapner" lol

I heard Walter Lure plays some of the guitar parts on the Ramones' records for Johnny, is this true?

yo- Stevie Nicks is absolutely a Mike Love!!

i don't think it's any big secret Walter Lure and Ed Stasium and others (Daniel Rey maybe?) played bits and pieces on some of the shitty mid-late 80's stuff

yo- Stevie Nicks is absolutely a Mike Love!!

― i also enjoy in line skateing (spazzmatazz), Friday, May 23, 2014 1:49 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wuuut no way dogg

Stevie absolutely fits all the criteria listed above. Relative weak-link in the band, became the breakout star, and didn't humor Lindsey's whims after Tusk flopped. Similar to Axl too: in the mid-late 80s when she did only like two weeks on Tango in the Night…

Plays it safe for the money, discourages the OCD weirdo savant, and becomes the perceived leader/face of a band she joined nearly a decade already into its existence. She didn't do much but sing on the records even though she wrote her songs/the germs of her songs. Totally a Mike Love.

FWIW I love Stevie

there should probably be some kind of rule that Mike Loves would be incapable of a highly successful solo career like Stevie was

ugh phrased that poorly, incapable of the kind of solo career Stevie was capable of i mean

what about the cure dude? LOL! no, really, that's his name. LOL! no, really...

maybe he was a nice guy. i dunno. i just remember they kicked him out and he sued them and yet still plays with them sometimes? and he helped start the band. and didn't really know how to play keyboards...

(though i guess he was an okay drummer.)

Is Otis Williams a Mike Love?

hard to say. it doesn't seem like he wrestled control of the group from anybody, just outlived them.

I always got the impression he was the de facto leader and he was mostly behind Ruffin and Kendricks' exits although he was arguably the least talented. I don't think he necessarily perfectly fits the Love profile but he definitely has characteristics.

Feel like maybe, in the interests of creating a greater pool for discussion, that the most crucial criteria for being a Mike Love are:

1) Being the practical, get-shit-done force in a band that has an oppositional hard-to-manage or self-destructive "genius"
2) Having a demonstrable track record of being an asshole about it.

Don't want to water the definition down too much or anything; I feel like the sticking points from earlier were mainly the "talent"/"essential to the group" components, and if we table those criteria there are potentially far more candidates.

It's the super-rare Mike Love that is also not really that musically talented, a key songwriter, or a shaper of the group's sound.

Williams definitely fits criteria #1, not really sure if he had a rep for being an asshole tho.

How about Greg Norton? It seems like Mould and Hart get along now, but still dislike him.

It doesn't seem like he wrestled control of the group from anybody
Isn't the preferred expression "wrested control"?
/nitpick

More i read the definitions of a "mike love" the more I am adamant that Johnny ramone was the penultimate mike love.

sorry James Redd and the Blecchs

most people would just say yoko.

Whats Greg Norton actually done to be considered for this? He was notable in not getting involved in whatever was going on in the band

After all this time, Hart's recent jab at Norton comes off as total bullshit, to the extent where I begin to doubt the last 25 years of passive aggressive slanging matches with Mould

the next-to-the-last Mike Love

Link for grant dig at Greg?

Finally, what’s more likely: a Hüsker Dü reunion or a Bob Mould and Grant Hart collaboration album?

Well, the first one is intriguing, but not so likely. I like what Bob does, but sometimes two people have had such an impact on each other’s lives that they need 20 years to really stand back and be able to appreciate that. The third member of Hüsker Dü, Greg Norton, has in the past demonstrated a lack of respect for our time, and dare I say our talents. There were times when Bob and myself would show up at the office at 10, while Greg would turn up at the golf course at 11. We both had musical and artistic goals, whereas he had this band that contributed to his lifestyle, rather than the opposite way round. There were two possibilities for the bass-playing job when we started Hüsker Dü. Greg was technically the better choice, but it may have resulted a whole lot differently if Bob and I hadn’t had to share the frustration of working with him.

Love the use of middle-aged white collar guy terminology to the operations of 80s hardcore punk band Husker Du.

to describe the operations of, i mean

everything i've seen w/ the three of them has suggested that norton is by far the most laid back and would easily be the one it would be easiest to spend a lot of time around.

Jeez. Let me just say I highly doubt this is something grant has been bottling up for decades.

1) Being the practical, get-shit-done force in a band that has an oppositional hard-to-manage or self-destructive "genius"
2) Having a demonstrable track record of being an asshole about it.

while mike love does indeed have both of those qualities, i don't think that quite define what makes him "mike love."

i think it really boils down to this simple two-part criterion:

1a) assuming control of a group in which you are not a primary creative force, and
1b) exercising that control in a way that goes against the interests of the creative force

i think if you meet those two criteria, you'll automatically be perceived as (2) an asshole, (3) relatively untalented and (4) a practical get-shit-done dude. those things don't have to be stated, or even be true; they'll be assumed.

chris kirkpatrick of 'nsync is a good example of a guy who fits my 1a but not, as far as i know, my 1b.

greg norton strikes me as a guy who doesn't fit a single criteria that anyone has proposed in this thread.

like the quintessential mike love act was him firing brian wilson from the beach boys a couple of years ago

yes

Relative weak-link in the band

I'm sure you think Freddie Mercury was the weakest link in Queen too.

ftr Christine McVie was most skeptical of Buckingham's experiments but because all the big hits post-Tusk are hers she was served well by them.

i figured that description of stevie nicks was so bizarre and delusional that it didn't even need to be commented on.

The penultimate Mike Love would be the guy who fired the creative genius and then got fired himself, like if the guy who kicked Robert Wyatt out of the Soft Machine got booted himself a few albums later.

penultimate
"ultimate"
/nitpick

Some heavy-duty developments in Mike Love Studies theory here. Intheblanks has identified one of the key weaknesses in first wave Mike Love theory, and I am finding it hard to find inconsistencies in the refined 2-point Mike Love paradigm as put forth by Fact Checking Cuz.

No, I meant "penultimate," fcc, because such a figure would be replaced by the later, "ultimate" Mike Love.

I thought somebody was going to get me for adding the unnecessary "the" before the band name.

who is the mike love of ilx

I meant "penultimate," fcc, because such a figure would be replaced by the later, "ultimate" Mike Love.

but if such a figure had serious mike love skills, he'd worm his way back into the band and fire the guy who fired him. as the student becomes the master, so does the penultimate becomes the ultimate.

I don't think Mike Love Theory can be applied to more equal partnerships like Lennon/McCartney or Mould/Hart. McCartney and Mould may have been marginally more Mike Love than Brian Wilson - but both have too much Brian in them to be Mikes.

there are basically almost no mike loves, and just as well

Also there are too questions being asked in this thread. One is "Who is the Mike Love of (insert band)?", while the other is "Is (musician) a Mike Love?" The former has a lot of latitude, as it is simply identifying the most Mike Love-like figure in a group of people, while the latter is trickier and harder to pin down.

The first question is probably better, or at least more fun in the long run.