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

"I like certain jazz-style groups, like Soft Machine, who've already been mentioned, although the artists involved were largely all so good that creative differences were transcended"

weirdest soft machine albums are the late 70's ones where none of the original members are in the band. that's one way to work around the creative geniuses of a group.

Have we arrived at a single non-Mike Love Mike Love yet? Feel like the definition keeps getting more and more specific and now nobody can be considered for the position.

frank zappa has some definite mike love qualities.

How about Pink Floyd? You could say Syd was the main creative force behind it and everything past that has been a power grab?

lol, M@tt.

There is more to Miles Davis's leadership than just picking the best musicians. There is some quote to the effect that "maybe a guy could only play two notes, but if Miles LIKES those two notes..."

Yeah, totally. And to use one example, he recruited Keith Jarrett who had not only never played electric piano before, but was vocal about his hatred of the instrument. So Miles says, "Hey, you know that thing you hate? Do that."

Ha, it was Keith Jarrett who said it: http://downbeat.com/microsites/ecm-jarrett/post_3-inner-octaves-of-jarrett.html

lol.

Given his "diseased organism" comment, I'm thinking Keith Jarrett was the Mike Love of that Miles group.

it doesn't sound like he was a fan of Chick & Dave for sure!

Thinking about this thread, it's amazing how many of my favourite bands are helmed by a single, unchallengeable creative genius, with loyal satellites in fealty, rather than a democracy of shifting power.

More likely helmed by that one guy who takes all the credit for everyone else's work, no?

Axl doesn't fit?

ROGER WATERS???

Tommy Shaw would work except he's more talented than Dennis DeYoung and DeYoung's also the bigger asshole.

I have a vague sense of Tony Hadley being the Mike Love of Spandau Ballet, though I don't really know enough about the inner workings of Spandau Ballet to be confident that this is fair, he does meet the criteria of being openly right wing and generally coming across as chippy and bitter.

I thought Spiny Norman would have been the Spandau Ballet example? (Also Gary Kemp admits to being useless and only being able to play the bare minimum that Martin showed him.)

I was thinking about what would be the opposite of a Mike Love--as in, an individual who was not the main songwriter or creative force in a band, but who represented to many of the fans the true spirit of the band, and was sometimes pushing against the direction the "genius" leader wanted to take the band. I'm thinking maybe of one of the Stinsons in the Replacements.

Yeah, Bob Stinson. Or Brian Jones.

that's pretty close to the bez right?

Eddie Hazel sorta

Brian Jones was the genius leader in the early days of the Stones

sure...until he went bugfuck crazy

The anti-Mike Love of G'nR would be Izzy Stradlin.

Roxy Music was, and is, Ferry's band but all eyes, especially those of the Americans who saw Roxy on its late 72 US tour, were invariably fixed on the enticing, sinister, spangled and feathered vision at stage right that was Eno. The process of indentification / association was obvious and immediate. The whole band looked spectacular, but even so Eno stood out. You can't tell the players without a program or the leader without a bio, and audiences simply assumed that Eno was Roxy Music while Bryan pumped away at the opposite side, singing and sweating and getting as much recognition as a ventriloquist's dummy.

I was thinking about what would be the opposite of a Mike Love--as in, an individual who was not the main songwriter or creative force in a band, but who represented to many of the fans the true spirit of the band, and was sometimes pushing against the direction the "genius" leader wanted to take the band. I'm thinking maybe of one of the Stinsons in the Replacements.

― relentlessly pecking at peace (President Keyes), Saturday, May 24, 2014 5:13 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Lately, Richard Lloyd? Ppl vociferously wanting nothing to do with a TV sans him.

Lloyd is key when you realise how much of the parts on MM is him

Spiral Stairs? Bob Nastanovich?

I don't think Lloyd is a bad guy.

not a bad guy per se but the tone of his public statements has gotten more and more aggressively outspoken

i wasn't saying he's a mike love! just an example of the species president keyes was positing

Ozzy is an anti-Love as posited by Keyes. Probably the ideal anti-love.

I think an anti-Love would be like an Eno in Roxy, or John Cale in VU - a super-talented and well-respected member who pushed the band in experimental directions but was a bit of a thorn in the lead dude's side.

The "heart of the band" guy is something different - Stinson, Dee Dee, Bez...

Trying to work out how Mark E Smith fits into this, as the bad guy, the heart of the band and the main creative force all rolled into one.

xpost well Eno and Cale were major creative forces in their bands--the usual story of when there's more than one songwriter and somebody has to go (Lou Barlow, Jason Isbel, etc.)

I was thinking of someone who was not a major creative force, but was as loved/credited by fans as much Mike Love is hated/blamed by fans.

Anti-Love: Michael Nesmith

Some names that come to mind are ones from hit-making machines. Dennis DeYoung, Peter Cetera. Maybe Lou Gramm at one point with Foreigner. Steve Perry?

McCartney gets a bit of this hate from some quarters too maybe.

More than a bit, I'd say! It's a big inescapable part of the Beatles narrative that sort of forces you to take sides: was he the one hero holding things together when everybody else was too drugged out and angry to do anything, or was he the one in denial that shit was over who kept trying to force it to happen? I'm a huge Macca fan but still lean basically towards the latter.

This has now been covered pretty thoroughly but intheblanks is right that the enforcer is often the 'main' person, probably because the press/them have come to see the band as an extension of themselves. In some cases they might also be making a disproportionate share of the profits, I think? File under this slot all the bands that at one point claimed to be an inseparable unit, then at some point all of them were gone except the famous guy, with everybody else replaced by young, obedient hired guns. Some Everclear thread (?) touched on this recently re: Art Alexakis. But yeah - all that is distinct from Mike Love, somebody with no special claim to being a 'leader' of the band, who seized the role anyway as part of a longer-term campaign of maintaining the band-as-brand, band-as-corporation, band-as-empire.

Eric Idle is sooooooooooo oTM.

The group would lose something inessential yet distinct if the Mike Love were not there.
The group would lose something essential and gain a Jon Stamos if the oppositional force were to leave and the Mike Love were to remain.

― cwkiii, Friday, May 23, 2014 12:08 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^ getting kind of D&D rulebook here, I dig it.

Nesmith is the right kind of anti-Love for me: guy who leaves rather than follow whatever would enable the corporate vision to survive/triumph/reform, guy who contributes a number of important musical things to the band, but nothing that's ever essential to their sound, distinctive enough that some fans could side with him on everything, but not quite compelling enough in his own right that anyone could claim that his presence/absence makes or breaks the band.

Richard Lloyd is admittedly not well.

His wikipedia entry also seems to be self-written. I love it when people do that!

are Brian Jones and Syd Barret anti-Loves?

"Trying to work out how Mark E Smith fits into this, as the bad guy, the heart of the band and the main creative force all rolled into one."

Smith's like Zappa and Beefheart, he's the dictator/warlord.

James Brown would be another member of the dictator/warlord sect.

ROGER WATERS???

― i also enjoy in line skateing (spazzmatazz), Saturday, 24 May 2014 18:58 (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Roger Waters obv

― goth colouring book (anagram), Thursday, 22 May 2014 16:50 (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

gilmour is definitely the mike love of pink floyd. waters? fuck outta here

lol. op says "the ones who got shit done and kept things together". gilmour organized nothing in pink floyd.

as for waters, in 1967-8 he certainly had a "drug addict/mentally unstable/genius partner (who) derailed things endlessly but still got the glory"

I can think of someone so much like Mike Love in many ways outside of music: Stan Lee.

Sarah Palin

lol. op says "the ones who got shit done and kept things together". gilmour organized nothing in pink floyd.

In which era though? I thought he was sort of the singlehanded face of the brand following The Final Cut - kind of a classic case of a guy who wasn't really a creative leader, forcing the thing to keep moving and put out material and make big money. That's Mike Love, right?

Stan lee is worse than mike love imo

xp

In which era though? I thought he was sort of the singlehanded face of the brand following The Final Cut - kind of a classic case of a guy who wasn't really a creative leader, forcing the thing to keep moving and put out material and make big money. That's Mike Love, right?

― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, May 27, 2014 2:09 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm, that's how i see it too

I don't recognize the post-Final Cut Floyd as Floyd but yeah ok