The Word Is Love

Let me rise to the defense of Mike Love. Poor Mike was and is a huge part of the Beach Boys' history, and yet he's routinely been treated like dirt for years by fans and critics. Not fair.

Sure, the guy's notoriously hard-nosed and pushy. But he also wrote the lyrics for some of the band's greatest songs, which, by the way, are some of the best songs America produced in the second half of the 20th Century. Any guy who wrote the words to "The Warmth of the Sun" deserves a little respect, don't you think?

Let's not forget his lead vocals on "Surfin' USA," "I Get Around," California Girls" and, most notably, "Fun, Fun, Fun," either. Just for starters. Face it, Mike was a key player in the vocals department.

Brian Wilson was the genius of the Beach Boys, but it's ponderable how far the band would have gone professionally without Mike's drive and ego. He was definitely the number two figure in the group, and when Brian bailed on live performances, it was Mike who kept them going in concert. He's still keeping them going, in fact. Plus all great bands need creative tension: Lennon vs. McCartney, Jagger vs. Richards, McGuinn vs. Crosby, the list goes on and on. Brian was consistently better when he had to fight back against Mike - and against his Dad - than he has been since everyone started kissing his feet.

Okay, Mike had reservations about some of "Pet Sounds" and all of "Smile," but so did lots of folks at the time. Yeah, he didn't want Brian to derail the gravy train with Van Dyke Parks' weirdness, but very few people like to kill a good thing. Brian also wasn't exactly the most stable, reassuring person to build your future around at that time either. Ask Marilyn. It's awfully safe years after the fact for critics to look down their noses at Mike, but if critics had one-tenth of his talent, they'd have their own bands and not be critics.

In short, Mike Love has become a convenient punching bag, much the way Paul McCartney has had to fight the critics' love affair with John Lennon for years when any objective reading of the Beatles' history is clear that the Cute One was the brains behind the operation.

Mike wasn't the McCartney of the Beach Boys, but he was a lot more than a go-fer for the great Brian Wilson. Come on, people, give the man his due.

Alexander The Great

Put Skippy Spence in the All-Wacked-Out Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where he joins Brian Wilson, Peter Green, Syd Barrett, Sly Stone, Rocky Erickson and others, who discovered that indeed too much LSD can be too much of a good thing.

After a brief, curious stint as the first drummer for the Jefferson Airplane, Spence became the lightning rod of the late, lamented Moby Grape, arguably the greatest American rock 'n' roll band of the '60s that never made it. [I'd vote the Pretty Things that honor on the other side of the Pond.] A more powerful version of the Buffalo Springfield, the Grape combined great singing, great writing and great playing (especially with three lead guitars) into one s--t-hot cauldron of San Francisco R 'n' R. Their dedicated legion of fans (can you tell I'm one?) grab up every little morsel they can find.

On the sessions for their second album, which had been moved to New York to get them away from the drugs and babes in California, the Grape proceeded to record a series of legendary tracks while Spence began his long descent into drug-induced psychosis. This slow ride was highlighted by his attempt to end an argument with another band member by hacking through a door with a fire axe (here's Johnny?).

After being committed to Bellevue Hospital for six months, Spence jumped on a motorcycle in the dead of winter and went to Nashville where he spent a day recording his one and only solo album, Oar, second to none in spaciness and odd beauty. It sold a handful of copies at the time (1969) but has since taken up permanent residency on the Top 20 lists of most major rock critics. It's not for the easily entertained, but it's a gem.

From there, Spence drifted into homelessness and was even interviewed in a park in San Jose, I believe, where he was living in a cardboard box. He only very tangentially had anything to do with the band's reunion efforts but did record a song, Land of the Sun, for The X-Files movie, which typically was so weird they didn't use it in the film. He died of lung cancer about 10 years ago.

Sundazed Music recently released a Spence demo of "Just Like Gene Autry: A Foxtrot," which Moby Grape thoughtfully recorded at 78 rpm for the "Wow" album, making it a bit more difficult to play in a world when most turntables no longer play at that speed. Play that cut, and listen to that manic laughter. You'll understand why this guy was perfect for the '60s but doomed in terms of the real world.

God bless Alexander "Skip" Spence. He left a lot of joy in his troubled wake.

Putting an end to Camelot

Did Scott Brown’s election to Teddy Kennedy’s Senate seat finally break the spell?

A Night to Remember

Jimmy Webb has written some of the most memorable songs of my generation, including "Up, Up and Away," "By The Time I Get to Phoenix," "Wichita Lineman," "Galveston," "MacArthur Park," "Didn't We," "All I Know," "Crying In My Sleep," "The Highwayman" and many, many others. He's written, arranged and produced heart-wrenchingly gorgeous albums like Richard Harris' "A Tramp Shining," the Fifth Dimension's "The Magic Garden," "Reunion" with Glen Campbell in 1974 and Art Garfunkel's "Watermark," along with less-memorable records by Cher, the Supremes minus Diana Ross and others.

But Webb's also chafed for years at not being able to stand alone as a performer, an interpreter of his own songs. Despite the release of solo albums sporadically since 1970 and live shows every now and then, his gangly, aw-shucks persona has never translated successfully into widespread commercial acceptance.

Webb has continued to write very beautiful material over the years - songs like "Adios," done memorably by Linda Ronstadt with vocal backings by Brian Wilson, "Lightning in a Bottle," a little-known release by Campbell in 1988, and "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress," covered by Joe Cocker, Michael Feinstein and others. Like many who came of age in the mid- to late 1960s, however, he is forever branded by his earliest material. Undoubtedly, his bank account is quite satisfying, but his artistic side has gone begging.

Which brings us to last night and a small theater out in the middle of nowhere in southern New Jersey where Webb and a beat-up old grand piano captivated a couple hundred people for nearly two hours. Sitting in rows of equally old, beat-up church pews, no less. At 25 bucks a ticket. Now Jimmy Webb is 63-years old, wearing a nicely tailored double-breasted suit with an eye-catching Art Deco tie. Tall and slightly pudgy, like many of us, he's clearly comfortable in his skin, determined to show himself as the keeper of the flame of the Great American Songbook. No band, no back-up singers, just the boy from Oklahoma, the son of a Baptist minister, who is following in the footsteps of Berlin, Porter, Gershwin, Rodgers, Arlen and Kern. And you know, he's got something there.

Webb's voice, at times over the years a strangled, off-key vehicle at best, has weathered nicely, and the man has lived quite a life. He spun delightful tales of his collaborators like Waylon Jennings, Frank Sinatra, Ronstadt, Harris, Campbell and others, along with a devastating putdown of what the Grammys have become (he's won, so he's entitled). Each story elicted a laugh before he began performing the song most closely identified with that artist. The exception was Ronstadt, whom he explained he had recently recorded a duet of "All I Know" with, noting that she had just announced her retirement for unexplained medical reasons. An obviously very-moved Webb said, "I'll try to get through this," and then sang and played it beautifully. The song will be on an album coming out soon, he said.

It was the kind of intimate evening that fans live for. Telling us that against his better judgment he'd let his doctor talk him into getting a flu shot, Webb complained that now he was sick for the first time in a couple years and begged forgivness for his vocal limitations. But he seemed in fine form all evening, and the upshot is we all had to kick in to hit the vocal highs of the chorus of "Up, Up and Away." It wasn't a hard sell: We all bellowed along enthusiastically. Webb stuck to the classics for most of the show, but kicking off with a story about how he and drummer Russ Kunkel basically grossed out the prissy, proper Ronstadt, he did a wonderfully funny obscurity from his enormous catalog entitled, "What Does A Woman See In A Man." Indeed.

In recent years, Webb has been honing his live act in England where he has an enthusiastic following. (Why do the British always have more sophisticated musical tastes than we do?) To get a flavor of the show we saw, I highly recommend "Live and At Large," a CD of Webb performing in the UK. He has a deep catalog of stories as well since only one on the CD was repeated at Saturday night's show. "Ten Easy Pieces" is the CD for those who want to hear Webb sing and play his classics in a studio setting.

Someone who's written what Webb's written isn't doing gigs for money. He even mentioned at one point that he had driven to the show through the snowstorm just like we did and didn't seem to have any handlers with him. Although clearly tired from his performance, he was very generous with his time afterwards, staying around to sign things and just talk with the fans. A class act all the way. Although last night's show is only one of three he has scheduled so far this year, I suspect this may be a warm-up for a larger tour in conjunction with "Just Across The River," the new album that will include the Ronstadt duet.

For those who treasure watching the creative spark right from the source, go see Jimmy Webb if he comes to town. The stories are great, the singer reaches down deep, and the songs are timeless. Oh, and did I mention? He's a helluva piano player.

Don't make me laugh

The Politico piece today about the GOP and conservatives is laughable. Good for Mike Pence for standing up and saying so.


The whole premise of the piece is that national Republican leaders are embarrassed by Beck, Limbaugh and the Tea Partyers. Quoting, of course, David Brooks, Bob Michel, people like that. As if the national GOP was leading anybody anywhere. Funny how the folks in Washington always think they're calling the shots for the rest of us.


As a new Rasmussen poll shows today (73% of GOP voters say their reps in Congress don't represent the base), it's the grass-roots that are driving the train now. They're as sick of the Republicans as they are of the Democrats. If the Republicans want to get elected, they need to get on board. Not vice versa.

Happiness Did Not Write The White Album

Some thoughts on the Beatles after listening to the mono box all the way through. Pardon me if I state the obvious, but just let me spit it out.

There are really two Beatles: John's Beatles, up through and including Revolver (although Rubber Soul and Revolver are really transitional albums as John gets more and more out of it on drugs), and Paul's Beatles from Sgt. Pepper's to The End (literally).

Paul and, to only a slightly lesser extent, George Martin were always the motor of the Beatles. But John, even as he slipped into a heroin daze during the White Album, was still capable of moments of genius. It's essential to note, however, that it was Paul who, more often than not, elevated John's simple (but brilliant, don't misunderstand me) songwriting with his arrangements and instrumental prowess. It's also important to note that Paul got better and better at his craft over the course of the Beatles; John didn't.

If you don't believe me, look at their solo careers. John's solo material is always very straight-forward guitar-based stuff, very similar arrangements throughout, and, to be honest, pretty bland as he moved through the '70s. While I like his contributions to the Double Fantasy record, I don't think anyone would say that it was particularly challenging. The critical establishment would have beaten McCartney to death if he had come out with "Beautiful Boy." In short, there was no Paul around to say, Hey, let me throw on this guitar solo or let's do the drums this way or how about running some backwards tape loops through the mix.

Not that Paul's solo material was blemish-free. No one is going to put "Morse Moose and the Grey Goose" on their Top 10 list (no one who's not institutionalized, that is), and we all can cite others. But then as the French essayist Henry de Montherlant famously said, "Happiness writes white." (In the interest of full disclosure, I knew the quote but had to Google the source of it.) Other than Linda, though, he always played with top musicians and had something interesting to say arrangement-wise. He didn't force his wife to center-stage either. (Bet no one rushed out to pick up Yoko's new CD.) We Macca fans also know that his lyrics are much better than the music press used to give him credit for.

But lest this come off as my usual slavish pro-McCartney harangue, let me ask you this: Can you imagine how powerful the Beatles would have been if John had been as with it and as competitive with Paul in 1968 and '69 as he was in, say, 1964? Maybe it's pointless to try to improve on the original. Still one can't help but wonder. ...

Was Bush right about Iraq?

Interesting front-page story in The New York Times today about how Iraqis are reaching across religious lines for the first time to promote secular political parties in the upcoming elections.


So let me see if I have this straight: Saddam Hussein is gone, the biggest irritant in the Middle East, and six years later, we have free democratic elections involving secular parties in the heart of the world's most troubled region. Most of that trouble is due to factions of Islam that we have been told forever could never be reconciled. If those elections are successful, which seems highly likely, reform-minded Iranians are sure to take note and be even further emboldened, as will be reformers in other countries in the region.


Several thousand Americans died in the process, which is certainly heartbreaking for the families involved, but that's a calculated risk when you sign up for the military. Particularly in the wake of 9/11. The total number of casualties, meanwhile, is lower than virtually any other military action in U.S. history, and the payoff is that the Middle East has been forced into the 21st Century.


I won't hold my breath waiting for the flood of articles reassessing Bush's decision to invade Iraq.