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

Anyone with a passing interest in Batman needs to see this one page comic about what a Bob Kane solo comic would look like...
http://tytempletonart.wordpress.com/2014/01/18/giving-comics-the-finger-bun-toons-yay/

Bob Kane was an old school humour cartoonist who got into superheroes because it was a successful new trend and he had real difficulty writing and drawing in that mode so he had has friend Bill Finger (who wasn't an artist but redesigned Batmans costume into the way it has more or less always been, he made most of the stories, characters and ideas) and Jerry Robinson (initially an inker but ended up drawing most of it for a while before some other artists worked under Bob Kane's name. Robinson claims to have basically created Joker) who he met just by chance at a tennis game when Robinson oddly had drawn on his own clothes (!?) and Kane asked him to draw for him on the strength of those drawings.

Kane doesn't have much of a cult because he got most of his work done for him (usually anonymously) and somehow managed to be the only early creator to get rich under DC (maybe the higher-ups appreciated his ruthlessly exploitative ways). Some people enjoy the slightly spooky crudeness of the early Batman art but it's hard to say how much that is owed to the inkers. Other early DC artists frequently mocked Kane's drawing ability and generally didn't like him as a person. Robinson said that Kane's peniciling got increasingly lazy to the point that he ended up just writing what was supposed to be drawn in some panels.

It has been said that Kane treated Finger horrendously and even demanded that Finger greet Kane a certain way each time they met. In later decades when Robinson written pieces about how it really was, some DC people treated this with total contempt as if nobody should have the nerve to do such a thing.
Finger spent his later years in desperation, finding it difficult to get writing work, eventually taking cheques and running away without doing the work; I think he died of scarlett fever. Apparently DC creators used to talk about "getting Fingered" when they were treated badly. Somehow the "created by Bob Kane" credit became so solid over time that it seemed there was no hope to ever officially credit Bill Finger, I don't know if that has changed.

Robinson is a really talented illustrator and done really nice work (I wouldn't bother with his Batman stuff, he never got to show his fully formed style on that work), especially with Mort Meskin; he ended up doing a lot of political cartoons and helping out political illustrators in russia.

Bob Kane is way worse than Mike Love.

Re: Marvel Zombies, I meant "if" that was their reason for creating the title, but I don't believe that. The insult doesn't get thrown around because there are just Marvel/DC zombies now.

Funny thing on that page you gave is that in the comments there is a flame war erupting w people accusing each other of ripping off their work (the work being comics about Bob Kane ripping other people off).

Yeah I just saw that, I once heard Kane meant Batman's costume to be yellow.

wow that is really interesting - thanks again, Robert!

Incontinent Batman just didn't appeal to the right demographics unfortunately

Based on brio's 5-and-a-half point list, and cwkiii's corollary, I nominate Tina Weymouth.

(I'm leaning heavily on David Bowman's book here.)

My reading of that book is that Weymouth and Byrne were both stiff weirdos who didn't communicate well.

So many have remarked on how Lee charmed people so much that he could screw them over and they wouldn't resent it too much. There are accounts of Ditko and Kirby meeting Lee at separate times in the 90s where they hugged and (sort of)forgiven him for all the things they had criticized.

Whose accounts? Kirby died at the beginning of ’94, and Lee, AIUI, hasn’t seen Ditko face-to-face since 1965. (When Ditko pressed for a plotting credit on Spider-Man, due to writing and drawing the entire book each month before Lee saw a single page to add dialogue to, Lee agreed but refused to set eyes on him again; Ditko had to deliver the finished pages to Sol Brodsky.)

a vague claim from lee in '99:

CraveOnline: What was your last contact with Steve Ditko?

Stan Lee: Quite a few years ago I met him up at the Marvel offices when I was last in New York. And we spoke, he's a hell of a nice guy and it was very pleasant. I really don't know what he's doing. I haven't heard from him since that meeting.

any mention of Weymouth/Byrne enmity automatically thinks of the story about her calling friends of the band up in the '90s and telling them that Byrne had a "baby penis"

automatically makes me think of the story, i mean

Lee is def more of a mealymouthed coward than Love, who does not shrink from confrontation

http://kirbymuseum.org/blogs/dynamics/2012/05/02/ditko-the-mystery-behind-the-man-article-2002/
http://www.paulgravett.com/index.php/articles/article/jack_kirby1/

This is where I found out about Lee meeting Kirby and Ditko in the 90s

kirby's "You have nothing to reproach yourself about, Stan." is also reported in the marvel untold story book, though the hug isn't mentioned. it doesn't sound like the most forgiving of statements. prior to that they'd had a frosty conversation when lee was on a radio show and kirby called in unexpectedly.

Kirby and Lee were always polite to each other in person, but that oft-repeated line - so personally whispered! - doesn't ring true, and the mere fact that Lee has used it so often points to unreliability, given his usual reportage.

Ditko's attitude to Lee is clear in his self-published writing on the topic over the last 15 years.

If Bob Kane is Mike Love then who is Jim Steranko at SDCC?

Jardine and Steranko about the same height.

Not sure I can imagine Al slapping Mike though.

Not sure I put too much weight in a 70-yo bullshit artist bragging about publicly "bitchslapping" a 75-yo poseur for being patronising in an elevator twenty years ago tbh

Personally, I thought those stories sounded fishy too and I wouldn't have been surprised if they were embellished.
I've read quite a number of Ditko's essays and letters, they can be fascinating but also quite mind numbing in places. I could never finish that 20 pager he wrote about the industry in the early 90s, even when I was at the height of my adoration for him. He does have a great memory though and can go into detailed accounts that few others are able to.

Can someone tell me about this slapping incident?

There is a popular myth about a comic artist hanging an editor out a high window by his legs in the late 50s to early 60s, some say Alex Toth did this (Scott Hampton even based a short story on this) but there are lots of different versions with different people. It was even mentioned in Mad Men, so I'm inclined to think it was a myth that circulated among various businesses where people worked in skyscrapers. But I still like to think Alex Toth really did this because he might have been nutty enough.

There is a book by Bryan Talbot called The Naked Comic Book Artist with lots of similar stories.

Found it

http://comicsalliance.com/jim-steranko-twitter-slap-bob-kane/

Sic, is Steranko a known liar?

The other thing that raised my suspicion about the Lee/Ditko meeting is that Blake Bell didn't include it in his Ditko biography book, he said he left out a lot of stories that didn't have enough evidence.

Let's stop clogging up a decent and fun ILM thread with this diversion.

Yes back to the serious business of finding a non-Mike Love Mike Love.

Are we still at 0? Is this a futile exercise? I think the best bet would be bands that are past their prime and more or less over yet keep going on reunion tours w 1 or 2 original members.

Tons of great Mike Loves identified upthread, esp. Robbie Robertson, Lars Ullrich, Johnny Ramone, Eazy E, Gene Simmons.

I mean nobody's going to be a 100% perfect fit, but these dudes are all Mike Loves.

Re: CSNY

It's tempting to say Crosby, Stills, Nash AND Young were the bad guys. There was a thread on the Steve Hoffman forum not so long back titled something like "Was Graham Nash the real a$$hole in CSNY", but that was never going to last very long over there.

Eazy E is def the best fit imo

Noel Redding, maybe? He always tried to get the Experience to do more of his songs, he's not particularly rated as a bassist, and he only did his last Experience tour on the condition that his other band would open.

if i wasn't such a big fan of Fat Matress, Road, and The Noel Redding Band i would agree. he added good stuff on his own away from jimi though and that's something mike love has never done. plus, i think jimi just wanted to do other stuff anyway, didn't he? it wasn't gonna last forever.

not a big fan of Wrinkles, Scott?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCSJ3DRhs7g

b wilson
5 months ago

really nice song from Mike Love

Stills is the Mike Love by far

I have to admit I've never heard CSNY other than the classic rock radio hits. High school hippies put me off em and I've never bothered checking them out because they seem so drippy. Am I totally missing out?

no they are horrid

don't listen to him, they're gr8

Noel Redding, maybe? He always tried to get the Experience to do more of his songs, he's not particularly rated as a bassist, and he only did his last Experience tour on the condition that his other band would open.

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Wednesday, May 28, 2014 2:15 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hmm yeah i mentioned Buddy Miles upthread as a Mike Love to Jimi, but Noel is probably a better fit.

Joey Molland of Badfinger?

The only "bad guy" surrounding Badfinger was their manager, who Pete Ham mentioned in his suicide note.

Stills is the Mike Love by far

― dollar rave club (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, May 28, 2014 5:44 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i love csny btw

yeah i mean stills is pretty talented, but he was so full of shit and his weird hatred/jealousy/neediness towards neil young...his bullying behaviors, it's all there

Revive!

This article: http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/260-the-jesus-lizards-book-reviewed/

... seems to point to Wm. David Sims as the Mike Love of The Jesus Lizard. Or at least he and Duane Denison as the guys who wanted to "go professional" during the major-label period and the David Yow-Mac McNeilly axis as the creative weirdos.

From Mick Jagger to Mike Love: all hail the money-grabbing men of rock

Mike Love, naturally, is the ultimate Mike Love and he is widely despised for it: for being a bully, for forcing Brian Wilson into things he was unfit to do, for claiming credit for things he deserves no credit for, for turning the Beach Boys into his personal fiefdom. Well, faced with the incapacities of Brian and the wildness of Dennis Wilson – the man who, let’s not forget, brought Charles Manson into the Beach Boys’ camp – what was he meant to do? Love, as the Beach Boys might put it, kept the summer alive.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/low_concept/2010/11/please_allow_me_to_correct_a_few_things.html

Classic thread

http://www.furious.com/perfect/hounddogtaylor.html

This is a great interview from quite a few years back with Bruce Egnater about Hound Dog Taylor. This one is up there with the all time greats I think for hard band members.

PSF: How was he as a bandleader?

Whatever they (the Houserockers) had a show, they didn't rehearse. That was sort of a rule. They followed that rule very closely. They also followed the rule that you REALLY shouldn't perform unless you had a reasonable amount of alcohol. He set an example for that. In that regard, he was sort of an exemplary bandleader. His concept of the band was that he would get a gig, call up the other guys and tell them where to be and they'd get there on their own and get home on their own. When they were on the road, he bought a vehicle big enough for the three of them. I remember the time that he got mad at Ted and Brewer. Brewer called me from Ohio and said 'Hound Dog left us here. He went home.' I called Hound Dog and he was home and I asked him what happened. He told me 'I said I'd take 'em to the gig but I didn't say I'd bring 'em BACK from the gig.' As a bandleader, he made his own rules and they were very loose. Having a fistfight with somebody else in the band would fall within the band rules. That was acceptable and in fact, sometimes encouraged.

Off the bandstand, he could be very angry and vindictive, especially to the guys in the band. He had a very short temper. When people didn't see him, he'd attack them. I saw the guys on the band pull knives on each other at various times. But sometimes he'd also attack them as amusement. One time when we were driving across the country (I'd usually drive since I was the sober one), Ted was in the front with Brewer and Hound Dog in the back. Hound Dog woke up at 6 in the morning with a cigarette in his hand and slapped Ted in the back of the head and yelled 'wake up and argue!' They drove across the country once arguing whether WOPA was an AM or an FM station for about 700 miles (of course it was both).

They also liked to tease each other about having sex with each other's wives and girlfriends. I remember when Brewer said about one of Hound Dog's girlfriends 'yeah, I knew her when she was a whore on 43rd Street.' In fact, it was a remark like that, directed at Hound Dog about his wife that led him to shoot Brewer in 1975, luckily not fatally.

Ralf Hütter in Kraftwerk, maybe? Not that Bartos and Flur were "geniuses" per the OP but they certainly got edged out of the band while Ralf busied himself with endless archival projects.

Billy Corgan.

he pretty much did all the music and lyrics but it seems he was kind of a dictator and a dick to everyone in the band.