Falling out with Love

Volcanic fallings out within bands are an ever-recurring motif in the history of rock music. There’s an obvious reason for this: most musicians pick up an instrument in the first place not because they hear the call of Euterpe but because they’re sailing on the HMS Ain’t Gettin’ None.

They dream of fame, fortune and the cream of international crumpet, so they form a band with like-minded fellows — and then find that not all musos are created equal. One member will inevitably become the focus of female attention. Usually it’s the lead singer, who will often be the prettiest; imagine how the three ugly Doors felt, expertly playing their instruments while teenage girls screamed with lust at drunk, shambling, beautiful Jim Morrison.

Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys was an exception; no teen idol, he was talented beyond belief. His bandmates, more physically blessed, veered between awe and exasperation at this half-mad genius. Now one of them — Wilson’s misnamed cousin Mike Love — has put his feelings down on paper.

Aware of the misery memoir conventions, he begins by saying ‘Make no mistake, I wasn’t raised at Disneyland.’ But he is such a braggart that he is soon telling us that his childhood home had ‘three floors, 14 rooms, five bathrooms, and amenities of all kinds… the chandelier cast a soft glow over the living room… the swimming pool beckoned.’

Soon, despite the sun-kissed Cali upbringing, you’re getting a distinct whiff of David Brent and Alan Partridge; ‘I didn’t have a lot of close friends, or maybe just didn’t let many people get close to me. I was more comfortable as a renegade.’ At high school he is racist to the point of using the N-word freely to his black classmates’ faces, but that’s OK because ‘I got along with the black kids, partly because I was good at sport… I could cross these racial boundaries.