Pagt? 6
Sometimes the tunes just pop in
Beach Boys’ singer practices TM
Mike Love
Photo by Ken Herrera
By JIM COLLETT and DOUG
GRAHAM
Mike Love, lead singer of the
Beach Boys, is a creature of
Southern California, the land that
spawned little Deuce Coups,
California Girls, and Surfin’ Safaris.
His background is reflected in
the joyful, as he says, “flat-out par
tying” songs the Beach Boys rec
orded such as “Barbara Ann” and
“Get Around.”
Yet there is more, as was re
vealed in an interview he granted
Jim Collett, a cadet commander of
Co. E-l, who is a disc jockey for
WTAW-FM.
“I’m basically competitive-
oriented,” Love said.
Competitive spirit was not evi
denced during his relaxed, profes
sional performance in G. Rollie
White Coliseum the day before, but
he emphasized that a desire to per
form well is important to him.
The competitive aspect of his
character seems not so much in
contrast to other individuals, but
rather in developing himself to the
fullest.
To achieve that goal Love took
up Transcendental Meditation, or
TM, to improve his creativity.
Love discussed TM at length
with Collett, as well as his back
ground, his life, and his music.
Love’s working to develop his
talents began in high school where
he ran cross country.
“I wasn’t very fast, but was the
top runner on my team.”
He used to run 5-10 miles in the
morning on his own. “In afternoon
practice, I’d sort of ease up. Guys
would beat me in practice, but I
couldn’t care less. When it came to
the race I’d have that reservoir of
extra energy.”
Love was playing with the band
on New Year’s eve in 1961 when it
was first billed as the Beach Boys.
Later, by 1967, when he owned
a Jaguar XKE, a Rolls Royce, and
three houses, Love said he had
succeeded in a material way. It
was that year when he had his first
contact with TM.
“People I knew that were in
volved with music and reasonably
interested in creativity, and they
had heard that there was some
thing to TM in terms of expansion
of creativity and expanding aware
ness and consciousness. You re
call at that time, a long time ago,
people were getting into drugs and
various forms of mind expansion.”
“Being a songwriter, writing
lyrics to the music that my cousin
Brian wrote, I was interested in
doing whatever ( could (to expand
his mind). Also, I had a fundamen
tal philosophy of my own that as
long as I was on this planet for X
amount of years, I’d do more than
kick up my heels, watch televison
and drink twenty beers. If there
was a way to expand my conscious
mind...”
He said the most obvious benefit
of TM is the deep rest and energy it
provides him. “It’s really good for
those in competitive sports, com
petitive education...competitive
partying.”
Love continued TM since then,
including taking advanced Sidhi
courses, which stress development
of various aspects of the mind. He
estimated that the time he has
taken off from touring or recording
to study TM is worth at least $1 mil
lion.
Love is not the only Beach Boy
to meditate using TM. Carl medi
tates, and Brian occasionally does,
he said. He said Bruce is “pretty
straight,” and Dennis, who was ab
sent from the performance, is
“pretty much of a rebel” who oc-
cassionally has problems with al-
chohol and drugs.
TM has not affected the group’s
general musical outlook, Love said.
“Our feeling about music has al
ways been harmonious and pretty
positive, anyway. It has more to
with quantity.”
He wrote 50 songs while in a TM.
course in Europe.
The Beach Boys are still produc
ing music. They are working on a
new album and a movie called
“California Beach.”
There are two ways to write
music, Love said.
“You can be driving down the
street and a tune will pop into your
head, or riding up an elevator and a
tune will pop into your head.”
“It can happen spontaneously,
or you can sit down with a thought
or a concept for a song and pound
it around in the area it feels like it
is.”
Though the group plays rockers,
other songs are more “cerebral,”
Love said. A song played during
the A&M concert, “Sumihama” is a
case in point. The inspiration came
from Love’s girlfriend.
She was the product of an affair
between her mother, a Japanese,
and a radical Korean professor.
Eventually the professor was de
ported to North Korea where he is
now a cabinet minister in the gov
ernment. The girl was 15 before
she learned about him. She was
named Sumako, a feminization of
Sumahama, the romantic beach
which serves as the locale for the
song.
Love doesn’t listen to much
other music on his time off. “If you
know a lot about something like
you have a job in an oilfield, on
your night off, you’re not likely to go
to an oilfield.”
Besides, he added, “The thing
about music is, if you have the
radio on, you can’t think of anything
yourself.”
He liked playing to the Aggies.
“You can’t get any better. They
were real positive, enthusiastic;
one of the best crowds we’ve ever
played to.”
‘Flying Burritos’ land in Starlight Ballroom
By LOUIE ARTHUR
Battalion Staff
Those “bad boys of country
rock”, the Flying Burrito Brothers,
aren’t really so “bad” after all.
Just to clear things up a little,
they do not ravish 12-year-old
schoolgirls, eat live rattlesnakes or
stash naked ladies in their guitar
cases — at least not when they’re
in Snook.
Their brand of mischief is the
harmless variety — they laugh at
themselves while poking fun at
anything else that occurs to them.
The Burritos — Gib Guilbeau,
Skip Battin, Greg Harris, and Mic
key McGee — played this tour
without the benefit of Sneaky Pete
Kleinow, the only original member
still with the band.
Even without Sneaky Pete’s in
novative steel guitar playing, the
Burritos’ sound is as good as it’s
ever been in the band’s eleven
years of existence.
“Musically, we’re playing coun
try, we're playing rock, playing our
own versions of both, combined
and separately, bluegrass...just
playing what comes naturally,” Bat-
tin said. Battin, who played pre
viously with the Byrds and the New
Riders of the Purple Sage, has
been bass guitarist with the band
for about four years.
“To really understand us, you
have to hang out with us from now
(five hours before showtime) until
about a half-hour after we finish.”
Harris, who plays lead guitar, banjo
and fiddle, said, “Then you’ll really
be able to see what the Burritos are
like.”
Life on the road, as in this latest
two-week southwestern tour
(Snook’s Starlight Ballroom was
the last stop), can be rough on
musicians.
“It only bothers you if you let it,”
Battin said.
“It’s very tiring,” McGee agrees,
his fingers drumming incessantly
on the table. “We try to make the
most of it - stay up as many nights
as we can. We drink a lot.”
Everyone laughs in agreement.
“It’s wonderful — aren’t we hav
ing fun?” Gilbeau asked, looking
meaningfully at the others.
“Look at us, man, look at how
much fun we’re having.” Battin
joins the game.
“Hey, we’re having fun here,”
Harris chimes in.
“Tell me how much fun we're
having,” Battin said.
“Oh, Mickey could tell you better
than I. Put on your shades and tell
us how much fun you’re having,
Mickey,” Harris commands.
"I have aiways wanted to sit next
to the rodeo all afternoon in
Snook,” is McGee’s earnest reply.
This is one of the Burritos fa
vorite games — talking in circles.
They practiced their rodeo talk in
their best John Wayne voices:
“I think I’ll just mosey on down
the of lonesome pine trail and do a
little hankering.”
“Look at that guy — he’s on his
cayuse. You know, this is the only
part of Texas where they actually
raise cayuses...cayusii?”
“Git along little doggie. I'm
gonna rope myself a doggie.”
“Just a pinch between your
cheek and gum — it’s real fine.”
“If I was to just put a cigarette
butt in my lip, do you think I’d
pass?”
Guilbeau panicked. “If she runs
out and tells these people the fun
we’re making of them, we’re gonna
get pummelled by 15 cowboys.”
The Burritos quickly changed
the subject to life in California.
“We call L.A. our home but none
of us really live there,” Battin said.
“That’s where the action is all hap
pening musically. If we had our
choice as to any place to live, it
wouldn’t be California.”
Harris disagreed. “I would — I
was raised there. See, it’s all these
out of state guys that ruin it. They
come in there and get obnoxious.”
Battin. egged him on. “California
wouldn’t be much good if it was
only left up to the natives There
wouldn’t be much going on.”
Harris just couldn’t let a com
ment like that go by.
“You could move out here and
live in Shnook,” he replies.
“It’s not Shnook, it’s Snook,”
McGee laughs.
Somewhere in between these
moments of madness, the Burritos
mentioned their new album, rec
orded live in Japan, to be released
early in October.
Harris will have a solo album,
“Acoustic,” coming out at about the
same time.
The Flying Burrito Brothers were
born when Chris Hillman and Gram
Parsons became disillusioned with
the Byrds soon after the legendary
“Sweetheart of the Rodeo” album
was released. They joined forces
with Sneaky Pete Kleinow and
bassist Chris Etheridge to play
country music with a rock and roll
feel.
Although unaware at that time of
the impact they would have on
music for years to come, the origi
nal Burritos were actually the prog
enitors of today’s progressive
country sound.
Eleven years later, the band has
gone through many changes in
personnel; among them Gram Par
son’s death in 1972 and the addi
tion of Country Gazette (Kenny
Wertz, Roger Bush and Byron Ber-
line) for the Hot Burritos era.
A few members of the audience
in Snook weren’t too familiar with
the Burritos.
“People have been saying some
really strange things to me...really
weird,” Gilbeau said after the
show. “These people came up to
me and asked me when Gram was
going to start playing with us again.
I said: ’I guess when he’s reincar
nated.’ Really weird.”
Forty minutes after the show’s
finish, the band’s travelling home
was packed up and headed for
California for a week of rest before
their next tour.
On the road again...and the Bur
ritos are still “red hot.”
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