The Smiley Smile Message Board

I recently heard a tape of Brian being interviewed in his hotel room by 2 pretty knowledgable fans circa 1981. I've seen this reffered to as the "Hotel Room Interview" and also as 'Brian talks to some nerds" on various tape lists. Can anyone shed some light on this fascinating recording for me (who, what, when, why). 
The best part for me is when Brain calls Dennis' room to try and hook the guys up with an autograph. Dennis refuses because he's too sick.  Fly on the wall stuff.

Ahhhhhhhhh, this tape. This has been going around for years. It's been bundled together on some boots with the "cocaine tapes".

This tape was made in December of 1981 in San Carlos, CA. The band had played a show earlier in the evening (recorded in the audience), with Brian, Mike, Al, and Bruce being the members in attendance. The show was, as many other 1981 shows were, horrible. Bruce remarked before I Write The Songs that he would dedicate the song to Dennis, who was "probably in his hotel somewhere throwing up". Dennis was indeed ill this night, presumably from food poisoning.

Brian was in mildly good spirits this night. His singing on the show was decent enough considering how bad of a shape he was in, except for a godawful moment on Sloop John B where he pinched his nose to "hit the high notes", so to speak.

The live tape is one of the easiest to find.

My copy of the interview is labelled, simply, "Les Chan". For those of you who frequent the forums, this name pops up a lot.

Les Chan is a SF based fan who had some interesting stories to tell. I likeable fellow who seems to keep to himself these days. Last I spoke with him was in 1989.

Are we allowed to have a link to this here, since it's a fan interview rather than a bootleg?

I'd love to hear it or at least read a transcript. Isn't there another hotel room tape as well, with Brian, Bruce and Jeff Foskett? Or is that the same one?

This is a very interesting thread. Was this the Sunkist era?

The other "hotel tape" you're thinking of, John, is a video whereas the 1981 recording is just an audio recording.  The video you reference is from Toronto and was recorded on July 2nd, 1990.  This was two days before Jeff's final gig as a backing musician with the band (July 4th, 1990 in Maine).

John Stamos is the fourth person included on that tape along with Brian, Bruce and Foskett.  I don't know of anyone that has a good, clean copy of this although I imagine one exists somewhere.  All the copies I'm aware of are several generations old and it shows!

Aha, thanks for the information.

Mine is also a terrible quality copy, but it sure is fun to listen to, with everyone badgering Brian to play song after song (and him complying, mostly). But my favorite aspect is how Bruce keeps trying to show them what the Beach Boys were doing with Caroline No, and Brian keeps doing other things instead.