What did we learn at the Q&A?

[Fire Wind]

Gregg asked this -

"What brings you the most joy and happiness in your life  these days?"

and Brian said, 'Music actually', which I thought was interesting, as the stock answer to such a thing is to say one's kids, family etc.  A pure, honest answer.  Brian must be really pumped for his new album and making music right now.

I asked this -

"Have you made many home recordings during the last decade or so?  How much music would you say you've composed during this time, but which is unreleased or unfinished?"

which went unanswered.  I was wondering just how many unfinished songs and fragments etc of him at the piano he might have from the last few years, given that he's not been that prolific with released original material since TLOS (just three cover albums, effectively, plus one with the BBs).   But he replied to someone else that he writes a lot in the studio, so maybe that partially answers it, if his practice is to do his writing more in the studio, rather than at home.  Anyway, some poster probably knows rather more of his current working habits than I do and knows the answer anyway.

As for the whole 1000-post limit thing, there were pointless questions by folks with thousands of posts (IMHO), so I'm not sure setting some random limit to squeeze out others really makes much sense.

[retrokid67]

I thought of this as sort of a once in a lifetime thing.  If I had one chance to talk to Brian (or any celebrity I admired) I would want it to be meaningful. 

C'mon.

If Dennis came back in a time machine and logged onto the internet for 15 seconds and told you what his favorite pizza was you'd be THRILLED. (THRILlED.)

And not just because of the time machine. 
ONE word in all caps the rest not in caps

Sure, but I wouldn't have asked him that  ...that is a nice thought though, Denny and Carl coming back in a time machine  

[Howie Edelson]

I gotta be honest, knowing the intelligence of this board (not to mention the people who complain about never getting the chance to "interview" the Beach Boys and/or get their questions answered and use that as an excuse for some really poor behavior) I was embarrassed at the level of questions.

Thousands of words traded about the history and politics of this band, posters complaining over who knows what, and why this or that happened -- and it all ends up 6th grader "how come you made that shorter?" and, yes, food preferences.

I truly expected Brian to be deluged with the most brilliant, hardcore questions from this crew. If not here, than where?

Not all were awful -- but on the whole, it was slow pitch McCartney.com fan level.
I was actually waiting for the big question: "Brian, do you like me liking you?"

[EgoHanger1966]

If the thread continues in the same fashion it has been, he's probably not coming back. Cool it, guys.

[SMiLE Brian]

Yeah, the level of nastiness toward BW's reaching out to his fans is shameful. 

[Justin]

And guys, I'm not saying I expected complex answers about SMiLE for example (tho that'd be awesome) but asking about pizza and cake is just a complete waste.

I don't think that's fair calling someone's question a waste of space.  In many ways, asking Brian what kind of pizza he likes is in a way the perfect question to ask him.  It's casual, it's something personal that makes him a bit more real to the rest of us and it's the type of question that allows Brian to answer in the one way he knows how:  quick and to the point.  And it's not like the board was flooded with a bunch of these type of questions.  It was one goofy one out of the 30 he answered.  

[SMiLE Brian]

Agreed, Justin. There is something strangely charismatic about BW's short answers.

[Lee Marshall]

Really?  To be honest  I would have been pleased if he had answered one of my questions either here or there...but the never got that far down the list...ANYWAY...

The ONE thing I really thought we'd learn TODAY...AND...WE DIDN'T...

When is the new album gonna 'drop'.

We still don't know.  And I figured that was reason 1 for these two Q and A sessions.

[EgoHanger1966]

It makes me sick that anyone is even complaining about ANYTHING.

We sit here and browse/read/post/comment about Brian Wilson. This is what we do. On a constant basis. It's what we live for.

The man, THE MAN, the one we obsess over on a daily....hell, hourly, secondly basis, comes to a non-official fan board to ACTIVELY ENGAGE us and answer some questions. He owes us nothing, we owe him everything. Be thankful.

[the professor]

Oh heavens, yes. I thank and salute the moderators for structure and guidance, but the level of questions from the board was somewhere between 4 and 8 year olds, shamefully vacant of substance. Pizza, delis, when is the album coming out, how do you write songs. Really!?


 

I gotta be honest, knowing the intelligence of this board (not to mention the people who complain about never getting the chance to "interview" the Beach Boys and/or get their questions answered and use that as an excuse for some really poor behavior) I was embarrassed at the level of questions.

Thousands of words traded about the history and politics of this band, posters complaining over who knows what, and why this or that happened -- and it all ends up 6th grader "how come you made that shorter?" and, yes, food preferences.

I truly expected Brian to be deluged with the most brilliant, hardcore questions from this crew. If not here, than where?

Not all were awful -- but on the whole, it was slow pitch McCartney.com fan level.
I was actually waiting for the big question: "Brian, do you like me liking you?"

[Shady]

There was a very healthy balance of light hearted and serious questions. Brian opted for a lot softer questions, he had a choice and he chose to answer the pizza question.

[Mikie]

I gotta be honest, knowing the intelligence of this board (not to mention the people who complain about never getting the chance to "interview" the Beach Boys and/or get their questions answered and use that as an excuse for some really poor behavior) I was embarrassed at the level of questions.

Thousands of words traded about the history and politics of this band, posters complaining over who knows what, and why this or that happened -- and it all ends up 6th grader "how come you made that shorter?" and, yes, food preferences.

I truly expected Brian to be deluged with the most brilliant, hardcore questions from this crew. If not here, than where?

Not all were awful -- but on the whole, it was slow pitch McCartney.com fan level.
I was actually waiting for the big question: "Brian, do you like me liking you?"

Exactly. I expected more from this board's members too, Howie.

[Mikie]

Maybe we ought to have an Answerdome ahead of time and whittle it down to a representative couple of screens full of questions.

Exactly again. That's a great idea!

[Lee Marshall]

Oh heavens, yes. I thank and salute the moderators for structure and guidance, but the level of questions from the board was somewhere between 4 and 8 year olds, shamefully vacant of substance.  when is the album coming out. Really!?

I don't think THAT question was actually asked.  I think we all just expected to find out...you know...to hear it from Brian.  This was a PROMOTIONAL  event after all.

And what would YOU have asked 'Professor'?

[rab2591]

There was a very healthy balance of light hearted and serious questions. Brian opted for a lot softer questions, he had a choice and he chose to answer the pizza question.

Exactly. There were plenty of heavy questions asked, and plenty of them were ignored. If there were ONLY heavy questions I'm sure we would've gotten a lot of "I don't know" or "I can't remember". What a great Q&A that would be guys.

Instead, a lot of really interesting questions were answered. As Mujan said, we just got the opportunity to ask God anything. We did. And he answered us. And some of you are complaining and whining about it

[Mikie]

From the questions he answered I see a mix of light and heavier questions. As wirestone says, he evades the complex ones anyway so it's not as if he was ever going to tell us what the original lyrics to cifotm were even if we asked that. We did learn some cool stuff, like which bit Murry sang on Friends and which parts Murry wrote on breakaway. I think this is as good as we could've expected and should just be grateful that the mods managed to get him here in the first place.

And if we get another chance we'll be better prepared!

Brian said Murry "wrote the lyrics". That sounds to me like ALL of the lyrics, but who knows if it's part or the whole thing? Anyway, it conforms that Murry got credit for writing lyrics for Breakaway.

[Heysaboda]

Instead, a lot of really interesting questions were answered. As Mujan said, we just got the opportunity to ask God anything. We did. And he answered us. And some of you are complaining and whining about it

Well that's what we do, right??  

BTW, Brian was right to truncate "Meant for You"!!!!!  

[LostArt]

in defense of my question, regarding Brian's favorite Four Freshmen song, my intentions were thus:  I wanted to ask Brian a question that I truly thought would get an answer.  He was here for 30 quick minutes.  He wasn't ever going to answer the questions that required thought and time to respond.  It would have been nice, but it wasn't going to happen.  And I didn't want to ask about the Dodgers, or calzones, so I asked a question that seemed truly interesting to me.  You know, Brian's music just blows my mind.  He has influenced me in so many ways.  I thought, what makes Brian go 'holy sh*t, this is frickin' incredible'?  He gave me the answer that I wanted.  I checked the song out, and the vocal arrangement is stupid good.  You should check it out as well. 

So, I'm sorry that a lot of really great questions did not get answered.  I wanted to hear the answer to H's (Josh's) question as much as he did.  But it wasn't to be.  Brian only had 30 minutes.  I'd love for him to come back and do this again.  I will bow out next time, and let someone else's question get answered. 

A.

[rab2591]

Instead, a lot of really interesting questions were answered. As Mujan said, we just got the opportunity to ask God anything. We did. And he answered us. And some of you are complaining and whining about it

Well that's what we do, right??  

Wouldn't be Smiley Smile if we didn't!

[Mr. Cohen]

"They want to ask me about Smile."

[Tablevega]

It has been speculated that there is some bad blood between Brian and VDP. However, when asked for his favorite lyricist, he didn't answer Tony Asher, or Scott Bennett, or even Mike Love -- but Van Dyke Parks. I found that very interesting.

His reply to the question who was his favourite lyricist was  - 'Yes, Van Dyke Parks', which sounded as if someone might have prompted him with an answer.  On the other hand, the person  who was relaying the questions might have reframed it as 'Do you have a favourite lyricist' in which case the 'yes' makes more sense.

[SamMcK]

Can we stop shitting on the lighter questions? It's quite belittling to those that wrote them and has an aura of the 'elite' fans not considering them worthy enough or some stupid crap.
It was Brian who chose what questions to answer. A lot of members, (perhaps quite wisely) realised that complex questions were going to be ignored so chose to ask less heavy questions so that they could have a shot at getting a reply. I expect a bit better from this forum, y'know?

Well done to all of you who got your questions answered, and for the rest of us.. there's always next time!

[jeffh]

As usual we end up bickering. My thought? A lot of the answered questions were "soft ball" ones, the very ones he chose to answer. I bet he felt comfortable answering those, and that's a good thing. Next time maybe he will choose something a bit more difficult to answer. Probably not tho. I think the question answered were the ones Brian was comfortable with.

I think we should all be thankful that he even came here. Over the years he's been treated like a "lab specimen " by many
Posters here. We have been intrusive in his personal life.

[halblaineisgood]

ONE word in caps.

[Howie Edelson]

rab2591 -- I'm not complaining.
I didn't read the thread looking to answer my questions.

I'm merely stating that, for the most part, the questions posed were sophomoric and well below the standards of both the board and Brian.
I think that when and if Brian does this again, people should bring their A-game.
(e.g. "A-Game" would be a followup to the Paley mention.)