Meeting Brian Wilson

[Jukka]

Perkele, I'm embarassed, that's the one. Thanks!

[Jukka]

Okay, my stories: in 2012, I was in Berlin to see the Boys. A friend of mine had a nice room in some fancy hotel downtown, but on the last minute I decided to book a dorm bed in a cheap hostel, to save some money... The next day, my friend told me that the Beach Boys had been staying in the same hotel as she, and they had been meeting fans and signing stuff in the lobby. So I almost met Brian!

While I was in L. A. last year I went to the deli where Brian frequents. I've never drank a cup of coffee so slowly... I wasn't stalking or anything, but hey, if hey would have happened to come there, it would have been something! Alas, he didn't show up.

That same evening I went to Bellagio 10452. The gates were closed, but I parked my car outside, took out my harmonica and recorded some noodling on my iPhone, just to be able to say I have recorded at Bellagio 10452! My beautiful improvisation was interrupted when the gate started to open and some big guy started to walk towards me. That's when I decided the session is over and I split. So there, try to beat that, storytellers!

[Lee Marshall]

I've never seen, let alone met, David.  ALL of the rest [except for Glen] yes.  I outlined my Carl [maybe 2 hours] lunch/meeting here months ago.  Spent about 40-45 minutes with Bruce after a show in Winnipeg 10 years later...a few minutes with Mike maybe 3 or 4 times.  Met Al and Denny along the way...Saw Blondie and Ricky wandering about...but THIS is about Brian and my story is so thin and uneventful it doesn't belong in the same thread as Mikie's...[by the way...whatever happening to that reel to reel tape you lifted at Dick's place?]

Anyway...I went to see Brian do the BWPS concert at Place Des Art in Montreal...was that in '05?  I think so...He did Massey Hall in Toronto in '04.  [that show was magical]  I sat beside Melinda in Montreal.  Just a coincidental thing.  Brian's voice had improved noticeably over the course of that year.  After the show we made our way out back to watch as the 'gang' wandered out to get onto the 2 buses waiting to motor everyone over to Detroit.  That's maybe an 11 hour drive.

So out comes Brian and the Misses.  There were maybe 40 of us.  He wandered over with Melinda to say hello.  It was all very cool until some guy stepped out of the pack and started walking right up to Brian.  That was the end of it....and in a flash too.  He and Melinda turned on their heels and immediately made their way to the refuge of their bus.  I think they were travelling with Jeff and his wife?  Everyone else in the next bus.

Darian, Probyn and Nelson [maybe Taylor too?] all popped over to say hello and shoot the breeze for a couple of minutes.  I think it was Nelson's birthday or within maybe a day or two of it.

Anyway...that's as close as I came to meeting Brian.  We were in Quebec.  They're more likely to drink Pepsi there...so NO Brian didn't asked for a Coke.

[Joel Goldenberg]

I've never seen, let alone met, David.  ALL of the rest [except for Glen] yes.  I outlined my Carl [maybe 2 hours] lunch/meeting here months ago.  Spent about 40-45 minutes with Bruce after a show in Winnipeg 10 years later...a few minutes with Mike maybe 3 or 4 times.  Met Al and Denny along the way...Saw Blondie and Ricky wandering about...but THIS is about Brian and my story is so thin and uneventful it doesn't belong in the same thread as Mikie's...[by the way...whatever happening to that reel to reel tape you lifted at Dick's place?]

Anyway...I went to see Brian do the BWPS concert at Place Des Art in Montreal...was that in '05?  I think so...He did Massey Hall in Toronto in '04.  [that show was magical]  I sat beside Melinda in Montreal.  Just a coincidental thing.  Brian's voice had improved noticeably over the course of that year.  After the show we made our way out back to watch as the 'gang' wandered out to get onto the 2 buses waiting to motor everyone over to Detroit.  That's maybe an 11 hour drive.

So out comes Brian and the Misses.  There were maybe 40 of us.  He wandered over with Melinda to say hello.  It was all very cool until some guy stepped out of the pack and started walking right up to Brian.  That was the end of it....and in a flash too.  He and Melinda turned on their heels and immediately made their way to the refuge of their bus.  I think they were travelling with Jeff and his wife?  Everyone else in the next bus.

Darian, Probyn and Nelson [maybe Taylor too?] all popped over to say hello and shoot the breeze for a couple of minutes.  I think it was Nelson's birthday or within maybe a day or two of it.

Anyway...that's as close as I came to meeting Brian.  We were in Quebec.  They're more likely to drink Pepsi there...so NO Brian didn't asked for a Coke.

I was at the same concert, from where the picture on the left emanates. Got a bunch of stuff autographed. Met Melinda and Taylor Mills too. I met Brian in NYC in 2001 but he was not into talking with anyone — he was better in '05. He had just appeared on Conan and I was waiting at NBC for him to emerge from the taping. I interviewed Brian on the phone earlier in '05.

[Steve Latshaw]

<<Everyone here knows my "Rhapsody In Blue" story so I won't bore you with it again.>>

Here's one from across the pond who hasn't...

[Lee Marshall]

<<Everyone here knows my "Rhapsody In Blue" story so I won't bore you with it again.>>

Here's one from across the pond who hasn't...

X 2

[LostArt]

<<Everyone here knows my "Rhapsody In Blue" story so I won't bore you with it again.>>

Here's one from across the pond who hasn't...

X 2

Last post on the previous page, text in yellow.

[Mikie]

Gosh Darn Mikie!!!!

Well I'll be God Damned!    I've been edited.      Any how,    a fantastic story and I had no idea you had such an experience.           To, think, if you played several string instruments and could sing falsetto,   Well,  who knows where you might be working today!

And that's exactly what Jeff Foskett did to get the gig, Don!  I think it was a couple months or so after I visited Brian, Foskett showed up at Brian's house and that was the beginning of his association with the Beach Boys' "inner circle".

[Mikie]

The bit that leaped out for me was Brian asking you for coke whilst he was under his first stint as a Landy patient.

That's one reason Scott Steinberg was hanging around the house. Steinberg didn't follow Brian out to the front driveway where he greeted us. That was Brian's opportunity to ask us if we had some condiments. Brian was still sneaking it. Right around that time he and John Belushi were downing pizzas and beer and snorting hog rails, so he obviously wasn't under surveillance 100% of the time. And I also read later that he was accepting 'drop-offs' in the bushes in the front yard - not sure if that was true or not.

[Wirestone]

Met him backstage in 2009. He was cool, in command, very relaxed. Wearing a buttoned shirt and sweatpants. After we had our photo taken, and he signed my TLOS program, he moved on to greet some of the other guests. He had an itch on his chest and lifted up the shirt a bit to scratch it. Okay, I thought, that was kind of awkwardly charming. But as I walked away, I looked back. BW had his shirt scrunched up under his chin, full belly exposed, and was spending some serious time adjusting his sweatpants.

This is not a man who has a problem with modesty.   I still have flashbacks.

[SMiLE Brian]

Nice wire stone!

[Emdeeh]

I've met Brian on several occasions -- my favorite is going on the Beach Boys Historical Sites tour held in conjunction with a CWF event and winding up at a lemonade stand in front of Brian's house! He greeted each of us personally as we stepped off the tour bus. We didn't get to go inside the house, but we all hung out in front, took pictures, and drank lemonade.

http://www.carlwilsonfoundation.org/walk02/bustour02.htm

At another CWF event's soundcheck, I was talking to someone I knew and hadn't seen in a while, when Brian walked in the door and stuck out his hand in my direction. A stunned me said, "Hi, Brian" as he shook my hand and walked on. Totally unexpected....

[urbanite]

I crashed the party at the hotel the day before the Washington Monument concert in 1984.  Almost everyone was there, including Brian, Landy, Carl, La Toya Jackson, Joe Jackson and others.  Brian's behavior was odd, and frankly not at all how I perceive him today.  Landy was with him the entire time. 

[ForHerCryingSoul]

I crashed the party at the hotel the day before the Washington Monument concert in 1984.  Almost everyone was there, including Brian, Landy, Carl, La Toya Jackson, Joe Jackson and others.  Brian's behavior was odd, and frankly not at all how I perceive him today.  Landy was with him the entire time. 

Can you give us any more details?

[sea of tunes]

Love reading through these kinds of threads.  Personally speaking though, I would never want to meet him.

[ForHerCryingSoul]

Love reading through these kinds of threads.  Personally speaking though, I would never want to meet him.

Why?

[sea of tunes]

.

[bgas]

.

[Gerry]

Mike, that is not only the best "meeting Brian Wilson" story I've ever heard, it may be the best story I've ever heard ,period. I thought I had a pretty decent anecdote but forget it.

[Mikie]

Thanks, Gerry. There was, and still is, some very big Beach Boys fans representing the S.F. Bay Area!

[PS]

Wonderful story, Mikie. Had me completely engaged this morning, like reading Lewis Shiner's GLIMPSES all over again.

My full length story has been posted before here (http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,16225.msg395890.html#msg395890). May have the most unique BW autograph in the world, inscribed at Laurel Way on 8.27.1966:



Story was further appended at C50 Red Rocks, when I briefly talked with Brian about our mutual friend, his former DVD producer Maggie Magee. I'm the very happy guy in the black shirt 'tween Brian and Mike:



The story will be finally appended one more time when I see Brian in July at 1st Bank Center in Colorado, just about a mile from my house. This will certainly be the last BW concert for me, so I hope to say goodbye to my lifelong hero, one last summer...

[Mikie]

PS, believe it or not I did a board search for your story at work today but came up empty!  Hope people click that link you put up - it's worth the time!

[Sam_BFC]

Nice one Milie!

Great to finally read the story 

[Bedroom Tapes]

Please, do bore, I haven't heard that one and search "Brian Rhapsody in Blue" doesn't help.

Then you didn't search well. Should of entered the user & type "rhapsody".

Interesting... someone I expected to be all over my last post hasn't said word one.

Also, in response to the off-board questions, I though I'd done the "Brian-played-"Rhapsody In Blue"-for-me-in-1985" story to death.  

No, you haven't! Do tell again, haven't heard this one...

OK, the Readers Digest version: pitched up in LA March 1985 for about a week armed with a shitload of phone numbers and endless optimism. Got to meet VDP at his then house, Jasper Dailey, Steve Desper, Stevie Kalinich and thanks entirely to Bruce I spent a whole day in the studio with the band (less Mike - it took me until 2011 to meet him) while they did the final mix of their 1985 album. During a break in proceedings Brian headed to the studio floor and not being a complete mentally handicapped person I was half a step behind him. He sat at the piano, me in a corner and after he'd given me a thorough up and down state, commenced on some standard boogie, for maybe five minutes, before stopping then embarking on a beautiful melody. Took me maybe 30 seconds to realise it was "RiB". He played the entire piece, flawlessly yet with a distinct BW slant before segueing so sweetly into "Cast Your Fate To The Winds" that I didn't notice for about a minute. By nowq my eyes were on stalks and my lower jaw in my lap. Eventually he stopped, informed me "I love those songs" and we had a short chat abotu who i was, why I was there and so on. the change this music wrought in him was astonishing. He was relaxed, focussed, attentive, a regular Joe, but as we walked back to the control room you could actually see him tense back up.

That was the first meeting with Brian, and one of the best. Over the years I realised he's best one-on-one or in a non-social setting.

Seems like you asked it before but forget.

Good to know Brian likes Vince Guaraldi as well.    

[Custom Machine]

This is such a cool story, Mikie!  Thanks so much for sharing the details of your spending time with BW at his house in 1976, not to mention the numerous other sites you visited. Is Tim still a big BB/BW fan?