for BB fans who came of age in the 60s or 70s

[PS]

Part 3

Saw them many more times during college in upstate NY college tours during the Jack Reilly era – Cortland (where I had a nice chat with Bruce about Brian during intermission when he wandered around the audience and sat down with me), Cornell, Rochester, Syracuse, Buffalo, Roosevelt Stadium (with the Kinks – great, great show), Central Park (am I remembering that correctly?) About 15 shows or so across the 70s, and maybe one or two in the 80s. I continued to search for anything with Brian’s name on it, and found in the record store one day, to my great surprise, Charles Lloyd’s WAVES, with Brian and Carl and maybe Al and Mike (?) doing gorgeous backgrounds. Still love that record. Payback for his SURF’S UP stint.

1973 – Went to Vestal Records, the college oriented record store, and picked up HOLLAND. So excited by the advance buzz I was hearing (times had changed). Looked on the back cover and saw that scary picture of Brian – his long unkempt hair and that unforgettable, paranoid scowl – and was very, very worried. One of my classmates in a Shakespeare class had visited what must have been Bellagio and told me about seeing Tandyn Almer there, and what a wild and chaotic (and very disheveled) scene it was. Took home the record and was immediately hit first by CALIFORNIA, which sounded like the loping bass, fulsome voiced Beach Boys that I knew. My friend Sharon adored Blondie’s LEAVING THIS TOWN and would listen to it non-stop. Even my deadhead roomie got into the album eventually. It definitely had a hip aura about it, especially with the beards and Blondie and Ricky…I loved STEAMBOAT, TRADER and ONLY WITH YOU (and the Jardine dual harmonies on the part of the Saga, IN DAWN’S NEW LIGHT, etc.). Now I love the backing tracks to Mount Vernon and Fairway from the Box.

Sometime in the 70s, my friend saw that the Holmes SMiLE booklet was for sale somewhere – probably advertised in the back of Rolling Stone, I can’t remember. He ordered one, but it never came. He was going to surprise me.

Sometime in the 70s, my friend and I called The Radiant Radish, but I think it was already closed – no one answered, but the phone number was listed. We did call Van Dyke Parks, whose number was also listed, and spoke to him quite awhile – VDP was polite and forthcoming, as always. He and I share the same birthday (January 3), along with George Martin and Victor Borge.

1975 – Brian was back, but my Surfer Girl had to leave to find another life. I was getting too far out, too far gone – becoming an artist, as it were…(and still am) - and she wanted to lead the straighter life.  This was my definitely my road not taken moment. Suddenly, what I thought was my private world, my personal obsession about Brian Wilson, seemed to have exploded into public view. He was everywhere. But it was shocking to see Brian in those windbreakers and under that mountain of skin and unkempt beard. 15 Big Ones finally seemed so …forced, lumbered. That golden voice that seeped its way into my soul was unrecognizable.

1976- I was utterly saddened by Brian’s appearance on SNL. Jodi Foster hosted. They made Brian wear a police uniform in a sketch. He looked like a bear caught in the headlights. They made him play GV in a sandbox, and his voice sounded as if it was put through a shredder. I was so embarrased for him - it was excruciating. There was the TV special. More humiliation. I remember Lester Bangs’ great review of LOVE YOU in CREEM, where he talked about it as truly child-like music. But, in truth, I didn’t quite get it at the time (except for the middle part of THE NIGHT WAS SO YOUNG). I have since come to hold a lot of affection for it, like most of you, but back then it seemed like just one more sad story. Where was that soaring above the clouds falsetto that I longed for, that whine, as Marilyn once called it, now replaced by this chain smoked ravaged bark…I remember seeing that someone had a sticker on his car bumper: WARNING. I BRAKE FOR BRIAN WILSON…I remember all the interviews where Brian would inevitably ask the interviewer if they had any drugs and Marilyn talking about him withholding ejaculation during sex - more than we needed to know. The beginnings of our current obsessions with rehab, etc. The Healing of Brother Brian, The STOMP magazine article, on and on.

It was around this time that I ran into an article by Jules Siegel in Playboy about his friend, the writer Thomas Pynchon (I was completely smitten with GRAVITYs RAINBOW in college). He talked about his now famous Saturday Evening Post article and researching the Beach Boys, and turning Mr. Pynchon on, and then turning him on to PET SOUNDS. Mr. Pynchon, who was skeptical about his friend’s interest in the Beach Boys, then said, “Ohhhhh….I see.” He then accompanied Siegel to Brian’s house with a girlfriend. They did the the tent thing, etc. Brian later asked him to leave, according to Siegel, because he thought Pynchon’s girlfriend was - a witch. The coincidence of my two artistic heroes in the same time and place was one of those stoned, cosmic moments where the stars align...

[PS]

Part 4

The 80’s - The first SMiLE bootlegs started to appear on vinyl. When my best friend surprised me and brought it over, I stared at the cover for a long time – we had finally found the Grail. Many thing were revelatory and exciting, other parts simply strange (and wrong, as it turned out), but here was the can of worms that was to continually open up for the next 25 years (if memory serves, the double came first, then the triple – multi-colored vinyl? -- then the single? Still have all of them, but don’t remember the release order, quite.

80s - Seeing Carl play his solo gig at a small intimate venue called The Paradise in Boston, and being amazed at the incredible funk coming out of his bass player, but disappointed with the MOR qualities and rather uninspiring “White Soul” that he was taken by at that time – was moved by Heaven and Seemed So Long ago and Carl was in great spirits and great form. Hung out a little after the show to say hello – he was very available.

Sometime in the 80s, the Beach Boys and Brian Journal boots appeared. Then the SOT’s appeared in the Village booty stores in NYC – I bought all the originals, as they came out. What a thrill. Still the greatest encyclopedia of the recording process ever devoted to a band – and surely one of the only bands worth listening to this way. A fascinating gateway into Brian’s work process. Those boxes are beautiful. I am very, very grateful for them.

Fast forward to 2000 – on my honeymoon, my wife and I drove from Colorado to SF and LA (and Big Sur and the Big Sur Inn, my favorite). On a whim, we go up Laurel Way and arrive at the House (Thanks to AGD, who honored my request for the number from the old list). I get out and start videotaping the outside of the place, when the current owner comes out and starts to write down my license plate number. I tell her about my honeymoon, my lifelong love for Brian Wilson (an Iranian women who bought the house from lawyers, but was well aware of the legacy from the occasional streams of visitors). We had a lovely talk, and then she said that she had something that I might be interested in. She was re-modeling the house and the pool in the back, and brought me out to the side of the house. On the ground lay this Grauman Chinese Theatre size slab of cement that she had removed from the poolside, with the inscription “Brian and Marilyn 8-27-66”, carved within a heart and written with two different handwritings. I ended up buying this from her after deliberating for a day. But in my excitement to get it into the trunk of my car with her construction worker, I lifted the damn thing up with him, and I felt something rip…my back went out – for about two years. We schlepped the “slab”, as we came to call it, back halfway across the country, with me in a back brace and utter agony (ruining my honeymoon, and eventually my marriage, in this last crazy moment of my prolonged adolescence). But here it sits in my house, a rarity among rarities, with a little piano in a sandbox on top of it. I’ll borrow a camera and send along a picture if this thread is still going.

Late summer, 2004 - I get an email from a friend whom I had not heard from in years, though I was aware that she was producing most of Brian’s DVDs since his move to Chicago. She wrote to me (knowing full well my extensive collection, knowledge and love of the music) saying that they were going to re-film the SMiLE concert in LA (David Leaf did record the full London premieres, but for many reasons, BRI-MEL – especially MEL – were not happy with it. They wanted a happier, more upbeat and polished SMiLE, a smiley-er SMiLE, if you will). Maggie and I (and the director, John Anderson) exchanged lengthy emails (I sent a note by note dream shot list, based on the kind of instrumental coloring and emphasis that classical music DVDs use in their very useful and tasteful direction). I was listening to the Albert Hall concerts for my reference. Turned out that the director already had a 40-page shooting script, with every instrumental and vocal detail accounted for. They invited me to spend a week in LA to attend the rehearsals, to watch the taping of inserts, shoot some hand-held behind the scenes footage, and attend both shows. It was one of the greatest weeks of my life. Stayed at a hotel with the Chicago contingent (Paul, Jim, and Bob) and got to talk to them quite a bit. I was introduced to Brian within five minutes of arriving on the lot, and, as I was ready to tell him just how much his music has touched my soul or "was the soundtrack of my life" (like virtually everyone else who meets him), he quickly shook my hand and said “Thank you” and then walked away for lunch. I had lunch that first day with Darian and Probyn and they were just great, answering every question I had for them. Later in afternoon I walked into a rehearsal room and had a virtual “private screening” of the entirety of PET SOUNDS and some of GIOMH, as they were rehearsing all of it for Nelson, who was a newcomer and still learning his bits. That was incredible, glorious - standing up against the wall and hearing them so close, without any distractions. I kept thinking that someone was going to throw me out, but the atmosphere was so loose and fun and Brian was in great spirits and incredibly patient all week long. Met and talked with all most the people I had read about all those years, including David Anderle (who indeed remembered Brian’s inscription surrounding the Laurel Way pool – you can clearly see these cement squares in the Sloop John B "jumping in the pool" promo), Steve Kalinich (who was overcome with joyful tears after the show), Van Dyke (who, to our great consternation, told my friend that Song Cycle was “a waste of time…a waste of time.”), Tony Asher, and Melinda (who, I must say, seemed to be a remarkably benevolent presence for the crew and the band – and her husband). Left work one day and Brian was walking out by himself at the same time – again, I stumbled something out about how great the rehearsals were going, he said thanks, and then I watched him – rather shockingly – get into his Mercedes sports car and drive himself home on the freeway. So much for braking for Brian Wilson…

Well, Brian simply hit it out of the park for the first show, and it was unforgettable – a roomful of 500 of his friends, family, and these people who were all so deeply invested in this music. The whole thing, all of the above, came full circle for me when I turned around to the row behind me and saw Van Dyke Parks, with his head down, cupped in his hands, weeping during Surf’s Up…It truly was a dream come true, that whole experience, and offered me a great deal of closure to the part of my life that began by spinning BREAKAWAY some 35 years earlier. After the first show, I filmed Brian’s exuberance as he came backstage and proclaimed to John, Maggie, Alan (Boyd), and Stephen that this was the very best performance of SMiLE they’ve ever done. I walked out in the hallway with my head spinning, and saw Van Dyke chatting it up with David Anderle and Jeff. it all seemed so dreamlike and yet so natural and right. The live DVD of SMiLE is it for me, much more alive and dynamic than the CD release. (BTW, I think its one of the best rock DVDs ever done, in terms of John’s detailed and knowing direction, Maggie’s prodding of Brian to be at his best and to stop constantly reading the video prompters, and Mark’s superb surround mix). I spotted myself in the audience in 16 different shots, so its become a great personal keepsake for me.

So there you have it Jason. Thanks for asking. Kept me up for a couple of nights, flooded memories. We are all so lucky to be living during his time. I remain terribly grateful for having lived through the age of rock and roll - I do very much miss that more innocent time, when everything seemed possible. It seemed well...like the sun was out, 1960-1967. It began to get very cloudy in 1968, and now oft seems like it's pouring the world over...

PS