BRIAN WILSON HE JUST WASN'T MADE FOR THESE TIMES

Towards the end of 1996 and in Los Angeles I had the most surreal day of my music fan/journalistic life - breakfast with Iggy Pop at the Chateau Marmont, lunch with Neil Diamond at his studio, a phone interview with Jeff Buckley and then in the early evening I was in a taxi to . . . Brian Wilson's house.
...

Towards the close of 1996 I was in Los Angeles at the end of a long trip which had started with a Bruce Springsteen show and interview in Philadelphia. Towards the end I spent one of the most surreal days of my life - breakfast with Iggy Pop at the Chateau Marmont, lunch with Neil Diamond at his studio, back to the hotel for a chat with Jeff Buckley, then a drive up the Hollywood Hills to spend a few hours with Brian Wilson at his house. Could it get any crazier? Sure could.

...

In the early part of 2001 I took the bus from New York City to Washington to talk with George Pelecanos. This piece subsequently appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald. Even though Pelecanos has written maybe a dozen books since then and played a major role working on TV shows like The Wire and Treme I've Ieft this as I originally wrote it. A snapshot in time and place.

...

In the early 1980s I was lucky enough to hang out at Martin Sharp's house and interview Tiny Tim for RAM magazine. This is the piece, exactly as it appeared at the time. Debbie Baer and I did the interview, I wrote it up and editor Anthony O'Grady added his touches later.

(Photos by Wendy Adnam)

...

For all of the 1980s I wrote a weekly music column for the Sun Herald, then the biggest selling newspaper in the country. They gave me crazy freedom to write about whatever I liked. This was my first column for 1982 and a summation of the previous year. It reflects newspaper journalism of the time - short pars that were usually just one sentence. I've left it the way it originally appeared and on reflection I'm pretty happy with my opinions - although I was probably a tad too nice to The Mighty Guys and a bit harsh on The Stray Cats!
...

In March this year my label Laughing Outlaw Records released a 22 track double CD of artists on the label covering Bruce Springsteen songs. The package came with an almost 9,000 word piece I wrote about seeing and interviewing Springsteen in Paris in 1981. This is it. Hope you like it.

...

Back in 1990 I was the co-promoter of Harry Dean Stanton's only Australian tour. This is a piece I wrote for Follow Me magazine in September of that year. I haven't attempted to update or change it as on a re-reading I think it stands up as a capsule of that time.
...

(1) Launceston. 1972.

Listening to the first and second Velvets albums in Launceston (on vinyl – natch . . .) with my friend David Woodhall at his house. We were both 16 or 17. We smoked a lot of pot. At the end of the night – after multiple plays of Sister Ray – I said to David “what if we’re already dead and this is what happens next?” We were young but the Velvets were part of our psyche – then and now. We both owed Melbourne’s David N. Pepperell for the tip in the first place.

...

You're in Los Angeles just before Christmas in 1996. You've had breakfast with Iggy Pop and there's a few hours to kill before you're scheduled to chat with Jeff Buckley. What do you do? Go have lunch with Neil Diamond, that's what.


...

The first time I set eyes on Allen Ginsberg was in the basement of the City Lights bookshop in San Francisco in the early 1980s when I was on tour with the Hoodoo Gurus. I thought of saying hello but figured he must get tired of that so in the same way that Jim Carroll used to follow Frank O'Hara around the streets of Manhattan during O'Hara's lunch break, trying to see what the great poet saw, I kept a distance as I trailed Ginsberg around the shop, looking at the books he was looking at. Early in 1997 I finally had the opportunity to interview Ginsberg. As it turns out it was shortly before he died so this is one of the last interviews he did. This is the full, unedited version of the piece which later appeared in various publications.


...