An Aries (Who Knows Some Stuff)
Current Photo Friday theme: Wet
Marina del Rey, California
This was shot on film in 1998, and I uploaded it and another photo from the same place to Flickr in 2008, but I don’t think I ever published either photo on my LiveJournal or this blog.
If there’s a place that haunts me, it’s this one. Maybe, as Stevie Nicks sings,
Well, I’ve been afraid of changin’
‘Cause I’ve built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Even children get older
And I’m getting older, too
Maybe.
Eighth row on the floor. Back in October of 2020, I was going through bins of stuff that I’ve collected since I was a teenager, and that’s when I found these tucked into some other stuff. A day can simultaneously seem like one of the best and worst of your life, but I was relieved to see I still had the tickets. Time has given me perspective, and you know what? The day still has that best/worst feeling. Fortunately for me, feelings can be processed through fiction and have a little less power.
Speaking of writing, the recent playlist.
Rufus Wainwright, Want One; The Wallflowers, Bringing Down The Horse and (Breach); Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot; Hank Williams, Icon; Brian Wilson, Brian Wilson Presents Smile, a 2004 collection of 17 works Brian created for the unreleased Smile LP in the 1960s and an accompanying booklet. Though many of the songs were later released on other Beach Boys albums, these versions are more like what Brian planned before his breakdown. The collection is a gift for fans and critics who always regretted that Smile wasn’t released.
These last two will start the Tuesday writing playlist.
Dennis Wilson, Pacific Ocean Blue, a 2-CD set that includes POB plus 4 bonus tracks, and a second disk, Bambu, the Caribou sessions, that includes 18 works Dennis intended to be on his second (unreleased) album, plus a bonus track of the late Taylor Hawkins (Foo Fighters) adding vocals to “Holy Man.” This was a beautiful composition Dennis wrote with Gregg Jakobson. Dennis and Gregg left it off POB because they never wrote lyrics, and Dennis died in 1983 without producing a second solo album. In 2008, when it was decided to put together a second album of Dennis’s music, Jakobson commissioned Taylor to write lyrics and add vocals to “Holy Man.” The first time I stumbled over the song, Taylor’s voice sounds so much like Dennis’s that I wondered how I never knew Dennis put vocals to it. A little research enlightened me that the vocalist and lyricist was Taylor. When Taylor died in March of 2022, it was a huge loss to music; to me, it felt like losing a part of Dennis again.
My second album of the day will be Paul McCartney and Wings, Band on the Run. Originally released in 1973, this one is the 25th Anniversary Edition, and includes a second disk with more than 50 minutes of voices of the band and some of the celebrities on the cover along with previously unreleased versions of some BOTR tracks. This year, the 50th Anniversary Edition has come out with more extras. (I don’t have it.)
Here’s the posthumous Dennis Wilson/Taylor Hawkins collaboration on “Holy Man.”
Look at this sweet red Woody that’s come to join the fleet. Surfboard included.
IYKYK. ❤ 💔
Quietly happy together on December 25, 1983, with no idea I was about to undergo a big emotional shift three days later. We can’t save time in a bottle, but for the following years, the memory of this day kept me going when I stumbled, faltered, and failed; enabled me eventually to develop the judgment to make better choices; and built the fortitude that helped, still helps, me through many times since.
I think we can never know which days will be the ones that give us what we most need. Maybe they all do.
ETA, after consideration:
This release last month of the new Sail On Sailor 1972 was a nice, though admittedly painful, gift from the Beach Boys to everyone who misses Dennis, especially today.
How I’m going to picture these two on the anniversary of his birth.
Photo copyright Ed Roach.
I had a post planned for today, but it’ll have to wait. I’m crushed by the news of Christine McVie’s death. I don’t feel like writing much about it, so I thought I’d share photos of a few mementos.
Ticket stub from when I saw Fleetwood Mac at the Coliseum in Birmingham, Alabama, on the Tusk tour in 1980. Amazing concert and my first time to see the band with the Fleetwood/McVie/McVie/Buckingham/Nicks lineup.
My program from that concert.
When Lindsey Buckingham left Fleetwood Mac in the late 1980s, the band recorded Behind The Mask and toured with Billy Burnette and Rick Vito joining the McVies, Fleetwood, and Nicks on stage. I knew every word of every song on the album, so I very much enjoyed seeing them with Tom at the Summit in Houston in 1990, ten years after my first Mac concert.
Twenty-five years later, my favorite version of the band was back: Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham, and Stevie Nicks. I got to see them at the Toyota Center with Tim thanks to a friend who gifted us the tickets.
By then, I was part of the cell phone generation, so here’s a blurry photo of Christine on keyboards, with John behind her at the bank of speakers, Mick on his drum riser, and Stevie and Lindsey front of stage. They were fantastic, as if it hadn’t been thirty-five years since that first concert. I’m so grateful I saw them on that tour.
I can’t close without hoping that somewhere, Christine and Dennis are making music together again.
A few words from her song “Only Over You,” inspired by and written for and about Dennis Wilson.
Angel, please don’t go
I miss you when you’re gone
They say I’m a silly girl
But I’m not a fool
I’m out of my mind
But it’s only over you
I’m out of my mind
But it’s only over you
July 16 is Woodie Wagon Day!
My heart. =)
Everything that I am or will ever be is in the music. If you want to know me, just listen.
©Ed Roach
This is Ed Roach’s daughter Brianne with Dennis. Through all the years, this photo stands firm as my favorite one because this IS Dennis. He loved. He loved without reservation. Whatever he did in his life, whatever his wildness, failings, limitations, madness, or mistakes, he had a purity and tenderness of heart that never went away.
As he said, if you want to know him, it’s in the music.
If you have stayed with me to the end of this month, thank you. This was a labor of love that became quite challenging. I’ve had to emotionally travel through my life to find photos and memories that are deeply meaningful to me and which I’ve always kept private from everyone but very close friends.
No one should ever underestimate the patience, love, and wisdom of Tom. He doesn’t “tolerate” the feelings and fascination connected to my Muse. He understands and has, through the years, shown his support in many ways. Most recently, I found a framed set of favorite Dennis photos in a bin, and he said, “Why are these in there? They should be on the wall.” Where he hung them and they remain today.
The end of the 30 Day Idol Challenge.
Rather than going through thousands of photos trying to find one in which I can discern whether Dennis is with band members, road/stage crew, or friends, here’s a picture of him from 1969 with Ed Roach. Ed and his wife had just landed at LAX and were about to embark upon a friendship and professional relationship that would still be going strong at the end of Dennis’s life in 1983. I think Ed continues to cherish and celebrate that friendship now.
September 29 — With friends ©Ed Roach
Many of the photos and stories that mean everything to me are thanks to Ed Roach, and his connections to Dennis’s friends, children and their families, colleagues, and places they shared remain strong. I couldn’t have done this month’s posts without him as the most valuable resource imaginable, and I hope to meet him one day.
I also hope my fictional musician has a friend as loyal.
(Spoiler: He does.)
Little bracelets.
Limits remain for what I want to revisit on the topic of Dennis Wilson. There are interviews online behind paywalls. I still own magazines with interviews. I’ve got lots of books with quotes or partial/full interviews. Considering the (just over) twenty years of his work as a Beach Boy and a solo artist, Dennis really didn’t give a lot of interviews. From my perspective: He didn’t talk about music, he made it. He didn’t talk about relationships, he had them. He didn’t pontificate about life, he lived it. Everything we need to hear from Dennis is in what he wrote, either lyrically or instrumentally: fun, energy, celebration, sex, soul, passion, tenderness, rowdiness, and love.
The times he came alive the most in interviews were when he talked about his brothers. When I read those, I’m reminded of a hot Houston night when I had the chance to meet and talk to Carl Wilson. At that time, it had been less than a decade since Dennis’s death; my own losses had taught me how raw grief can remain years later. Despite how huge a place Dennis had, still has, in my thoughts (he is my Muse, after all), instead, I asked about Brian, and Carl lit up. He smiled, he was infused with new energy, and he spoke freely and glowingly about his oldest brother. It was moving both because of Carl and because of how it reminded me of Dennis’s love for Brian.
Dennis and Carl are both gone now, but I believe that for Brian, they’re never gone. And the music… always the music. Here’s where I find a favorite “interview.”
September 28 — Favorite interview: My Love Lives On ©Dennis Wilson
ETA: I’ve returned to add a link to this 2008 article, because it has a lot of insight from people who knew and worked with Dennis as well as many quotes from Dennis himself.