Tonight a million and one plus countless more words and tributes will be written about the passing of Brian Wilson. THE Brian Wilson. The Barbara Annin’ Good Vibratin’ Sloop John B-Line to Kokomo Surfin’ sweethearts who melted in song the world over. Adorations will be plenty. All praise for work is earned. Every accolade and recognition is just deserved and rightly given. More than that, such influence is incontestable. So in a bid not to re-tread the well-worn, here’s me sending you and pitching something different….

…Thank you Brian Wilson for the moments.

And we’ll start with the panicle of embarrassment.    

There I was fresh into college and finding my tribe among the leather trousered jet black haired eyeliner guys and the girls dressed full mod in their black shirts and red ties. There I was for the first time not feeling outcast or freaky from my own 17 year old indie tragicom. We all grouped together nervously, unknowing, just met, drawn in by the Tip-Ex’d band logos on our bags. Of course I admitted to knowing every name-drop and logo, but I assure you, my B.S was on overload. Who the fuck were the Velvet Underground? What’s a J&MC? And more to the point, what’s a Beach Boy? So I made it mission to find out.

That night I went home, tied up the phone line for hours, while a rural farm 56K (at best) modem hissed and spat tinnitus at anyone who might have tried to get through. The destination was of course, the mighty Limewire. As with all things, there’s a place and a time. And as the phone spat as loud as the shirts I wear now I scoured the web for the band names as I recalled them. The Velvet Whatthefucks, the Joy Departments and The Beach Boys.

“So I dug out Pet Sounds like you said I should”, I said next day to the red parker jacketed severely fringed London Mod who installed fear by the nature of her cool. “I really like it, it’s pretty 80s and synthpoppy”.

“They’re what?” she said as my face started searching for new shade of red. It turned out I’d been geeking out on Pet Shop Boys. If emoji’s had existed I’d have facepalmed.

So thank you Brian Wilson, for that excruciating inauguration into group that shaped me more than one could know.  

And thank you Brian Wilson for canoes…

For the luck that I had after a biblical downpour that soaked and swallowed every tent from mine downwards. One row down, amongst the flotsam and the newly chemically frenzied fishes, a tent zip was undone and from that very sunk ark emerged a bedraggled and beaming festival Jesus… walking on water in his banana yellow canoe with bum bags and oars all included. Was this some Glastonbury miracle of foresight and happenstance? Hell no. I saw the very same canoe with the very same canoeist crowd surfing over Brian Wilson’s masses. And if memory serves I got an oar in the forehead.

And thank you Brian Wilson…

for the mix tapes, for the best and only reason to watch Cocktail, for the covers from bands that owe you a debt along with all those who drew inspiration. For the pirate CD of Pet Sounds Disk 3 that had only the intros and vocals that percolated and circulated through me and those I call brothers from a music course in Nottingham so long ago, who I still make music with to this day (when we can).

Thank you Brian Wilson, for the on-going presence, and for those time machine vinyls I’ll treasure.

You did and you will Get Around.