Based on actual events. Eddie, whose last name I could never remember (Van Gelder? Something like that) was a kid whose family lived across the street from my grandparents' house in Gainesville, Florida, when I was growing up. When we went down in the summer-- which we did, 2 weeks almost every single summer until I was 18 or so, and almost always in August, for cripes sake-- it naturally came about that we were sort of thrown together. Over the years Eddie & I became good friends, while remaining distant enough that we didn't feel any need to correspond or keep in touch during the year.

The moment recorded actually happened, more or less. We were sitting in the bedroom he shared with his brother. We were listening to the Endless Summer compilation, which was almost a sort of post mortem for the core group that had been the Beach Boys. I had never really heard this stuff before, had kind of dismissed it as glee club crap-- my appreciation of harmony has, I'm happy to report, improved in the interval-- and it sure as hell wasn't Rock 'n' Roll. I think it was during "Good Vibrations" when it clicked, when I realy got it; there's that little slow passage, where they ditch the original melody almost abruptly for a very suddenly meditative and beautiful little organ piece while they Boys sang "Gotta keep those lovin' good/Vibrations happenin' with her..." And that fades down 'til it's just the organ piece, and then they come back with that gorgeous harmony chord: "aaaAAAAHHHH!" After that I was hung on every note, for good or ill. Then "Wouldn't it be Nice" came on, adn Man... It had never occured to me to listen closely to it, so I had never examined what a MONSTER piece of music that is. Accordians, guitars, horns, WEIRD horns, all kinds of stuff. And it kept happening, over the years, one or the other of us would discover some new act or artist or piece of music, & come summer we absolutley HAD to get the other lo LISTN TO THIS. Great times.

The sole exception was when I discovered the band Yes. Turned out he had a classmate who discovered it the year before and really kind of ruined it for him by making him listen to Tales from Topographical Oceans over & over. You either get that and you dig it or you don't get it and it doesn't matter.

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