Adrian and his guest will be flown to Nashville, TN to see Brian perform at the historic Ryman Auditorium on November 10, 2008. They will ...
More...Adrian and his guest will be flown to Nashville, TN to see Brian perform at the historic Ryman Auditorium on November 10, 2008. They will meet Brian and his band and will be given a tour gift package including That Lucky Old Sun merchandise. Brian will also sign a copy of his new CD, That Lucky Old Sun. Airfare and one night hotel accommodation are included.
Check out his story below:
While meeting you would be more than a dream come true for me personally, I'm writing this mostly on behalf of a friend of mine who could really use a miracle in his life at the moment. My friend is Robby, and he and I have been best friends since I was 12 and he was 14 (we are now 21 and 23). Robby has most of his life been fighting a rare illness that causes tumors to grow all over his body. This disease has cost him most of his eyesight (he only has 20% of his vision in one of his eyes and is completely blind in the other) and his balance. Earlier this year, another tumor claimed his ability to hear in one of his ears. Just last week, Robby underwent surgery to remove yet another tumor from his facial nerve. While the operation was successful, they discovered another tumor growing on the one ear he has left. The doctors say that this particular tumor is growing very slowly and it could be fifty years before it has any harmful effects, but you can imagine that Robby's spirits are not all that high at the moment. The one thing that Robby and I have always had, which was also the thing that brought us together in the first place, is music.
Robby and I are not simply fans of music--it is our life. Most of the music that is dearest to our souls was made decades before we were born. We both have different hierarchies of who we're into the most but perhaps the one artist who is unquestionably at the top of both of our lists is Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. I met Robby a few years after moving to Nashville from my hometown of Sacramento, CA. I grew up in a musical family and while most other kids were learning "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" I was singing "Good Vibrations" and "I Am The Walrus". The Beach Boys and the Beatles instilled in me an absolute certainty that I would spend the rest of my life making music and one day have as much of an impact on popular music as they did. I remember getting made fun of when I was in elementary school for wanting to listen to "Pet Sounds" when all the other kids my class were only into rap, punk, and the current pop fluff of the time. One of the very first concerts I ever went to was the Beach Boys at Fan Fair in 1996 when you guys had all the country singers with you to promote "Stars and Stripes". I believe that was your last concert with the Beach Boys. I was fortunate enough to get to see Carl two more times before he passed away, and I still remember waking up that awful Sunday morning to the news. His death was the first one I ever cried over. I've seen at least one "Beach Boys" (you, Mike and Bruce, or Al) show a year ever since.
One of the great things about growing up in Nashville was that I was constantly surrounded by musicians. The songwriter Bill Lloyd was a parent at the middle school I went to (so was Leon Russell for that matter) and after talking with him on a field trip about how much I loved the Beach Boys he told me that he used to open for them and that he was still close friends with Jeff Foskett. About a week later I got a package in the mail from Mr. Foskett himself which included two of his own CD's, plus a setlist from the Live at the Roxy show signed by you! That was definitely one of the high points of my life! I met Robby around that time through the guy who was playing bass in my garage band at the time. He told me that he knew this mind-blowingly amazing guitar player and he was right. Robby was and is truly an incredible guitarist, so good in fact that he wasn't even sure he wanted to play with us at first! What a rock star! He quickly became the most dedicated member of the group and the band soon whittled down to he and I. By that time I was turning him away from his Rage Against the Machine and Beastie Boys worshiping days and more towards the music I had grown up on. He caught on fast and I think in many ways, you were really the key to unlocking the door for to the pop/art realm of music. That's what's so amazing about the music you make. There's a certain magic to it that transcends all genres, all ages, and all walks of life. Nobody can make music that is at once so meticulously crafted yet at the same time so heartbreakingly honest like you can and it was that quality more than anything that made Robby and I into songwriters and producers ourselves.
My family and I moved back to Sacramento in time for me to start high school, but Robby and I in many ways have become even closer friends since I left and have grown together musically in incalculable ways. You remain the key thread of inspiration that runs through everything we have written and created since then. The amazing thing is that with your body of work and the material you continue to make, there is always something new to discover. I remember after listening to the Beach Boys all my life, finally in middle school hearing the Sunflower album for the first time. It was like discovering the band all over again. When Smile finally came out at the beginning of my junior year of high school, it was literally a spiritual thing for me and I remember putting it on for the first time, laying down on my bed with my eyes closed, and letting the images fill my head and take me on a journey that no other music had ever taken me before. Even now with That Lucky Old Sun and "Midnight's Another Day" in particular (which I would easily rank as one of your best compositions ever), you remain my rallying cry for everything that is good and beautiful about music. Robby and I are around the age now that the Beach Boys were when they first started, before anything soured, and all they had were their dreams. Robby and I have the same dreams and aspirations that those five kids from Hawthorne, California did almost fifty years ago, and it is thanks to you for lighting that fuse in both of us. I think Robby is at a place right now, in light of his recent operation, where he could really use some truly special encouragement. I have no doubt that Robby is completely capable of putting out his own teenage symphony to God as long as he doesn't let his current setbacks do anything less than make him stronger.
I think being told that "life is for the living" by the guy who said it in the first place so many years ago and who opened the window of inspiration and beautiful music for us in the first place could be just the medicine he needs at the moment. My girlfriend and I have been considering flying out from California to see Robby the week that your concert at the Ryman happens to be, anyway. When I read about this contest, it seemed somewhat like a Godsend as something that could really make the trip special. For Robby and I to be able to simply shake your hand and thank you for the beautiful gift you have given us with your music and the life path you have inspired us to take with our own music would be a moment that would give us a lifetime of "good vibes".
Please take a listen to both Robby's music (www.myspace.com/theisabellaorchestra) and my own music (www.myspace.com/adrianbourgeois) just to get a glimpse as to how much of impact your music has made on both of us. I think meeting you could do wonders in Robby's life right now. You yourself are deaf in one ear and have a had a whole number of setbacks in your life but you've never let that stop you from creating. For people like us, it's all we have and everything we could ever want. Thank you for reminding Robby and I of this on a day to day basis through your beautiful beautiful music.
