I was in LA taking some rock photos for a story on LA music and the city's
contribution to rock around 1995.

One of the shots was Rodney Bing. The reporter and I met him at the Denny's
and we had breakfast (lunchtime) with him. He said he ate there most days
and usually alone. We talked awhile and then I took some pix of him with his
60's muscle car. GTO I believe.

We told him we were trying to talk with Brian Wilson but getting nowhere
going through Capitol. We could get Bruce Johnston or Mike Love. Love wanted
us to sign something saying we would write nothing negative about him. We
declined.

Rodney said he'd been at a birthday party for Brian a few days earlier and
Phil Spector was also there. He said Brian had just been given a jukebox and
he could tell him we wanted to get a shot with the jukebox and he might let
us come over. The next day we got a call at our hotel. "Hi, this is Brian
Wilson." We thought it was a joke until he asked if we wanted to visit his
home and see his jukebox. We said of course and arranged a meeting the next
morning.

We arrived at the guardhouse and security called Brian. We were sure he
would change his mind and we'd be turned away. But luckily we were okayed
for a visit and his wife Melinda was quite surprised. "This is highly
unorthodox. No one comes to our house like this." Luckily it all worked out
and I owe one of my greatest experiences to Rodney.

I also remember seeing Rodney at a Wondermints show during Poptopia. Nick
Walusko had a Rodney wig on that night. I'd never seen the band before and
before I discovered it was a wig I just thought Nick was some eccentric guy.

Scott S



> I used to see Rodney several times a week at the so-called "Rock 'n' Roll
> Denny's" at Sunset and Vista (so-called because of the Strip denizens who
> would flood the place after hours) until it closed over a year ago. He had
> to be one of the few people who were there more often than I was.
>
> Drew
> np: one of the SOTT 17 entries. Jeez, they're starting to blur together
into
> a great steaming heap of one great song after another.
>