By Jan Emous
BETWEEN July and October 1972 -I was 18 at the time- I rode my moped -a silver-gray Mobylette model EEC with a triangular tank under the saddle and without, repeat: without, suspension, but what can you expect for a 399 guilders sticker price-, and so on that moped I regularly rode up and down Albertus Perkstraat in Hilversum. A relative of mine worked in a villa on that street, at a brand new company, Intomart. It did what Nielsen ratings would soon do in the US, engaged in viewing and listening research. They were pioneers at the time, and they had giant computers. I found all that quite interesting. I went there many times.
I was -and am- a huge fan of the Beach Boys. Against all odds. Because the Beach Boys were really not hot in the student environment. Not even after front man Brian Wilson had made the masterpiece Pet Sounds, the equivalent of Sgt Pepper, six years earlier. Not even after his brother Carl, with his God-given voice, had sung the most beautiful pop song of all time: God Only Knows. The Beach Boys, they were that band with stupid songs about surfing and cars. And Brian Wilson was obviously deranged.
Humming along Albertus Perkstraat about a hundred yards before my destination one afternoon, I noticed some excitement. A big Mercedes stood across the road with its rear bumper against a slightly dented picket fence. I drove around it and took no further interest. Intomart’s computers were more fascinating, and besides, I had discovered that this whole watching and listening surveying was rather unreliable in those days. People had to keep track, with a pen in hand, in little booklets of what they were watching and listening to, and figured Intomart would appreciate it if they told them that they actually listened to all the radio stations all day and always watched all two national TV stations at night. That nonsense was fed into the computer. The business began to fascinate me more and more.
The next day I read in the local newspaper, De Gooi- en Eemlander, that a three-year-old American boy had joy-ridden his dad’s car about ten yards on Albertus Perkstraat. No one got hurt, only the neighbors’ front yard fence across the street had sustained some damage. That fact made the newspaper at the time. I find it touching now. The toddler had taken the car off the handbrake and then the vehicle, which was parked next to a house in the driveway, had started to roll backwards. The newspaper interviewed the owner of a bicycle shop on the same street. Oh well, these people were Americans, so…
Americans thought it was quite normal for children to play with cars at a very young age. That seemed to be possible over there. But not here, no. Yes, he had spoken to the neighbor across the street about it. It all ended well, so no biggie. Needless to say, the next day I glanced over at the American house. The Mercedes was there again. There was also a woman walking outside. She was shouting something. Could this boy already be behind the wheel again? The following week I drove down the street at least eight more times, but nothing unusual transpired. Sometimes the Mercedes was there, sometimes not. It would typically be gone in the afternoon. My interest waned.
Until the moment when I was just driving by, and the American got out of the car. A somewhat chubby thirty-something with a beard and a combed back mane. A few hundred yards down the road I thought, It cannot be, can it? I decided “not” was the most likely.
Still, it didn’t let go of me. Driving down the street, I now considered passing by the American house as important as my visit to Intomart. And of course it happened: a week later he was there again, outside that house. It was him. It was Carl Wilson. Or else his twin brother. No, it was him. I drove on as casually as I could. Could Carl have seen me?
And now it became an obsession. I no longer drove to Intomart at all, what did I care about the friggin’ computer, I drove past Carl Wilson’s house. And after a fortnight it happened. I waved at him and yelled Hi. He looked at me, I think. I racked my brain over all this. What was Carl doing here? The band had been at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam a couple of years ago, but they had nothing else to do here, right? Maybe I should talk to the bicycle repairman? He wouldn’t say anything, of course. He had agreed with Carl that he would pretend innocence if anyone asked him about it. Before you knew it there would be hundreds of idiots with mopeds in front of that house begging for an autograph. No, the bike shop was not an option. I listened closely to Lex Harding’s Veronica Popjournaal. He didn’t report anything either.
I would have to do it myself. Just go there, ring the bell. Hello Carl. I’m a big fan of yours. And then of course Carl would tell me what he was doing. And that, if I felt like it, I could come along to a band rehearsal. And that Holland was a very nice country with castles and cows and whether I liked kroketten and chocolate hagelslag, things they didn’t know at all back in the States.
I would find out that the band had their own studio built in Baambrugge in the middle of a meadow, with the most advanced equipment for that time. That all Beach Boys were living in Holland for a few months, in Bloemendaal, Laren, Amsterdam and in Hilversum. That their album would be released early next year and would be titled Holland. That Carl himself was very proud of his singing on Trader, a song about American oppression and Dutch merchant spirit. Or something like that. That they sometimes interrupted the recordings because cows were audibly walking around the studio. And eventually I would go with Carl for a day, to Baambrugge, to discover that they were all very hard working and very nice and would sometimes go get a sandwich in a local snack bar. And no, Brian Wilson was not there today, because he was in Laren working on a fairy tale, which they did not yet know if it would ever be finished.
That’s how it was supposed to go. But it didn’t go that way.
Because indeed, I calculated, I must have driven past his house at least a hundred times during the Carl period. On my way to Intomart. And I really did ride past that incident with the car. But all this time I didn’t know that one of my idols was staying there. Holland is a wonderful record, by the way. One of the most beautiful Beach Boys albums. Really.
Journalist Jan Emous has for many years hosted radio shows at Radio Noord Holland and NPO’s Nachtvluchten show on Dutch Radio 1. In Maryland he built Paperback Radio. At 40UP Radio he now hosts Muziek van kust tot kust (click for link).
