Oh Jesus, we'll go to the one and only Lonnie Smith.
We catch up with right on a Friday morning as part of Australia Overnight Rode.
Good morning, so a very good morning to you, Tony.
Happy birthday, Thank you sir, very kind of you, very sweet of you to say so. Just watching these pictures come in, you know, mate, these big national stories that come in unimaginable. Really, two hundred ninety people that have been killed in this Air India crash. It is dreadful and they're only in the air for sixty plus seconds and then all hell, all let's loose.
It's just so tragically, tragically sad.
But the astonishing story there, Tony. One survivor, a survivor and he's still holding his boarding path.
Yeah, which is just a great There'll be more on that one than no death throughout the day. Let me ask you this before you start to further The rights are where you are the riots in LA Are you walking around and you shown yourself at We're not that far away.
We're going to be really careful. Does it feel horrid or not?
No? Look down here pretty safe. About an hour and a half south of Los Angeles, which is good, a good way to be, especially when that's going on. Look the images of cars set ablaze, protesters tossing rocks at police, and an office inspiring non lethal rounds and tear gas at protest as well several days of unrest in Los Angeles of protests over immigration enforcement. Is far different in
a scale from the nineteen ninety two riots. Now, after the current protests that began what Friday, Donald Trump ordered the deployment of National Guards and seven hundred marines. But you know, there is a curfew in place. It covers two point five kilometers square of downtown Los Angeles from eight pm to six am and is expected to last
for several days, as they say. But the part that you would have seen on TV and a lot of people in Australia and around the world when nine journalists Lauren Tamasi reporting on the LA riots, was shot by a rubber bullet fire by an LA police officer. And look, when you're reporting stuff like that, really it can get pretty dangerous. So you know, she's okay, which is great.
Does anybody have found out why he chose to shoot what was clearly a working journalist?
I think in the background Tony to if you watch the video to her, probably he right, there was someone else close by, so he more than likely saw her in that vicinity, but there was someone coming up or whatever like that, but he wasn't a good shot because he shot her, so, which was very sad.
On this program yesterday in the two o'clock hour, something took my fancy and we were just meandering through some of the great songs from the Beach Boys. Coincidentally, one of the big couple of the big ones were actually at anniversary of the recording going back to about sixty four or sixty five, and I said, what are those great Beach Boys songs? So we had lots of callers talking about memories of the Beach Boys. So this is in the two o'clock hour. The news came up at
three o'clock yesterday. Then as the news finished, I saw it flick up on my phone, Brian Wilson dead, and I thought, oh, I know it must be different. Brian Wilson couldn't be surely anyway, it turns out clearly was. I've been thinking about that all day for the last twenty four plus hours now, thinking how weird and odd
that made me feel. I mean, I was really taken back by it that we had been spent nearly an hour talking about songs associated with the Beach Boys and Brian Wilson and then that news came through.
Look, well, Brian was the heart of the Beach Boys. He was the soul of the Beach Boy sound, gifted with you know, like dreaming up melodies where he poured emotions into every note. And Mike Love from the Beach Boys paid tribute to his cousin on the journey together that was filled with moments of brilliance, heartbreak, laughter, perplexity,
and most of all love. Although Love and Wilson were successful collaborators, you know, the two occasionally buttered heads over the course of the band's direction, and Wilson wanted to really continue to move into more experimental material while Love wanted to take the band's focus on the commercial side. And the Beach Boys really helped to make the world
believe in sunshine, surfing and teenage dreams. And as the news of Brian Wilson's passing, it reverberated around the world and especially in the music world, you know, and it's heartening to know Tony that his contributions are celebrated by young and old, and even Paul McCartney, one of Wilson's biggest admirers, has said the Beach Boys song God Only Knows is the greatest song ever written. Now that's from Paul McCartney's lips. Now, McCartney has said it means so
much to him. It's one of few songs that reduces him to tears every time he hears it.
Yeah, I agree.
It's a beautiful genius of Brian Wilson. Countless music luminaries Bob Dylan, Mick Fleetwood, Geryl King, Elton, John Ronnie Wood among the many who are playing tribute to Brian passing away at eighty two. You know like he did have his health.
Issues, Yeah, drug issues of these which were well documented as well. Rod state, they will come back in just a moment on this day in music, and a sorry about Don McLean of all people that's next to Strada Overnight, we love it. Nice to every company. We're halfway through, more than halfway through. Really we run out a time that we're doing with this half hour's just completely gone.
Rod Smith, Don MacLean, the great Don McLean. Wouldn't you have liked to have written back in all those years ago, American Pie.
Well, yeah, and look the parody of American Pie. Don McLean has said that it's better than the original. You know of weird Al because he's amassed countless fans over the decades, including some of the artists he has spoofed. So look the folk rock legend. Don McLean praised the saga Begins Now Yankevic's take on American Pie, in which he hilariously describes the plot of Star Wars Episode one, the Phantom Menace. When MacLean heard the version, he thought
it was better than the original. And weird Ol has been the king of parodies for a number of decades, with songs like eBay, like a Surgeon, Armish.
Paradise, He's eat it, eat it. Yeah.
Look, so he's still touring. Would you believe he's got his bigger and weirder twenty twenty five tour happening right now.
Just to wrap up, and this is such an important story which we had a bit more time. But it's about the reading to children, which is certainly lacking because of the genre's parenting.
Yeah, look that they aren't reading to their kids as often as other generations because they feel it isn't funny anymore tony. It raises concerns about the lack of early exposure to books for kids, and the recent study found that the attitude towards reading is seemingly being passed on to their children. So if they're not going to help the kids read, well, the kids aren't going to read either. So very sad and you know it's really going to turn out like how many kids are going to read?
Is ai going to take a.
Well, maybe that'll take care of it.
But the idea of sitting down and reading to children, of specting to lots of people, lots of teachers and families over the years, and the real clever people still read to their children.
It is so important at a very early age. It is it is mate, We're going to run at a time.
I know we wanted to talk about the Beach Boys again, which will do that? That song you write is such a beautiful song. Listen to it a few times yesterday. Lots of the reports featured that God only knows it is such a beautiful.
Track, and it was the B side of Wouldn't It Be Nice?
It was a two which are two beautiful, fabulous songs.
You have a great one and we'll talk again next week.
Thank you for the one and only.
Have a great birthday, Tony.
See you mate. Talking about all those things coming out of the United States, the Beatles, Supremes, beach Boys. We might look at that coming up the next hour cereal time.
It is all part of a strainer overnight. Good morning,