One of the happiest things about having written Shoulda Been There is the people I meet. They mean so much to me that it's hard for even a writer to put it into words. But Tim Coulter began blessing the life of my family in 1993, and he has been a dear friend ever since. He is one of the most upbeat, witty, kind, and caring people I know. He never fails to make me laugh, cheer me up, and encourage me. I cherish his friendship. That's the short story. Here's the longer version . . .
I met Tim Coulter in 1993 when I was working as an aerobics instructor at the Independence YMCA in Independence, Missouri. Almost immediately, we hit it off . . . big time! We were both Beatle fans (although he knew waaaaay more trivia and facts than I did). I knew only about John; Tim knew about everything Beatle, including Andy White!
But we had much, much more in common than The Beatles. Tim and I both loved rock'n'roll, guitars, nature, photography, and Tim's sweet wife, Brenda. (Brenda was in my aerobics class and was/is a talented clothing designer and entrepreneur.) When Tim and I got together and started talking, it could go on for hours . . . really, hours.
And not only was Tim my friend, he was my husband's closest buddy in Kansas City as well. My husband, Rande, writes music, and he and Tim spent many happy hours recording all the tracks. It was better than Abbey Road at Tim's house . . . and a helluva lot more fun.
Tim's photography was quite famous in the Kansas City area, and when I decided to do a photo shoot for Rande's Christmas present I went to Tim. Ladies, if you ever want to feel totally gorgeous, have your picture taken by Tim Coulter. He is quiet, kind, and extremely polite, but you walk away from the session feeling like you won the Irish lottery!! He has the ability to make anyone with whom he spends an hour feel as if they are the most interesting person in the world.
When we left Kansas City and moved to Philly, Rande and I would often call Tim out of the blue when we had a rock'n'roll question, and Tim always had the answer to anything! We commented that if we ever got on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," he would be our Phone-A-Friend.
Little did we know then that he literally would become our Phone-A-Friend for life . . . you see, in 2008, in the final stages of publishing Shoulda Been There, Rande and I came to the realization that we had to have a website for the book, and not just an ordinary website . . . a good one with trivia, puzzles, stories, photos, featured articles, videos, ordering capabilities, and links. We knew we were way out of our league when it came to constructing and managing something that HUGE . . . but we knew that it would be a piece of cake for Tim. One Phone-A-Friend call later, our Shoulda Been There website was born. Tim, Rande, and Jude became a Shoulda family, and reconnecting with Tim was one of the very best parts of writing and publishing the book.
Being our webmaster isn't easy. Every month Tim updates the chapter, the trivia, the appearances schedule, and a million other details. Then, last summer, we decided to add the "Meet the Beatles Fans" feature, which meant a lot of extra work, but he never once complained. Well, maybe once . . . you see . . .
Last fall, Tim and Brenda bought their dream home, a house on a large piece of property way out in the middle of nowhere. It's lovely there with a barn, cats, donkeys (yes, donkeys), trees, and Mother Nature, but what it doesn't have is cable. And that, for a webmaster, is a gigantic problem.
But Tim didn't let that interfere with getting everything taken care of for our website. Even though it meant bundling up and driving out in the brutal Kansas City weather to go work on the computer at his wife's store after hours (Brenda owns a bra and lingerie shop), Tim did so pretty darn cheerfully. He made the U.S. Post Office's claim about "neither snow, nor whatever, nor dead of night" into his own motto. But he did it!
Tim and I are both creatures of the night. We write each other at zero- zero-dark-thirty! How did I get so lucky to have someone to work so closely with, someone who understands my quirkiness, who loves the Beatles they way I do (although he still knows a good bit more than I ever will), and who cheers me on every step of the way? All I can say is "Thank God for Tim." And I do.
Rande and I fight about whose friend Tim really is - his or mine. But the truth is, both of our lives have been blessed by knowing this truly cool dude. Enjoy his feature. Tim Coulter is amazing.
Hi, I'm Tim.
I'd like to tell you about the time I met Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, and the trips I've made to Liverpool, and to Hamburg. I'd really like to tell you that, but it wouldn't be true. However, I can tell you exactly where I was when I first heard "Nowhere Man" on a transistor radio, where I bought Beatles bubble gum cards, and how I had to scotch-tape my "bangs" down at night once I decided to grow out my crewcut in fifth grade (dang cowlick!).
I had just turned eight when my folks got my brother and me a stereo for Christmas in 1965. They had the foresight to also get us a couple of albums to play: A Hard Days Night and Best of the Herman's Hermits. We played those albums to death. Within a month I had started spending every spare penny on 45s, which we bought at the appliance store downtown.
I took things a bit further and started my own band, Tim & the Termites. In third grade we toured our elementary school, hauling our equipment on a janitor's cart, and playing three or four songs in each room. "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" was one of the tunes. What kind of satisfaction were we looking for in third grade? More recess?
Through all the years of playing music by Grand Funk, Alice Cooper, Kiss, etc., I never lost my love of The Beatles. No matter what type of band I was in, I'd always manage to sneak in a Beatle song or two. My band during my college years, Mist, would play Styx and Kiss, and then break into "All My Loving." My first full-time band, The Razors, played New Wave music ("Turning Japanese," et al), but we also tossed in "If I Fell" and "Anytime At All." Strangely, most of our fans thought "Anytime At All" was an original. We didn't correct them.
In 1980 I was in college and between bands. A couple of guys I'd played with in the past had put together a Beatles tribute band called "Yesterday." When John was killed, I heard about plans to hold a candlelight vigil. Although I was deeply saddened by his death, I felt that the get-together should be a celebration of his music, as opposed to an evening of grieving. I called the band and then made arrangements with the college. On that chilly December night, Yesterday brought a lot of smiles to otherwise sad faces as they played on the CMSU Student Union steps.
It wasn't long until I was a member of Yesterday. I was the off-stage musician, playing whatever instrumentation the four on-stage members weren't able to play. It was a great education to listen to Beatles records on headphones and figure out what sounds, other than the two guitars, bass and drums, were needed to fill out a song. Most of the time it was keyboards or percussion of some sort, but occasionally there would be something really fun, like the flute solo on "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away."
The producers of Broadway's Beatlemania show were putting together a few traveling groups, and we were seriously considered when they wanted to send someone to Japan. It fell through for various reasons, but mainly because none of us was free to travel for that long.
After college, and working a "regular" job for six months, I started playing music full time. The Razors released one album in 1984. It's very humbling in the studio. No matter how good you think something sounds, it always pops into your head, "The Beatles recorded Sgt. Pepper on a four-track machine, with none of the fancy gear we have now."
The Razors used The Beatles as a blueprint. If you're going to base a project on something, why not use a winning formula? We spent hours making plans. We knew that people remembered the individual Beatles, but few people could name all five Rolling Stones. Why? One reason (other than The Beatles were simply more popular) was that people can remember four names. Also, we noticed that all their names were one syllable, except for the drummer with the funny name. The Razors had four members, but hadn't found a bass player yet. Our singer, Mark, wanted to learn bass - and he was left handed. But our drummer was a skinny black kid named Gary - that was two syllables and not catchy. With "John, Paul, George & Ringo" on our minds, our singer suggested "Mark, Keith, Tim and Negro." While even Gary found it funny, I'm not sure everyone would have. We ended up finding a bass player in the end. And then another one, and another one. I'm not even sure I can name all the Razors.
I've kept my hand in music over the years. As a graphic artist and photographer, I've done many CD covers. I once shot a concert by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. They liked my work, and when Jimmy Ibbotson (you'd recognize his voice from "Fishin' in the Dark" and "House at Pooh Corner") decided to do a solo album, he hired me to do the project. I did a total of three of his solo CDs.
When someone asks what I do, I usually tell them this story: A blues band called The Nortons hired me to shoot their promo pictures. Then I designed their logo. Then their website. One day they called me and said that their keyboard player had won a cruise and going to miss a couple of gigs. Would I be willing to sit in? I'm not a fan of the blues, but I learned 40 songs (37 of which I'd never even heard before) in the next 30 days. About a month later they called again and said that their drummer had quit. I thought, "I'm pretty rusty on drums - I'm not sure I can pull this one off." But luckily they'd hired a new drummer already and just needed new pictures taken. Whew! Next, I directed, shot and edited a concert DVD for them. So what I do for a living? Answer: d) all of the above.
Like probably everyone that visits this site, I grew up with The Beatles. I remember The Beatles in black & white. In fact, all the great 60s groups that played on Ed Sullivan are black & white memories. And not just because of the TV. Other than the cover, all the pictures in 16 Magazine and Tiger Beat were in black & white. The early albums were not only mono, but also monochromatic.
By 1967 The Beatles had lost me. They had mustaches, and "Strawberry Fields" was over my third-grade, crew-cut head. Everything was getting weird. So pre-fab or not, The Monkees became my favorite group . . . for a while, anyway.
In 1969 my older brother came home one day and asked if I wanted to go "half" on Abbey Road, the new Beatles album. We already had the single "Come Together"/"Something," so I said no. But my mom made me do it, since I would be listening to it also. (We still shared that same stereo.) And what a surprise! I loved it. I'd bought "Hey Jude," but heard enough of that weird White Album to avoid it. I'd bought Magical Mystery Tour, because it was like a greatest hits album - at least on one side. Maybe it was time to give The Beatles albums another listen. The Monkees had petered out. Then Mike left, too. I jumped back on The Beatles' ship.
Unlike later, bands' back catalogs weren't available at record shops. I bought Rubber Soul, Beatles VI, and Revolver at a garage sale for 50 cents each. I later found some record shops in Kansas City where I was able to fill out the rest of my collection. Even the early singles got re-released on the Apple label.
So while I've never met a Beatle, or visited Liverpool, or had a chance to trip Yoko, The Beatles have played an important role in my life. While I've gone through periods of listening to Black Sabbath, the Archies, Toad the Wet Sprocket, the Clash, or hundreds of other groups, The Beatles albums have always been close at hand, and always held my Number One spot since 1969. And while I constantly listen to new music (thanks to the Internet; no thanks to the radio), I have a feeling The Fabs will stay at the toppermost.
