[1] His work appeared over the years in Playboy, Best American Short Stories, Library of America's Writing Los Angeles, and many other publications.

He occasionally contributed book reviews to the San Francisco Chronicle, and he administered newsroom-l, an email discussion list for journalists.

His articles about Brian Wilson, Bob Dylan, Thomas Pynchon and other prominent Americans were primary sources of information based on his personal acquaintance and extensive direct interviews with the subjects.

"[4] Dylan biographer Clinton Heylin wrote that Siegel caught an interest in the Beach Boys and their increasingly sophisticated music after Pynchon recommended their 1966 album Pet Sounds.

[4] Siegel, who had recently migrated from New York to Los Angeles, was impressed with Wilson, and he documented his experiences for an article which he had presold for The Saturday Evening Post.

[6] He became part of a coterie that accompanied Wilson for much of the band's Smile era,[7][8][9][10] a circle that Siegel later referred to as the "Beach Boys marijuana-consumption squad".

Siegel said that Wilson "had forgotten that I was a journalist, and the reason he got rid of me was because Anderle reminded him of that – because of a disagreement that David and I had about what I would and wouldn't write ... After that [my girlfriend], I and Pynchon went to Studio A and [Michael] Vosse was there, and he said, 'No, you're barred.

As Siegel claims in his piece, The Saturday Evening Post ultimately rejected his story due to his favorable opinions of Wilson's work.

[8][10] He remembered talking with Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution producer David Oppenheim about Wilson, saying, "'David, I get the feeling that this guy is Bach.'

As long as there wasn’t a finished album that could speak for itself, the mythology that displaced it came to signify not only a broken promise, a tragic turning point in The Beach Boys’ career, but a way to reduce Brian himself to a set of eccentricities, self-destructive habits, gossip, and, finally, madness.