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Post by jk on May 9, 2022 8:18:26 GMT
"What about a week apiece on some basic BBs questions, for all to chime in on and discuss? As examples, a week apiece on: what got you into the band; first BBs album; first BBs concert; etc? Obviously for that to work, people would have to get into it a little, not just giving brief, factual answers, but stories. A little back-and-forth among people. That kind of thing. "Or descriptions of BBs-related shows we've attended: one at a time, people describe some show, and we all discuss. People who have been to many could describe various ones over time. Favorite, least favorite, best venue, special moments, whatever. You can link to any footage of the show if it's available. Post setlists if available. Etc." (Kapitan, 15 April)
Some good ideas there, sir. Since we can't leave everything to the indefatigable Cap’n, I'll kick this one off. Maybe others can take it from there, much like the catch-as-catch-can of the "big lists" thread.
What were your first recollections of the Boys and their music?
I first became aware of their existence in late-ish 1962 when "Surfin' Safari" crept into the Billboard Top Twenty, as reproduced in the UK paper New Musical Express, and briefly hovered there. Their next appearance in my life was in late '62 or maybe early '63 when I noticed that their "Ten Little Indians" was "bubbling under" the Cashbox Top Fifty included in another excellent UK music paper, Melody Maker. I had to wait until the next millennium to hear either of these, although I'm most reliably informed they were released in the UK at the time.
The first song of theirs I actually heard at the time was "Surfin’ U.S.A." on my favourite French music station in mid 1963. I was immediately struck by the unusual quality of the singer's voice at the line "Everybody's gone surfin'" -- was this falsetto? Frankie Valli never sounded like this.
Well, those are my very first memories of the Boys, arguably the earliest on this forum.
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Post by carllove on May 9, 2022 9:08:44 GMT
I’m sure I had heard The Beach Boys music earlier than 1983, but I don’t have any recollection of it. I saw Mike Love and Dean Torrance with the Endless Summer Band back in 1983 during Spring Break at South Padre Island, and enjoyed the music, but never took my interest any further. Then I actually saw The Beach Boys perform with The Moody Blues on July 2, 1986 at Sandstone In Kansas City, and remember being blown away by Al’s voice. Again, the music was fun, but I was more into The Moody Blues at the time, so once again, that went nowhere.
It took the movie Love and Mercy to pique my interest. Our washing machine had bit the dust, so I rented the movie to watch while at the Laundromat. That music from Pet Sounds intrigued me. It was so different from the surf and car tunes. It was beautiful. The first music I ever purchased from the Boys though, was the CD Classics Selected by Brian Wilson. What a great intro into the music. Soon afterwards, I purchased the GV box set for cheap on eBay and that was all she wrote. I couldn’t stop listening to the 2nd and 3rd CD. Then - I finally purchased Pet Sounds. Well - it sort of changed my life. It cemented my obsession. So here I am.
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Post by kds on May 9, 2022 12:38:05 GMT
My earliest recollections of The Beach Boys music might be hearing their Christmas songs as a very young child. So much so, that I clearly remember feeling nostalgic for their Christmas songs at the age of ten, when I asked my Dad for a copy of the album on tape.
I do remember hearing their hits now and again as a kid. And, I remember Kokomo being a big hit, but I didn't connect the dots from that new song to those guys on those 60s hits until I saw their appearance on Full House. I remember seeing it in the summer of 1989 when I visited a friend's house, and she can a tape full of Full House episodes. The first episode on the tape was Beach Boys Bingo.
That same summer, when my folks took my sister and me to our first ever full week long trip to Ocean City, Maryland, I remember we visited some cousins who were also in town, and my uncle gave my Dad a tape of Beach Boys hits to play in the car.
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Post by Kapitan on May 9, 2022 13:12:57 GMT
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on May 9, 2022 14:10:41 GMT
The first Beach Boys' song I remember hearing (on the radio, and I didn't know it was by The Beach Boys) was "Help Me, Rhonda". I thought they were singing "help me run" - hey, it was static-y AM radio and I was a little kid! But, I do remember liking it; it was catchy. We had some records (mostly 45s) in our family at that time. We had The Beatles' singles, but no Beach Boys. Right around that time (1965), I remember visiting my cousins' house, and I had an older cousin who would've been in high school at that time. He was very intelligent, very artistic (he was talented at drawing), and later owned his own engineering company. And, he had this reel-to-reel tape recorder in his bedroom - and a copy of The Beach Boys Today! album. I still remember seeing that album cover for the first time in 1965. Anyway, he was playing these Beach Boys' songs from the Today! album that he recorded on his reel-to-reel and it was very thrilling to hear. Help me run, help help me run...
Flash forward to 1974. My older sister was always a step ahead of me in discovering great music - The Moody Blues, John Denver, Gordon Lightfoot, Bob Dylan...and The Doors! She had a little white record player and her bedroom was adjacent to mine. When she played an album or a 45, I heard it quite well. One day I heard "Let's go surfin' now, everybody's learning how, come on a safari with me" coming through the walls. Yes, it was Endless Summer. She played it and played it and played it. At first I didn't care very much for the music. It wasn't cool enough for a guy like me who was listening to The Doors, Queen, Blue Oyster Cult, Sparks, and The New York Dolls. Well, that would soon change. At first, all I liked were The Beach Boys' fast, rock & roll songs like "I Get Around", "Surfin' U.S.A.", and "Fun, Fun, Fun". Soon - whether I liked it or not - Brian's ballads got to me.
I was also double-teamed by Endless Summer. I had a high school buddy who actually owned his own car and he picked me up for school every day in his gray Dodge Dart. And, he had three 8 Tracks in that car - The Four Seasons' Greatest Hits, one by Bachman-Turner Overdrive, and Endless Summer. Every morning I got a dose of those early Beach Boys/Brian Wilson classics, and simply, it was beginning of my fandom. Big time.
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Post by Kapitan on May 9, 2022 14:57:18 GMT
I had a high school buddy who actually owned his own car and he picked me up for school every day in his gray Dodge Dart. My older brother had a '73 or '74 Dodge Dart ... albeit in about 1990 or so! I think it still had an 8-track player in it, too. I remember he got sideswiped (with me in the car) in the summer of 1994, and being too broke to fix the broken window, he duct-taped heavy, transparent plastic to it. Classy! Then he was the one who drove me to an orientation event at the college I was to be starting in the fall. That's not embarrassing or anything, getting out of a car like that! I guess luckily for me, it was at a state school in Iowa, not some private school filled with upper-class types.
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Emdeeh
Pacific Coast Highway
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Post by Emdeeh on May 9, 2022 20:23:29 GMT
The first BB song I heard on the radio back in the fall of 1962 was “Ten Little Indians.” The next single was the song that made me a fan, “Surfin’ USA” / “409,” followed closely by “Surfer Girl” / “Little Deuce Coupe” which sealed the deal for me as a fan. Before then, I was into the Four Seasons’ music. The Beach Boys appealed to me in a similar vein, but they were so much more musically (and closer in age to us Baby Boomers).
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Post by Kapitan on May 12, 2022 15:02:26 GMT
The first BB song I heard on the radio back in the fall of 1962 was “Ten Little Indians.” The next single was the song that made me a fan, “Surfin’ USA” / “409,” followed closely by “Surfer Girl” / “Little Deuce Coupe” which sealed the deal for me as a fan. Before then, I was into the Four Seasons’ music. The Beach Boys appealed to me in a similar vein, but they were so much more musically (and closer in age to us Baby Boomers). I'm curious how being a fan proceeded for you at that time. Were you mostly listening on the radio? Buying singles? Buying albums? And were you following "news" (such as it was at that time) in music or teen magazines, etc.? For example, did you know much about the guys during the '60s, or did all that come later?
This is all interesting to me because I know the industry and publicity were so different then. I musically came of age in the '80s, when there were half a dozen or more music magazines available at most bookstores, there was MTV, and cassettes (which were what I bought for the first decade or so of my music fandom) were roughly $10, which was not so hard to scrounge up. (Singles, on the other hand, were something I NEVER bought: why pay $3-4 or so for two songs when I could have 10-12 songs for $10? As I've said elsewhere, singles wasn't even a term we used. We'd just say videos, which was how you identified singles.)
For the record, anybody else with fandom dating back into the '60s or '70s, I'd like those same answers from you, too.
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Post by The Cincinnati Kid on May 12, 2022 19:26:46 GMT
I've mentioned a few times how I first heard the Beach Boys. It was some Muppets show where the Muppets themselves were singing Kokomo. I was three years old and it was on VHS. My dad always had on the oldies station that played 50-early 70s music, so I was exposed before that and after, but don't have any specific memories other than liking their songs a lot when they came on. I do remember I always enjoyed the Sunday night drive home from my grandma's house with that station on. I'm still disappointed they switched to a greatest hits format in 2007 (mid 60s-80s songs), and now they've been shifting to early 90s and even less stuff from the 60s and early 70s played. Another oldies stations popped up about 10 years ago, but these days I'm mostly listening to Spotify in the car anyway.
Aside from that, I think one of my very fist itunes purchases was I Get Around, Surfer Girl, Fun Fun Fun, and maybe a couple of songs. This was around 09-10 before I had much money and before I really became a big fan.
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Emdeeh
Pacific Coast Highway
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Post by Emdeeh on May 12, 2022 21:46:45 GMT
I'm curious how being a fan proceeded for you at that time. Were you mostly listening on the radio? Buying singles? Buying albums? And were you following "news" (such as it was at that time) in music or teen magazines, etc.? For example, did you know much about the guys during the '60s, or did all that come later? I started out listening to the radio in the early '60s. Then came BB albums and a handful of singles. I bought BB albums as new releases, and continued listening to the radio. I did follow the "news" in teen magazines and moved on to rock music mags as they emerged in the late '60s. I also read the credits on the albums. I spent time calling and talking to deejays, who were happy to talk to us music fans. I learned a lot about the BBs back then, at least what info was available. I sure knew that Brian was a brilliant songwriter, producer, and singer. I watched the other BBs grow as musicians and singers. I knew all along that the BBs played on their earliest albums, but I also knew about the Wrecking Crew musicians. Discovering all of this music was a real-time experience for me.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 12, 2022 22:29:01 GMT
First aware of them in December 1964 when they appeared on Ready! Steady!! Go!!! in the UK (I was nine). Was generally aware through the sixties and early seventies, then I read Nick Kent's summer 1975 NME three-parter "The Last Beach Movie: A Story Of Brian Wilson 1942-", and that was it. Instant obsession.
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Post by Kapitan on May 12, 2022 22:39:59 GMT
First aware of them in December 1964 when they appeared on Ready! Steady!! Go!!! in the UK (I was nine). Was generally aware through the sixties and early seventies, then I read Nick Kent's summer 1975 NME three-parter "The Last Beach Movie: A Story Of Brian Wilson 1942-", and that was it. Instant obsession. I'm curious as to how much you enjoyed them from '64-'75. You were "generally aware" during some really interesting (musical) years: were you hearing and not especially interested? Or not necessarily hearing it all? It's fascinating that a series of articles were the turning point, as opposed to the music. I'd love to hear more.
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sockit
The Surfer Moon
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Post by sockit on May 13, 2022 3:23:14 GMT
I first started hearing Beach Boys songs in the summer of 1975 on the radio. "Help Me Rhonda", "Surfin' USA", and "California Girls" were in pretty heavy rotation on our local pop rock stations. I had no idea who the group was (or that those songs were all done by the same group), and for that matter, since we didn't have oldies stations in my area yet, I had no idea these songs were 10-12 years old at the time. I just assumed they were current vintage-styled songs, which was a thing at the time.
My first awareness of the Beach Boys group was 2 years later when one of my older sisters married a fellow who was a Beach Boys fan....well sort of. He had all of the early records which he had collected growing up, but nothing from Pet Sounds through Sunflower. Whenever I would hang out with him, he would play the records and talk about the group. He believed the group went sour after Party. At the time I thought the music was nice, but I wouldn't become an actual fan for another 10 years. I was just into so many other types of music in my teen years.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 13, 2022 6:07:38 GMT
First aware of them in December 1964 when they appeared on Ready! Steady!! Go!!! in the UK (I was nine). Was generally aware through the sixties and early seventies, then I read Nick Kent's summer 1975 NME three-parter "The Last Beach Movie: A Story Of Brian Wilson 1942-", and that was it. Instant obsession. I'm curious as to how much you enjoyed them from '64-'75. You were "generally aware" during some really interesting (musical) years: were you hearing and not especially interested? Or not necessarily hearing it all? It's fascinating that a series of articles were the turning point, as opposed to the music. I'd love to hear more. "Generally aware" as in they were on the radio and TV: one thing I distinctly recall seeing was a video in the 60s that included someone sliding up a fireman's pole. Come my immersion into serious BB fandom, no-one believed me... until the 1985 release of the American Band videobiog, and there it was (incorrectly identified as a "Fire" promo). Anyhoo... enjoyed the music when I heard it, but made no huge effort to seek it out further. Then, in summer 1975, the NME tryptich: remember, back then the mag was required reading, cover to cover because, even if you didn't like the band, the standard of writing was so high. Kent, Murray, Farren... I discovered there was far, far more to the BB than surf/cars/girls/fun, musically as well. First album purchased: Pet Sounds. Hooked.
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Post by jk on May 13, 2022 9:11:23 GMT
The first BB song I heard on the radio back in the fall of 1962 was “Ten Little Indians.” The next single was the song that made me a fan, “Surfin’ USA” / “409,” followed closely by “Surfer Girl” / “Little Deuce Coupe” which sealed the deal for me as a fan. Before then, I was into the Four Seasons’ music. The Beach Boys appealed to me in a similar vein, but they were so much more musically (and closer in age to us Baby Boomers). I'm curious how being a fan proceeded for you at that time. Were you mostly listening on the radio? Buying singles? Buying albums? And were you following "news" (such as it was at that time) in music or teen magazines, etc.? For example, did you know much about the guys during the '60s, or did all that come later?
This is all interesting to me because I know the industry and publicity were so different then. I musically came of age in the '80s, when there were half a dozen or more music magazines available at most bookstores, there was MTV, and cassettes (which were what I bought for the first decade or so of my music fandom) were roughly $10, which was not so hard to scrounge up. (Singles, on the other hand, were something I NEVER bought: why pay $3-4 or so for two songs when I could have 10-12 songs for $10? As I've said elsewhere, singles wasn't even a term we used. We'd just say videos, which was how you identified singles.)
For the record, anybody else with fandom dating back into the '60s or '70s, I'd like those same answers from you, too.
Yes, the radio, from 1961 onwards, with my first hearing of the Boys in mid '63 followed by myriad hearings initially on French radio and later the off-shore "pirate" stations. My brother and I bought mainly pop singles from 1961 to '67, including "Barbara Ann" (me) and "Heroes And Villains" (him). Of the mass of albums we acquired since that year, two of mine were by the Boys, Pet Sounds (in '67) and Smiley Smile (1968). I started buying the music papers in 1961, beginning with NME and Melody Maker, later adding the less essential Disc & Music Echo and Record Mirror, all of which I read from cover to cover. So yes, I was following the news, such as it was. As for knowing much about the Boys from these papers, there were articles and later interviews but none of the stuff I was interested in, such as who played or sang what on individual songs. (Maybe things were different if you lived on the West Coast.) For years (decades!) I laboured under the illusion that it was Mike playing the solo in "IKTAA" on baritone sax! I knew he played sax but had no idea just how limited his playing was (no problem with that, of course). You have to realize that the Boys were always on my radar as a band that was constantly springing new surprises but I only really delved deep into their music from 2002 onwards after reading the BW "autobiography", learning about Sunflower (which I'd never heard of before then), buying the relevant twofer and being floored (and sold hook, line and sinker) by "All I Wanna Do".
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