when was the first time you noticed or listened to the beach boys?

[Dove Nested Towers]

I first remember listening intently to "Don't Worry Baby" on the jukebox at Silver Ball Gardens pinball arcade here in Berkeley in about 1975, not knowing it was the Beach Boys, just the most heavenly sounding music I had ever heard. Every time it played I just sat or stood still wherever I was and soaked it in. Then remember hearing "Surfer Girl" in a
Kay-Bee toy store at the Glendale Galleria with my grandfather and really digging it. Asked for Endless Summer (on cassette) for Christmas that year and wore it out (literally wore off all the writing on it, along with "The Essential Jimi Hendrix"). Later read about Pet Sounds and the Smile enigma in the Rolling Stone Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll
while using it as a textbook for a "Rock & Roll History" college class (community, of course) and was completely hooked. The teacher wanted us to pay special attention to the changes and production on "When I Grow Up". Never forget seeking out old vinyl "Dance Dance Dance" (Today) and "20/20" and the epiphanies they afforded (early 80s). Good memories.

[Ganz Allein]

I first remember listening intently to "Don't Worry Baby" on the jukebox at Silver Ball Gardens pinball arcade here in Berkeley in about 1975, not knowing it was the Beach Boys, just the most heavenly sounding music I had ever heard. Every time it played I just sat or stood still wherever I was and soaked it in. Then remember hearing "Surfer Girl" in a
Kay-Bee toy store at the Glendale Galleria with my grandfather and really digging it. Asked for Endless Summer (on cassette) for Christmas that year and wore it out (literally wore off all the writing on it, along with "The Essential Jimi Hendrix"). Later read about Pet Sounds and the Smile enigma in the Rolling Stone Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll
while using it as a textbook for a "Rock & Roll History" college class (community, of course) and was completely hooked. The teacher wanted us to pay special attention to the changes and production on "When I Grow Up". Never forget seeking out old vinyl "Dance Dance Dance" (Today) and "20/20" and the epiphanies they afforded (early 80s). Good memories.

The first BB album reviews I read were in Dave Marsh's Rolling Stone Record Guide in the '80s (very different from RS's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll). Marsh generally liked the pre Pet Sounds period (maybe because of the Spector influence), but he pretty much downgraded or downright trashed everything after the mid '60s (e.g., giving PS three stars, 15BO one star and LY three stars).  Unfortunately I let his writing influence my thinking the first time I bought LY - a big reason I didn't give it much of a chance back then.  After the '80s I pretty much forgot about the guide until last year when I pulled it out and thumbed through it. I guess I didn't realize it back when I was a teenager, but when I read the guide again, I noticed that if Marsh didn't like a band or its albums, he would really hate on them, sometimes even writing personally insulting things about them. I threw the book away.