Reaching The Higher Echelon of Beach Boy Fandom

[Shady]

The BB's photo thread 

[sockittome]

As a kid, I was what you might call a prodigy.  I had this ambition to be a rock reporter.  My older sister had a falling out with my mother and she decided to move out of the house.  As she said her goodbyes, she pulled me aside and whispered, "Look under your bed.  It will change your life!"  The first thing I saw upon opening the duffel bag under my bed was the Pet Sounds lp.       

[Niko]

 

Thanks for that one. It's the true, personal stories that are the best

[Bicyclerider]

It really started when I purchased Pet sounds in a London record store August 1966, along with revolver and Absolutely Free.  Then came GV and the long wait for smile/smiley - a wait not completed until 2011!

[c-man]

As a kid, I was what you might call a prodigy.  I had this ambition to be a rock reporter.  My older sister had a falling out with my mother and she decided to move out of the house.  As she said her goodbyes, she pulled me aside and whispered, "Look under your bed.  It will change your life!"  The first thing I saw upon opening the duffel bag under my bed was the Pet Sounds lp.       

Thanks, Cameron.

[runnersdialzero]

the day i typed "mike love nude photos" into google image search

[Alan Smith]

As a kid, I was what you might call a prodigy.  I had this ambition to be a rock reporter.  My older sister had a falling out with my mother and she decided to move out of the house.  As she said her goodbyes, she pulled me aside and whispered, "Look under your bed.  It will change your life!"  The first thing I saw upon opening the duffel bag under my bed was the Pet Sounds lp.       

[Niko]

the day i typed "mike love nude photos" into google image search

Then you found this:

[Vegetable Man]

I guess for me it all started a few years ago. I was walking through one of the many Half Price Book stores that are in my area when I came across a copy of "Holland" on vinyl. The cover looked very un-Beach Boys like, and that intrigued me. I looked over it for a moment and seeing no recognizable hits, I put it back and walked away. However, I couldn't get the record out of my head. I ended up looking it up on the web, and after hearing "Sail on Sailor" and the "Mt. Vernon and Fairway" EP, I decided to delve deeper into their catalouge. After "Holland" came "Smiley Smile" and after that "20/20". After I heard that record, I never looked back.

[donald]

"Surfin' USA" being played incessantly on the radio in 1963.

same here..

Close.  Fun, Fun, Fun, being played on the radio and being one of the first singles I purchased.  My dad let me play the new 45 on his nice new console stereo.  I had never heard such a sound.  I realized they were still a sonic marvel when I heard I Can Hear Music on the radio for the first time.  This was probably the last 45 I bought.  Then Holland, SOS, and American Graffitti.  Then 40 years of listening to the stuff I missed the first time around.

[bluesno1fann]

What got me into the BB's was Pet Sounds and Smile. But it was Dennis Wilson's music that got me here!

Literally! I was searching up about WIBNTLA back when it was unreleased, and I came across this forum. Then I just kept coming back again and again until I decided to join up

[Blue2013]

I got through here through Pet Sounds, then Smiley Smile, then Wild Honey, then  Today.

[SMiLE Brian]

Path of a true fan!

[Blue2013]

Path of a true fan!

Thanks!   
It was actually Smiley Smile that made me want to delve into the rest of their catalogue. I still think Pet Sounds is the better album, but Smiley Smile made it clear to me that these guys had more than just one great album (which is what you normally hear outside Beach Boys fandom)

I should add that this all started  around the first half of 2013, so I missed the reunion hype    and that after Today I discovered Love You - which caught my interest as I read that the album was very synth-centric and bizarre.

I don't know how  anyone else feels about this -  Love You side 1 is the best side in the entire Beach Boys catalogue. It's a shame side 2 wasn't as consistent, then it would be even better than Pet Sounds.

[shelter]

I used to argue with a friend about what the best band of all time was. He thought it was The Beach Boys, I thought it was The Beatles. He told me that the old hits that I knew weren't entirely representative and that I should check out the Sunflower album. I did, and I absolutely loved it from the first time I heard it. A couple of weeks later I had to tell my friend that he'd been right. I've been a huge fan ever since.

[The Dumb Angel]

I was looking through my parents vinyl collection and came across Pet Sounds. Knowing that it was suppose to be one of the greatest albums of all time, I decided to give it a listen. Sure enough, I absolutely loved it.

Soon after listening to Pet Sounds for the first time, I learned about its legendary, unreleased follow-up, Smile, and too my amazement, The Smile Sessions were going to be released next month. Once I heard it, I was officially hooked to the Beach Boys!  

[Loaf]

The death of Junkstar's Male Ego board brought me to the Smileysmile.net board (and it was the death of John B's Gold Board which led me to Junkstar... been cruising these message boards since 97).

BBC Radio 2, Terry Wogan playing Heroes & Villains in the mid-90s, at a time when my teenage heavy metal head was piqued by the Beatles Anthology, took me to a secondhand record shop and a £2 20 Golden Greats LP. Then it was touring the used record shops of several countries hunting down vinyl copies of jeffs not yet released on CD (i found Carl's 2 solo jeffs on vinyl in Halifax, Nova Scotia).

[Shane]

I've been a member of several Beach Boys boards that have crashed and burned... the old Smile board which morphed into this board, and before that was.... uhhhh... Anne Wallace's site?  I don't remember.  My internet board participation goes back to the late 1990s, that I know.

It all started back in 1996 when I found a vinyl copy of "All Summer Long" at a yard sale.  It thought it was great music right off the bat.  A few months later, I was at another yard sale... in the backyard of some creepy house with some weird dude smoking a cigarette and staring at me the whole time.  In a box of albums I found a beat up mono copy of "Pet Sounds" with no cover.  I took it home, listened, and was not impressed.  After all, it is hard to understand music this complex when it suffers from a poor mastering job to begin with, added to the fact that the record was all scratched up.  I kept listening to it until it finally "clicked" with me. 

Just after Christmas of that year, I got the Pet Sounds boxed set.  The stereo mix blew my mind... "You mean all of THAT OTHER MUSIC is buried underneath what is on the surface of the mono mix?!?!?"