The Smiley Smile Message Board

It was hearing Smile that got me here. I though it was the most interesting music I had ever heard, and after seeing a C50 show, I was completely hooked on BB music. My headphones function like an IV line, constantly letting it stream into my body.

Smile brought me here. What brought YOU here?

The linguistic artistry of Phil Cohen.

Oh, and some funny little tunes done by one Brian Wilson, although there's this cousin of his who's been worming his way into Wilson's work so that he'll be seen as the true and only creator of said work by 2020 or so.

I hope this helps.

Good Vibes.

The MUSIC, man!

Also, I was searching the net for some technical details (HOW did they get that snare sound on Do It Again?) and found my way to Stephen Desper Thread. Never looked back, baby!

My older sisters record collection, back in the 70s. You know how it is, younger brothers nosing around the elder siblings bedroom... and BINGO, there it was. An EMI reissue of the All Summer Long album  :o

Endless Summer in 1974-75 hooked me. The Brian Is Back campaign that followed sealed the deal.

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

I became a Beach Boys fan in childhood, when my friend and I would sneak her older brother's singles out and play them on a portable record player. One of my first album purchases was Endless Summer, so I could have all those singles for myself. As a young adult, I bought a Mustang convertible. The first cassette album I played with the top down was a Beach Boys greatest hits comp. Eventually I moved on to Pet Sounds, Smile and the later material,  but I've never lost my love of those early sunshine hits.

I followed the band through the press over the years... Dennis' death, the Landy issue, Carl's death and the laundry list of lawsuits. I saw the Mike and Bruce show several times and followed Brian's solo career online. The announcement of the reunion tour brought me to the online fandom, though. I had to know everything about it.

my mom named me after Brian, though she thought Al was cuter she just hated the name Al,  and this was in 1974! Anyway,since about 1982  when i first heard endless summer i was totally hooked. damn,  that's been over thirty years!

Even despite the fact he was registered later? Anyway, it was Sunflower that got me finally hooked by The Beach Boys: 1st time with the help of Add Some Music, 2nd - At My Window & 3rd - Cool Cool Water, 3 of the most beautiful things I heard by anyone. As for the board, I found it accidentally via one site dedicated to The Beatles; somebody shared the link to one of the Smile Sessions threads, if I recall rightly.

same here..

I had heard that they put out a lot more sophisticated music than what we experience via cultural osmosis, but I was too cheap to ever buy any CDs to actually listen for myself.  Finally after reading about Pet Sounds and SMiLE for years, and signing up for a Spotify account I dug in.  I wish I had started years ago.

Bought POB one night on a friend's advice and watched Beautiful Dreamer while I waited for it to download. I had already heard Pet Sounds, Smiley/ Wild Honey twofer, Sunflower/Surf's Up and BWPS, but hadn't really taken the plunge. POB made my heart race, and I quickly purchased all the Dennis-heavy late 60s and 70s stuff, which led me to this forum and soon I had the entire catalogue (except SIP). Getting TSS and TWGMTR in the midst of my obsession was just good timing, but it has kept me excited.

Also, it's impossible that you haven't been told you look like a Wilson brother  ;D

It's about the same with yours truly. I have vague recollections of hearing 'California' (from Holland) on the radio, and being smitten with it. Not that much later I got some notion of their earlier hits, and then Endless Summer appeared, followed by Spirit Of America. Then the voyage of discovery began, by listening and reading. I found Pet Sounds, Smiley Smile, and Van Dyke Parks' Song Cycle within a relatively short time. 15 Big Ones, Love You were highlights too.

My second phase, sort of being re-baptised, started when I found the second SMiLE, um, 'version' on LP, in Amsterdam, 1988 or so, and a year later came the Japanese, um, 'version', on CD. Another year, another obsession, so to speak.

Disclaimer: I don't recommend listening to so-called 'unofficial recordings'. They are vile and the work of the devil, as we all know.

More than that - Mr. Mayo was compared to all the family members of the BBs (including Mike, yes). Or sth. to the effect. As for me, he leans toward Carl.

I liked the BBs before, but what really hooked me up was reading Brians fake "autobiography" in 1996, which, if you don't know anything about the BBs, is a fascinating read, at least the German translation. After that I bought all the records, even those that I don't like. Since then I learned about the flaws of the "autobiography", but I'm still fond of that reading experience.

The "Fun Fun Fun/Why Do Fools Fall In Love" 45 being played incessantly by my older brother on the family record player in early 1964.

Smile. I was researching Smile fan mixes and guess what came up in google search.

Ah I'll never forget the day in 1969 that big Sis came home on holiday break from college.

She HAD a quite nice collection of records, magazines and posters etc. There wasnt much left and she hit the probverbial ceiling.

I learned new swear words that day!

Do you understand he's joking?

For me it was Help Me Rhonda being used in a Short Circuit film to getting 20 Golden Greats on tape and being blown away by H&V, God Only Knows, Don't Worry Baby, Good Vibrations. 

Then the Smiley Smile/Wild Honey 2fer was my first CD purchase (1992 I think), Pet Sounds after that and the rest is history!

WCBM, Endless Summer, and Byron Preiss got the ball rolling.  Pet Sounds, Smile, and In Concert made me into an obsessive.  The Good Vibrations boxed set freed me from the curse of Love You.  The Pet Sounds Sessions and (believe it or not) Imagination finally sealed the deal for life!

Living next door to the Wilson's in Hawthorne back in 1960 or 1961 brought me here. Kept hearing them rehearse endlessly in the garage. They gave me a copy of the Candix single and I really enjoyed it. Been a fan ever since.

Tell us all about it, please.

The Internet brought me here.

Mike Love brought me here.

I caught the bus with Al and we both arrived here at the same time ...

Pet Sounds and SMiLE in the early 2000's.

The title of this thread sounds like a secret Beach Boys' Ponzi scheme.

It was definitely a gradual process for me. Technically I suppose "Kokomo" being a big hit when I was a very small child was probably my first memory of the Beach Boys, but I didn't consciously know that it was "them" singing that song until I was investigating their discography in high school. I remember as a kid thinking it was an "inappropriate" song with this guy sounding all seductive and the "ooh baby, pretty mama" lyrics being something that I shouldn't let my parents hear me listening to. Funny.

Growing up in the 90s and listening to oldies radio, "Good Vibrations," "Sloop John B," "God Only Knows," and "Don't Worry Baby" were among my favorite songs but like many a casual listener I mistakenly attributed Jan and Dean songs and probably some Four Seasons to the Beach Boys. At a county fair in the summer of 1996 I remember listening to the Beach Boys play "Surfin USA" from outside the pavilion and definitely getting a jolt of excitement about it. Sadly, this would be the closest I ever came to seeing the band perform with Carl. As I became more of a serious music fan I knew that Brian was the "crazy reclusive genius" and that he was still alive but wasn't a part of the "Beach Boys" that still toured, so when he was the musical guest on Conan O'Brien in the summer of 2000 I made it a point to watch his set. He did "Our Prayer/ Heroes and Villains" and "Sloop John B" and I was totally floored. Foskett and Darian also jumped out at me as what seemed like his right hand men. From here my interest was piqued and I became more familiar with the story of the band and identifying which of the hits were their songs, but it wasn't until "Sounds of Summer" was released in 2003 and ABC re-broadcast the "American Family" movie that I was firmly hooked. I spent that summer getting their CDs from the library, becoming intimately familiar with "Pet Sounds" and especially being floored by the "Sunflower / Surf's Up" two-fer. Reading Steven Gaines' "Heroes and Villains" effectively sealed the deal and I began acquiring their whole discography and seeking all of the available literature. I made mixtapes for my girlfriend full of the Friends-Holland era and she fell madly in love with Dennis, so from there it was just one excitement after another as we went to some Mike and Bruce shows together, listened to BWPS the day it came out and went to see Brian live in Ann Arbor on the SMiLE tour. I kept getting further and further into fandom, and while my girlfriend and I eventually split up we remain good friends and went to the C50 together. Earlier this year I made the pilgrimage to the landmark in Hawthorne. So, yeah... somewhere in there. 8)

So many people hate on "Kokomo," but it's a Beach Boys' gateway drug for many of the younger fans. It sometimes takes Pied Piper Mike Love to lead to the ocean of Brian Wilson.

Got Pet Sounds at the bootfair. Later 'Got' Pet Sounds. I wasn't actually interested in exploring further, the album itself was enough for me, but Best Of The Beach Boys [UK LP] was good enough for me.  Looking back, I joined here simply to embrace the release of the SMiLE sessions, but what spurred me previously to say that I wanted the SMiLE box and to actually class myself as obsessive? I'm not sure. It just gradually occurred, I had been picking up Beach Boys LPs from £1 boxes for a while out of minor interest.

Whatever happened, it was in 2011, I know that. The fact I was Slaughtering back then shows I must have liked them enough. [That sounds really odd out of context].

I don't think I'm part of the upper echelon of Beach Boy fans, but I think the moment I realized that I was inevitably going to become an obsessive, completionist fan was when I was listening to Smiley Smile for the first time, in 2003 or so.  The Smiley Smile/Wild Honey two-fer was only the second CD by them that I had bought (after Pet Sounds), and I had gotten it because I wanted "Good Vibrations" and assumed that other songs from the same era would be better than what I would get on a greatest hits album, as I considered surfing and car songs too frivolous for my tastes at the time.  Suffice to say, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.  But hearing "whispering winds send my wind chimes a-tingling" on the fade of "Wind Chimes" totally won me over, and I quickly got my hands on anything by the band I could find after that.

umm Bruce Johnston's stage presence and 'always' kind presence  >:D

nah....

first time I heard and saw the beach boys, was on a video copy off an uncle...

it was the dick clark 'best of bandstand vol 1 & 2...

and of all songs they picked to mime to on that show, they picked 'don't worry baby'....

with an awesome Brian Wilson in the middle singing it........  one orgasmic experience  :hat

Rb

I'm not ashamed to say that Sounds of Summer brought me here. I found it at a Half Price Books on clearance and bought it for the heck of it. Best decision I ever made. That comp opened up a whole new world for me, and really made me want to explore more of them (Second best decision I ever made)

When my parents got a CD player in 1986 I was given a Bush portable record player and a pile of records.

In between the K-tel and Top of the Pops compilations was a mint copy of the 1966 Best of The Beach Boys, I played that album all through the six weeks holiday that summer. Also out that summer was the film Flight of the Navigator, fond memories of singing along to I Get Around in the cinema.

Still have both player and record, had the player refurbished but the vinyl has seen better times!

Sort of fell into here when I got the Internet, more a lurker than a regular poster.

Barbara Ann!!!  When I was a kid in the 80s in the UK there was an advert for Caledonia Airways and I loved the song California Girls, except with different lyrics.  Then the Vauxhall Nova advert with sheep singing Barbara Ann!  Then one day I was in the library to get computer games and look for tapes (the usual chart stuff) when I noticed 20 Golden Greats.  I thought "oh, the Beach Boys, they did those songs from the adverts and Wipe Out!"  Took it home and listened to it while playing the Commodore 64.  I was hooked and life was never the same for me after that!  I then started listening obsessively and trying to track down all their music.  That was about '87/'88.

As a kid growing up, I listened to my dads records a lot.  His holy trinity of rock was The Beatles, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons and to a lesser extent The Beach Boys (He had endless summer and a few other hits comps).  I liked the Beach Boys as a pre-teen but not as much as The Fabs or Valli and crew.  That changed in the summer of 1985 when I bought the Getcha Back / Male Ego 45 with my own money after hearing it on the radio a few times (I was 11).  I loved it.  I started getting the albums on cassette.  On May 2, 1987 I went to my first Beach Boys concert.  Seeing the bearded dude sing God Only Knows was THE moment for me.  I never REALLY appreciated that song (I mostly loved the up tempo hits) until then.  From there, there was no saving me.  Very quickly got the back catalogue on cassette.  Bought BW88 and Kokomo the week it came out.  Started trading bootleg cassettes, and heard some unreleased smile stuff in lo-fi quality in 1989.  Later, bought the Good Vibes box the day it came out at Costco and couldn't function for a week as disc two just kept getting played over and over and over.  Didn't get a home computer until the mid nineties but eventually stumbled on a short promo clip of Your Imagination on line a few months before the album camre out.  Started hanging out on the cabinessence website and then all other Bb/BW sites.  Have been a ridiculous completist ever since.  Hundreds and hundreds of BB/BW cds, and 41 concerts later - here I am.  I have been very fortunate to have met Brian, Mike, Al, Bruce and Dave multiple times.  The music of the Beach Boys is my sanctuary.  It has brought me immeasurable joy over the years. 

Nick Kent's NME 30,000 word triple-decker in the summer of 1975 entitled "The Last beach Movie: A Story Of Brian Wilson 1942-". Hooked, even though I later found out a lot was cribbed from the Fusion article by Vosse. What a long, strange trip it's been.

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I'm just here because I wanted a place that I could talk about the Beach Boys with people who like to talk about the Beach Boys lol.  (I've had many one-sided conversations where I spew a bunch of thoughts, feelings, and factoids, and I end up being quite the bore!)

Hearing, and paying close attention to, I Get Around transformed me into a Beach Boys obsessive in 1988. I spent that year's summer reading, and being fascinated by, Steve Gaines' book.

Ditto me, hence the screen name.

Listening to Pet Sounds. It absolutely blew my mind. I started researching the album, finding out all about the band, then somehow ended up on Smiley Smile. Lurked for a few months, then finally had a question to ask and signed up.

It's great to be around so many knowledgeable people, insiders, honored guests, people who make mixes, people with stories from the old days, etc etc.

I think The Beach Boys are that greatest thing that ever happened to music: they're the perfect combination of vocals, instruments, and melody. It's nice to be able to talk to people who feel the same way.

The fact that people like Stephen Desper and Scott Totten are around really is amazing

I hope Stephen knows how much we appreciate his presence on this board. Amazing that he takes the time to create videos that delve into the recording/mixing process. I really think we are the most blessed music forum on the internet.

I came here by mistake actually. I was really in fact browsing for gay erotica when I googled boys and beach and somehow wound up here. Since then I have really come to appreciate The Bee Gees Beach Boys especially the guy who wore a sailor hat with a bow tie on a televised awards ceremony. That really takes guts.

For me, it all happened because of Davy Jones.  On 29th February 2012, the day his death was announced, I looked at some YouTube footage of him in tribute.  Then it occurred to me I’d never seen any film of the Beach Boys, despite being a mild fan for years. So I clicked on a few links, clicked ever more obsessively on a few more and bam, like falling down a well, I became all at once a total BB addict. I got the albums (oh my God – Smiley Smile!  Sunflower! Today!! Love You!), was knocked sideways by the RHS Smile performance, and have barely listened to anything else since, as I try to get a lifetime’s worth of BB music into my blood and bones. Every morning I wake up with a different song in my head.  I know I hit an insanely lucky year to become a hardcore fan and I got to see them at Wembley. Discovered Smiley Smile on some Google search and have visited it as a guest every day since (this is my first post). Thanks for all the wisdom and expert knowledge that comes flowing out - it’s been a privilege to cut in on your thoughts and experiences.

First heard the BBs as a 6 year old circa 1991/92 via my mom's copy of Endless Summer. Didn't become fan uber-fan until 2005, though.

Hot damn - I never knew Brian played Wisley, and it's only just a hoot an' a holler up the road from me.  ;D

Oops..RFH.. love the thought of Brian among the roses though.

The BB's photo thread  :lol

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.       

 :lol

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

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!

Thanks, Cameron.

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

:lol

Then you found this:
(http://i.imgur.com/fWM2x0w.png)

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.

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.

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

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

Path of a true fan! 8)

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.

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.

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!  :)

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).

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?!?!?"