The Smiley Smile Message Board

I am looking for a live Version of Going To the  Beach from 1980 with Dennis Playing the Drums  :drumroll :drumroll :drumroll :drumroll

Good luck with that.

Does not exist.  The song was never played live until Mike and his guys started playing it in 2013.

...and there's no version with Dennis playing on it.

Yikes! I read that as 1990, I need to get some sleep.

Dennis didn't even play on the studio version of the song in 1980.

...but he tried (half-heartedly, no doubt). :)

Now it's getting interesting.

Why is that, Micha?

I thought there was a story behind c-mans short statement that I didn't know yet, Dennis trying to play the part but give up or refuse, and I expected it to follow, which it didn't.

Is there a story, Craig?

Just how sick of playing new surf/beach topic-related songs must Dennis have been in 1980?
This is the guy who created POB just 3 years prior.

How sick of playing Mike Love written songs must Dennis have been after pretty much sitting out MIU and literally having to save the L.A. Light album?

One must really wonder what would have happened to the band politics if the LA Light Album had been a success, because artistically (sans a couple of exceptions) it's pretty rad.  

I wonder if at any point in the band's history, there was ever serious talk in the band about the band never recording a new happy old-fashioned beach or surf-related song again. The lack of surf-related songs between "Don't Back Down" all the way to "Still Surfin'" (unless I'm forgetting any) has to tell me that there was a conscious effort to specifically avoid the surf topic, at least.

If "Do It Again" had been released with the original "Surf Again" lyric, I think it would have flopped.

One could count Kona Coast: "I wanna go surfing where I dig it the most, in Hawaii", and maybe "California Calling".

I've always counted "Do It Again" as a surf song. If there's any doubt, just look at the video the band made to accompany it.

Story goes the track was cut at Al's place in Big Sur, with Scott Matthews on drums, and then overdubs were added back in L.A. at Rumbo. Dennis showed up for the Rumbo session, and was persuaded to give it a go on the drums. He reportedly "made some noise" but was ultimately sent home for being "too Dennis".

Of course you can see a brief part of the session of "Goin' To The Beach" with Mike Love talking about it on "The Making of Keepin' The Summer Alive" documentary, narrated by Ben Fong-Torres.

I don't blame him.

Interesting stuff, never knew that!

;D