The Smiley Smile Message Board

I was thinking about how the Beach Boys cult followers, such as us on this board have developed over the years. Then I thought about era's and events that may have sparked more of a following over time. I would like to hear from anyone that falls in one of these that I will list or if you had another experience. I am interested in knowing how the cult followers (not just the casual fans of the hits) grew and became a fairly large 'web' (pre internet). Am I making any sense?

My thoughts

1. Following the demise of Smile in 1967. As the BBs declined in popularity (in the US) in 68 and 69, was there a significant group that would discuss Smile and the current albums?

2. 1971 - 1973, Obviously an underground cult began to follow the current Beach Boys at this time. With Surf's Up making its debut, I am sure that Smile discussions picked up significantly. Perhaps, 'What happened to Brian?' discussions as well?

3. 1976, after the success of Endless Summer, followed by the return of Brian Wilson, I am sure that new BB cult followers were created.

4. Endless Summer Quarterly: When did this start its circualtion? Obviously, a significant cult following was already under way by then.

5. The internet. I became a cult follower of the Beach Boys in 1998 at 21 years old. By then the internet was underway. I found a web of cult followers online. My favorite being this board. Most of them are very basic, but some very intellegent questions and conversations happen on this one.

That's right; Al Gore had invented it only a few years earlier.

 
Hmmm. I thought this was an interesting point of discussion. Maybe I am the only one.  :)

Maybe calling it a cult following makes some peeps uncomfortable. I know I don't pray to The Beach Boys or Brian. I have always just been a fan since I was around 5 in 1963. My brother who is 9 years older was a big fan in his early teens and exposed me to their music. From the release of Pet Sounds onward, I was the one who continued listening, and followed their career. It seems that Pet Sounds was the jumping off point for him, though he continued to like the hits and bought the 45's when released.

I just like good music (shrug)

I'm excited about Brian and the Beach Boys' music... also many many other artists I like as well. 

It's a philosophy of mine, I like seeing people be great at something.  I'm the type that LOVES the Yankees because they win a lot.  Some think "Oh, yeah, but they bought all those good players" but I really don't give a sh*t, because everybody that plays for them is great, and I love watching people be great. 

Similarly, I love the Beach Boys because in my humbe opinion, they were the best, absolute best harmony ever recorded.  The Temptations couldn't see the Beach Boys on their best day.  The Beatles weren't even in the same league.  The Beach Boys CASUALLY sounded better than anybody ever recorded, at least in a harmony sense, even with most of the records full of missed notes and even the wrong words often being thrown into the mix.  They STILL sounded better than anybody, because it was completely natural to them, flaws and all they were the greatest ever.  The Four Seasons looked like amateurs, even though they were much more musically educated than the Beach Boys. 

So, to me, it's a philosophy thing.  I just like seeing people be their best. 

"Damn it feels good to see People up on it!" - Biz Markee

I suppose to define what I mean. CULT FOLLOWER: Goes beyond the hits. Loves a lot of deep cuts and is interested in their personal lives and band politics and everything surrounding it. CASUAL FOLLOWER: Enjoys the music, mostly just the hits, and doesn't really care enough to talk about the personalities within or band politics.

I am sure that there is much between. But what I am interested in hearing is how the devout cult follower (or whatever words you want to use) developed. When was it large enough to be its own international movement? When did anyone on this board find other  people who were die hards like them?

Great post, well-voiced.

I liked everything you said, except about being a Yankees fan. I am a Texas Rangers fan so watch your back. :)

The term "Cult" hardly applies to a (once) mainstream band such as the B.B.'s.

13th Floor Elevators, Love, Chocolate Watchband, Ultimate Spinach and other commercially unsuccessful bands seem to fit that category better, but with the emergence of the internet even they are getting to be mainstream. And that's a good thing. Go Giants !!!.

Hm. We do have:

1. The KoKoBoys: the band that gave us Surfin' USA, Help Me Rhonda, California Girls, Do It Again, and, yes, KoKoMo.

2. The Silicium Boys: the band that gave us Wind Chimes, Cabinessence, Wonderful, 'Til I Die, Surf's Up, All This Is That, and Shortenin' Bread.

I would name The Silicium Boys: cult.

The funny part is, if it's cult to listen to all the album cuts and like them... the Beach Boys had 12 year old girls doing that before anybody on this board did.  So they were the original cult following... just listen to ANY early 60's Beach Boys live recording to meet them.  I mean they were much more of a cult than anybody here ever was.  They lit the way for our little wanna be appreciation of the band.  They kissed the posters and cut out the pictures long before we tried to figure out who was running the mixing board back then. 

12 year old girls kissing posters of Mike Love? That's scary stuff Ron.

I forget the exact quote (it was in Stebbins' book on Dennis, I believe) but at once both funny and... too graphic: when Murry was boasting to some promoter or whatever about how the Boys get these 14-year-old girls so fucking wet when they show up and play that they need to tear up the seats when they finish the concert. Clearly there is precedent for some people thinking Mike Love is attractive, anyway; he was married five times too! It can't just be the money and winning personality, you know!

Yeah, I'm part of a Beach Boys cul... OH sh*t! I've said too much!

People thinking Myk Luhv is attractive?????Now there's a CULT for ya. :lol

Before the internet, way before the internet, there was a newsletter put out by the fan club which at one point was called BBFUN (Beach Boys Freaks United).  Very hard core cultlike fans at least as far back as 30 plus years ago.
Music was bought and sold through the personal ads and SMiLE was discussed as if a graduate level course on some obscure bit of important literature.

For a small fee one could subscribe and receive the "magazine" and occasional bonuses such as bumper stickers or badges.  Cool stuff.

This is not a revelation to most posters here but some younger posters may find it interesting.

this was my entry into "cult", though not as big as most here.  i'll jump into the post 1971-recordings when the songs don't sound so bad to me.  which i'm not sure when, but anyway. 

I had a greatest hits album that i listened to when i was like 4-10, then sporadically as i grew older.  I didnt' listen really much at all.  Eventually my friend had bought sounds of summer, and i wanted to hear all those songs again, eventually bought Pet Sounds, and then buy a bunch of other records, then it's like "Hey what's this SMiLE thing, I wanna know about SMiLE" (good call brian), and then BOOM. sucked in.

These are the kinds of things I was asking about. I am too young to remember this.

I came into the cult sort of the opposite from most people: I got into the bootleg Smile dysfunctional stuff first, and then the classic hits.


I think I'm gonna be sick.

Pre-beard mike love was quite a handsome dude.

I got into the Beach Boys in '88 when Brian promoted his new solo album. In '85 a friend of mine turned me onto them, but I was still a devout Santana fan. Then in '89 I bought "Ten years of Harmony" and that summer I saw them live at Wembley Arena in London, my first BB concert. My friend was with me, and he had to tell me who was who. He borrowed a concert program and gave me a little history. It was a magical evening, beach balls floating over the audience, and I thought the cheerleaders idea was great! 

That  is creepy. A "cult" pejorative (negative) refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are "reasonably" considered strange.  There is more that is sort of scary on wikipedia from whence the reference hails. There was a time when the Beach Boys music sort of went "underground" and for me that means going from the AM "mainstream" radio stations to the more "progressive" FM, following SMiLE and Pet Sounds as more "introspective" works.  Surf's Up (not the album)  was introduced in the Spring of 1967 by Leonard Bernstein, and performed as a solo act by Brian Wilson. 

That said, I don't have a good word for what might be interpreted as a "devout" (not in any religious sense) fan.  There is nothing wrong with anyone who find a personal "favorite" and whose work "sings" to them.  It is pretty interesting in another thread about unusual places to find the Beach Boys; that there was a reference PSAT (pre college board) paragraph on SMiLE.  I took the PSAT's when SMiLE came out!  What was considered "underground" and "marginal" is now considered part of the "curriculum" and is a benchmark testing standard device, and that is coming from someone who spent a life in education and teaching. Stuff just comes "full circle."  That SMiLE era marked a time, sadly in the US when the popularity of the music (not for this extreme fan) waned and became more popular and accepted abroad. 

It did come "full circle" back to the US in time and contemporaneous with other social changes in the US.  I followed whatever path they were on "creatively" not just for the concepts explored in the music, but because of the "delivery" - the harmony, looking straight ahead, alongside many other fans, disregarding the critics du jour. 

Just because you are not "mainstream" does not mean that you are "weird."  As long as you can be sort of "reasonable and balanced" a "passion" or "extreme interest" in an art-form or music style, has its place in life, provides a creative outlet, and enriches your life.  And it is great the people can "network" about a "special interest."  They are less isolated in their interest.  You might be the only one on your block to like there music, but there is someone else, perhaps at a great distance who shares the same music passion as you do. 

Look around at people who have little passion in their lives...and be glad you have an interest that pleases you but whatever you do, please don't denigrate your "special interest" by referring to it as a "cult."  I look at all those special needs kids and adults who come to the shows and see how it has enriched those lives who, from outward appearances don't look as if they have a lot going for them in life, especially if they are "very low functioning" but this little "passion" and excitement for the music of the Boys...it is very cool and hardly could be called a cult.  It was probably not the intent of all that songwriting, but has been an unintended and positive result. 

"Passion" - yes; "cult," no way!   8)       

Yes, passion is the perfect word that describes my interest in The Beach Boys and their music. Their music has always been well produced, well written, well arranged, well played and most of all, well sung. Though I like many bands and types of music, it's the Beach Boys who first brought all that together for me. The fact that I can listen to these songs hundreds or thousands of times and not get tired of them, or still find something new when I listen, just boggles my mind sometimes. I just never tire of that vocal blend. No one has come remotely close to capturing it, either. As good as Brian's band is, it is not The Beach Boys.

The Beach Boys are my comfort food. (http://sae.tweek.us/static/images/emoticons/emot-3.gif)

I can't condone the obsessive cult behavior of some fans. I'll put in a good word for their help and guidance tonight while I'm praying to Brian.

One thing I do find "cultish" is spelling Smile with all caps except for a lower-case i, in an attempt to ape the logo. As a graphic designer, that bugs me. It's not a secret handshake, rather it's a fannish affectation, imho.

The word "Cult" can be seen to imply over obsessive implications when it's being used to describe the collective fans of a certain group.  Too geeky. Just sick with the term fans. It's a moot point anyway, because the time is at hand when all the Beach Boy cult members throughout the land will be swept away by the new uprising of "THE CULT OF WISHBONE ASH". The revolution starts here.

How dare you blaspheme against the Church of Brian!!! Anyone who doesn't spell SMiLE with a lower-case i and the rest in CAPS will, in the afterlife, spend eternity being forced to listen to Summer in Paradise and Wishbone Ash one after another nonstop!!!!

Sometimes stuff like that irks me, but I don't think anything's wrong with that because it's not an attempt to ape the logo, it very well DOES ape the logo.  So since it works so good, I always thought it was pretty cool.  SMiLE!

The lower case i also looks childish; which I feel helps capture Brian's persona.  So ultimately, writing it "Smile" brings up an image of what the word conveys, but writing it "SMiLE" brings up an image of what the word conveys, apes the beautiful album cover, and helps capture the essense of the chief creator behind the album's brilliance. 

Nah, it looks like an acronym to me, like Seven Minutes in Limbo Extended.  :lol

Maybe that was Brian's acronym. You are a genius to figure that out. ;)

Very well put.   And I would add that the harnony is like a soft aural pillow.  When life gets a little sharp, jagged, out of focus, listen to ATIT or DWB.........like taking a time out ride on a cloud.

Yeah, but your vote doesn't count because you've already admitted you're a weirdo about that stuff since you're an interior decorator.  Or a webpage designer or something like that.  Either way, you're weird. 

Good topic, Magic T R!

There are obviously negative connotations to the word cult, but the following definitions surely apply

Obsessive, especially faddish, devotion to or veneration for a person, principle, or thing.

An exclusive group of persons sharing an esoteric, usually artistic or intellectual interest

Cult also refers to religious devotion and this particularly interests me. I think the obsession with the Beach Boys and Brian Wilson we see on this board sometimes shares similarities with religion. For instance, the way we all ostensibly like the same thing, yet we spilt ourselves off into sub groups. Take Smile for example: Pre BWPS there were a lot of fans who loved the Smile material and could agree on many aspects of it. Then BWPS came along, and a division occurred within that same group - those that loved BWPS and those that felt it somehow betrayed the original sessions and spirit of the project. So a group that shared largely the same specialist interest, suddenly became divided to the point that strong arguments could develop. In religion there is also a history of groups of followers adapting their shared beliefs and developing offshoot variations of the religion. Must be something to do with human nature that something we love can ironically become something we fight over. Fortunately, unlike religion that can often result in bloodshed, our differences of opinion over the BB will never result in physical violence. Not yet anyway!

 

As I mentioned a few years ago on this board, I consider the practice of writing Smile as SMiLE to be absolutely bizarre.  Following the logic of writing Smile as SMiLE, Surfin' Safari must be written only in lowercase as surfin' safari, while Surfin' USA and most other releases must be written in caps as SURFIN' USA.  When referring to Shut Down Volume 2, not only must the album title be in all caps, but The Beach Boys must be referred to as the beach boys, in all lowercase, and when referring to Surfer Girl, both the album title and band name must be in caps and italics, etc, etc. 

But, getting back to Magic Transistor Radio's original question, it is a very good one.  Like all popular bands in the 60's there was an official Beach Boys Fan Club, but I really don't know much about it, and I think it existed mostly for girls who liked the music and were into the guys in the band.  It would be interesting to know if they published a newsletter, and, if so, what info it contained. 

In 1974, while listening to KRTH FM in LA, they had a Beach Boys Day and mentioned "Beach Boys Freaks United".  At the time I considered joining but then decided I was too cool to be a member of a 'fan club'.  A few years later I realized that the Beach Boys Freaks United newsletter was a great source of info on my favorite band, so I joined.  And, the term 'freaks', while popular at the time, should help to give you a clue that at that time huge fans of the BBs could be considered cultish to an extent.  But, as time passed and the term 'freaks' seemed to refer more to strange people or aging hippies, the club shortened it's name to BBFUN, and now they are simply Beach Boys Fan Club. 

In the pre-internet days, there were a number of fanzines, including Pet Sounds, first published Feb 77, Add Some Music, first published Dec 78, and Endless Summer Quarterly, first published Aug 87.  ESQ is still going strong, and anyone who is seriously interested in the BBs and BW should definitely be a subscriber. 

 :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol that is why I so love this place...

Ok, so maybe 'cult' was not a good word to use. There are many BB fans that would have no interest in this board. They like the hits and that's about it. But there came a time in history when BB 'Geeks', 'Die hards', 'deep cut fans', 'people who want to know what date something was recorded' kinds of fans began to find each other and grow.

Yes. I am about ten feet at the moment, and growing.

I've found, as I've got older and my work more demanding, and my daughter arrived, that I've grown much less obsessive about the what and whens, and much more interested in the whys and wherefores. I no longer have the time to spend obsessively searching websites and literature for every fact and figure, but love the chance tom relax with a well-written article (say in Uncut or Mojo, ESQ or Beach Boys Britain's newsletter) that feeds me a ton of information that puts in all in context, sets the scene and explains more of the setting it all took palce..

I guess I've gone from statistics to aethestics.

Am I really getting old?

Those people in your second "category" might be construed as budding "historians" looking to "reconstruct" the details of the voyage. 

My teenage gut told me (during those waning days of popularity in the late 60's in the US) that one fine day - that this would happen because it was "bigger than us" and would rightly take its place in history, both social and musical.  The can "reconstruct" hopefully and correctly the work. As long as they are not "revisionist" and try to "re-write" with their own spin, this amazing saga... ;) 

filledeplage wrote:


I will try with all my might to defend and keep upright, and tell, wherever I can, the true story of Wishbone Ash.

What about "The Beach Boys Community?" Does that phrase convey our sense of passion for the BB's without making us sound like a bunch of sad lonely anoraks into the bargin?

Great, I could do with that very well.

I hearby declare The Heartical Don to be the residing President of "The Wishbone Ash Community". Remember with great privilege comes also great responsibility.

Maybe more mature-stats never get stale-just boring and somewhat cold. The stats will always be there, but the individual opinions and deep feelings toward the band can be more interesting.

I am like that. I don't really care about session dates, types of instruments used, most musicians used, etc. Although I appreciate AGD and others that gather that info. And I know there are people that are really into that. Things that I find interesting are band politics, personalities, and the relationships between the guys, and their band philosophies. Which is also very geeky in a different way.

Then there are historians that have their own agendas. You have the David Leaf types that believe that Brian is God and all other BB are the Devil. Then their are the Mike Love defenders. Then there are those such as Jon Stebbons that defend Dennis against the popular views that he is just a talentless clubber. And I am sure that there are some others. After reading The Real Beach Boy, I thought that Jon was a bit one sided, but after reading The Lost Beach Boy, I feel that he has a very fair view.

Blah! Blah! Off topic.