The Smiley Smile Message Board

Sorry if this has been asked before, But which moment or song got you hooked onto the Beach Boys music?
For me it was an EMI pressed greatest hits album back in the 80's hearing Surfin' USA for the first time via headphones then reading something about how the track Heroes & Villians was formed from fragments of an unfinished album called Smile which was according to the notes within this greatest hits album driven the Producer Brian Wilson to a breakdown...Or something like that, That made a big impact on me as a young kid I wanted to hear this strange sounding music, which I did 10 years later, If anyone knows the album I'm writing about and if i remember the notes right too, It would be good to know cheers.

Firstly from reading US Hot Rod comics in 1980 when I was 14, and I became thrilled by the "California Scene". I had also recently heard (in the UK) Lady Lynda and Sumahama a lot on the radio. Magical. Then my sister married a guy who was a surfer in Tynemouth near here. He had loads of early BBs and Jan and Dean albums. Playing those my life changed forever. 30 years later and I want more and more. Obsessive!!!

I think we'er all obsessive mate but in a good way ;D
I also remember going to Camden Market every Saturday back in the late 90's to buy rare records, the first time I actually brought one I've really wanted made me smile!!

My best friend making me - no wait, almost forcing me  :) - to sit down with him and watch his VHS copy of Endless Harmony. That changed my whole view of what the group was about. Up untill then I hadn't 'understood' them - and I distinctly remember the live footage of Cool Cool Water blowing my mind!

My brother bringing home the "Fun, Fun, Fun/Why Do Fools Fall In Love" 45 single. While he wore out WDFFIL, I in turn wore out FFF. That was a much cooler song to a fun loving 6 year old. From then on I've been hooked some 47 years later.

Hearing the song "Good Vibrations" track only blow my mind.
The Sessions for God Only Knows amazing made me realize how good Brian and the other musicians were, and how hard the work was !!!.
Hearing Pet Sounds box set in stereo for the first time was like coal being transformed into diamonds.

California girls performed by Brian Wilson, live on TV from the Jubilee concert, Buckinham palace, London 2002.

Hearing the last two movements of Surf's Up over the opening credits of An American Band with the footage of the guy surfing really hooked me in a way I've never experienced since..... Just looking at some guy surfing while THAT music played....... Man!

Jeesh, I wish my friends were more open-minded like you!
_____

I had bought the 20 Good Vibrations compilation and listened to only the surfing songs for years - later I finally gave 'Wouldn't It Be Nice' and 'God Only Knows' a fair listen....I kept listening to 'WIBN' over and over and over again...then I found out it belonged on an album called Pet Sounds, which was supposedly the greatest album ever made....I bought Pet Sounds, loved it, soon found the SmileySmile board, started listening to Love You constantly, and now I'm regarded to as the "guy who likes the Beach Boys" among friends and family.

It's a healthy obsession.  ;D

Listening to Surf's Up (the album) and reading "Back to the Beach" did it for me after I had already bought a copy of Pet Sounds several months before (and loved it, of course). The weird mysteries surrounding the Surf's Up period made me want to dig a lot deeper and I couldn't believe I had missed out on actual pop songs as good and as mesmerizing as 'Til I Die and ADITLOAT.

i used to listen to good vibrations on my dad's oldies compilation like a billion times.  this was probably...93? i was around 6.  so then i had my greatest hits as a kid.  then i stopped listening, then i heard brian wilson's smile and didn't click at first.

i remember the first time i heard heroes and villains was actually the BWPS version, and it's weird but like.  i heard it in like blocks.  like "i've been in this town so long that" then new block "back in the city i was" etc.  it was weird.  like everything in the block was being heard at once. 

anyway.  then the big omg beach R da best everrzz was buying pet sounds. 

About eight years ago I was in a car with my best friends on a beautiful Summer day, when 'I Get Around' came on the radio. Even though we were all in our early twenties and none of us were Beach Boys fans, we spontaneously all started singing and clapping along. That was the moment when I realized that their music was special. I bought a greatest hits CD and for a couple of years, that was enough for me. I checked out 'Pet Sounds', but I didn't really "get it" yet. Then a friend told me to check out 'Sunflower'. I've been an obsessed fan ever since I first heard that album.

i was listening to a talk radio show and they played "Don't Worry Baby" and it was the prettiest song I had ever heard.

that motivated me to get my hands on everything Beach Boys/Solo that i could.

Mine was Jon's WIBN BBC doc. :)

I already had a various artists compilation that included "Do It Again" and "Good Vibrations" but they were about the only tracks I'd skip! Hearing "I Get Around" during a bus tour on a warm day in Queensland really knocked me out. I felt as if there was no going back. Upon returning home I bought a used CD copy of 20 Golden Greats and spent a good deal of the summer reading and re-reading Heroes and Villains by Steven Gaines. 

After watch BB: An American Family, I bought The Greatest Hits Vol. 2 (20 more Good Vibrations)...from then on, all those b-sides and ballads had me hooked. I already knew In My Room, Warmth of the Sun, Don't Worry, Wendy and Little Honda, Kiss Me Baby, Heroes and Villains, and You're So Good To Me...but I knew them as a kid...I was a teen now, age 15, they meant so much more...all my friends listened to crappy new bands and I had the Beach Boys to myself.
Hearing Please Let Me Wonder, Little Girl I Once Knew, Caroline No, Darlin', I Can Hear Music for the first time ever, I instantly fell in love and was HOOKED

Hearing "Surfin' U.S.A." on the radio as a new song in 1963.

Had my close encounter with the release of "Surfer Girl". Haven't looked back since. :old

June, 1985.  Heard "Getcha Back" on the local top 40 station while driving in my car.  Drove right down to the local record store, bought the 85 Album and All Summer Long and was hooked.  BTW, that summer was a great one for new, young BB fans.  Not only did we have the new album, but also the updated Leaf book and An American Band.    

Buying the boxset, it raised more questions than it answered and triggered an obsession

I had grown up hearing BB on the radio, and I guess you could say I more or less took those songs for granted.  The rotation of songs was so heavy in this area I never felt like I needed to go out of my way to buy any of the records.  Back around '80 when the medley came out, my sister and I would sing along to it, but it was more of a novelty to us at the time.

The "special moment" came in the late '80s when I was watching the movie "Good Morning Vietnam" and I heard Warmth of the Sun for the first time.  I HAD to get that movie soundtrack!  That was the last storebought cassette I ever bought, because I paid $10 for the damn thing and I could have gotten the CD on sale for the same price!  Only, I wouldn't have had anything to play it on (yet).  

That soundtrack had a great selection of songs, but I found myself listening to WOTS and I Get Around the most.  I had been hearing I Get Around on oldies radio for years, but now it was starting to really get under my skin.  A short time later, I got my first CD player and as I was building up my CD collection I came across Made in the USA.  That one sealed the deal.  I've been hooked ever since!  

June 1964 hearing Don't Worry Baby for the first time. I never looked back.

6 years old, circa 1991 or '92...heard California Girls on Endless Summer....BBs went on a back burner, though I did watch a BW concert on PBS around '98 or '99 (probably the Imagination show-I could've sworn it was Al Jardine and Glenn Frey with Brian, even though it was actually Bruce and Tim B. Schmidt). Bought Sounds of Summer in '03. Started reading about how great Pet Sounds was, read about BWPS coming out...finally got PS in the fall of '05. LOVED IT! Got into SMiLE, then the 70s stuff, found this site sometime around '05 or '06, and yada yada yada.

Took a chance and bought Pet Sounds at a "going out of business" sale.  Was so blown away that I drove straight back and picked up the Smiley Smile/Wild Honey twofer and listened to it the same evening.  My thinking was "any band that could do THAT and then do THIS has got to be the most interesting band on Earth."

I really wish I had no information on SMiLE/Smiley-Smile before I heard Smiley Smile. I bought Pet Sounds, Summer Love Songs, then I read Carlin's book....then I went out and bought every album - so I had somewhat of an idea about what I was getting into before I even heard any of it!

Have posted this before, but not in so much detail...

I'm bi-polar, but wasn't diagnosed as such until a few years ago. Anyway, in 1995 all anybody knew was that I was clinically depressed. Long story short, I saw a shrink who asked me if I was familiar with Brian Wilson. (Now, at the time I hated the Beach Boys. Of course, all I knew about where the oldies played on the radio. For years all i knew of the Beach Boys was 409, Barbara Ann, Help Me Rhonda, and Good Vibrations, the latter of which I liked). I was 16 at the time, and had just had a relationship end badly, and I did not handle it well. So anywho, my therapist suggested I read Brian's autobiography. Not knowing a lot of it was fiction, I immediately took comfort in that I wasn't the only person who felt like he did, and that the world was sorely in need of Love & Mercy. I could relate to the guy.

My whole refuge at the time was music...it was all I had. I generally couldn't get along with people at the time, so I buried myself in my music collection. Used to go to Blockbuster Music and listen to CDs there. I was tempted to try out to listen to the rest of the BB music, but I really didn't care for the oldies I was familiar with, and they were sold out of Pet Sounds. While going through the bargain bin, I found a tape copy of Brian Wilson for 99 cents. I loved it SO much (Walk the Line, Let It Shine, and Rio Grande being my favorites at the time) that I then went back and bought IJWMFTT-both the vhs and CD One day, I was at a Best Buy and I saw Smiley Smile. I thought it was the same album as Smile, and I was ecstatic as it sounded SO COOL to me in the book. By this point I had also read Timothy White's book, so I knew a little more. Anyway, bought the CD , and was blown away. Ended up buying Wild Honey, then Pet Sounds, then Friends, then 20/20 over the next few months. Then I discovered the internet, and, well...here I am.

As far as the specific moments, besides the ones mentioned for BW 88, what really blew me away oddly enough was the bass & water jug sounds in the SS version of Vegetables, also Fall Breaks. Although SS is no longer my favorite BB album (Friends and 20/20 are), it still ranks up there witrh my favorite albums released by anyone anywhere.

I didn't really know anything about The Beach Boys except that they were some kind of old surf band or something. So when I started reading here and there about how they were one of the greatest bands of all time, I was understandably confused. I looked up a few of their classic songs on YouTube and thought they were alright, if a bit derivative of Chuck Berry. Then I started reading about Smile.

Just the idea of it fascinated me to the core, that this surf rock band created an unreleased epic of an album. So I tracked down Purple Chick's mix, and from the very first moments that I listened to Our Prayer, I was hooked. This was a musical force beyond which I could have even hoped to imagine.

What a great story of your using this music for comfort and to "find your way" - many great composers found ways of channeling life events, etc., into wonderful creativity which has come along like a guardian angel to help lighten another's way.  It is wonderful to have music as a positive place to put things that you just have to "work through" in life and everyone hits "speed bumps" in life. 

It is sort of a creative place for a listener, to carve out a passion for an artform that is easy to relate to.  It always "comes from" someplace...in the composer's psyche, and their "gift" provides that "language of transmission" for the lucky listener...And gives us a place to "breathe" when we think we can't.  Reach first, for Pet Sounds...and everything will be alright...

And as for my "coup de foudre" with this artform...I had heard this music for several years and seen the Boys in Disney movies, and on Ed Sullivan as well as other music variety shows.  It was through a "hand-me-down" transistor radio, at 13, through which I first heard "The Little Girl I Once Knew" which was not even a big hit, but, that song just "hooked me" for life...

They have given us such a large "menu" from rock and roll, to pop/folk/psychedelic, to orchestral and symphonic introspective...

We are indeed, blessed... ;)

I liked the Beach Boys from when I was a little kid, my family had an 8-Track of the "Greatest Hits vol. 2" which I'd play all the time. And they'd be on TV, whatever else, playing their hits. I admit to seeing them at a young age and thinking Bruce was Brian more often than not...

Then some time later I saw a classified ad in a really small, local trade paper from the mountains in Pennsylvania where someone was looking for a copy of "Pet Sounds", before the CD reissue had come out. It intrigued me that someone was that interested in a Beach Boys album where they'd pay for a classified ad to get a copy.

Fast forward a bit and a Philly radio station used to do a late night feature where they'd play entire albums. One of those was Pet Sounds, and I had already known "Wouldn't It Be Nice" but when that INTRO, that glorious intro started up over my Walkman radio I was hypnotized and basically sat still listening to the full album. That was it for me, my future...the bicycle noise in the middle of the vocal explosions in You Still Believe In Me brought tears to my eyes. There is hardly any more beautiful and moving music I've heard that compares to Brian when he did Pet Sounds and Smile.

My parents had a copy of 20 Golden Greats which they played a lot - the one i remember most being Fun Fun Fun, but I Can Hear Music was (and still is) a big favourite. Then, upon scouring my parents cds for stuff at the impressionable age of 14, found Pet Sounds and asked why they didn't listen to it. My mum said it wasn't because it was bad, just because it was miserable  ;D

Anyway, listened to that and was somewhat hooked. Then saw Beautiful Dreamer on the BBC, bought Smile, saw Brian live, and was set for life. My obsession wrt to things like bootlegs might have come from buying the Pet Sounds box....

One thing I've found very interesting about the responses to this thread is the number of relatively recent converts to the wonderful world of The Beach Boys and their music. Surely a sign of the music's enduring qualities ?

Back in 1974 my parents and I went to the Michigan State Fair and saw The Beach Boys. Afterwards, my Dad introduced me to Carl and Dennis. It seemed like my Dad knew then for a long time. Come to find out when my Dad was in San Diego in 1963, he helped promote the band on a radio station. He met Murray, Brian, Dennis, and Carl before the station promoted the local show. Over the years the Wilson family kept in touch with my Dad when he went back to being a DJ over here in Michigan. Dad played for me ENDLESS SUMMER for the first time and I was hooked. He also gave me a history of the band too. Which for a 5 year old kid was pretty cool. The last time we got to see the band was in 1990 something, it was at the Fox theatre in Downtown Detroit. It was nice to see Carl again.  I've passed on the love and appreciation to my 10 year old son who likes them just as much as I do.

Ted

It was about 11 years ago that it happened for me.  A friend of mine loaned me his copy of Pet Sounds and I really liked it.  Then he told me about SMiLE.  He soon gave me a copy of one of the tape comps that was circulating back then and it absolutely blew me away.  It was Heroes and Villains that truly did it.  I'll never forget the astonishment I felt when I heard it the first time.  The energy of the verse, the whistles, the abrupt edits, the Cantina section, the laughter...oh my god.  I thought, "Man, this is it!"  And it was.  It still has that effect on me today.  From there I traced my way backwards through their catalog and then later forward to their post-SMiLE material.  They've been my favorite band ever since.

That is a very cool point, that younger people have discovered this "gold mine" and are embarking on unearthing decades of creative work.  But, I am so pleased to be sitting where I am in life, having had the privilege of watching their music grow and become more profound and creative, while I was a teen and college student, and observe what world and social events influenced some of their music in that continuum.  And I get the same feeling from other fans along the way who had that similar experience.  I hope that fans get to see the 1974 Billy Hinsche video (which he made in college in 1974!)  about being "On the Road with the Beach Boys" so they can discover, the effort involved in "bringing the music to the people." 

And, I really have enjoyed "Postcard from California"which has some newly released music, including the insurmountable vocals of Carl Wilson and the other Beach Boys.  It was a bargain for $5.00 US on an Amazon download.   It is a work that you can almost compare to Pet Sounds, in terms of "chill-out" music, while not losing its "rock and roll" edge.  It is almost a contradiction in terms to suggest that a "rock and roll" album could be calming, but it is and I found that it is something that grows on you, fast.  Many of us tend to be "purists" in our BB tastes, looking for the classic stuff, but this is an absolute gem for the vocals and meticulous arrangements.  I think all the BB's are featured. 

And, Rhonda, which was always an "Al Jardine" song" (now with a rockin' hot BB presentation by John Cowsill live) was reworked with harmonicas, sort of sultry/funky/country/rockabilly piano styled and is a blast! It is definitely not "new wine in old bottles." Or "old wine in new bottles."

San Simeon and And I Always Will (with brilliant piano/orchestral work,) alongside Don't Fight the Sea are fabulous.  Almost every song could be worthy of releasing as a single.  It is rare album that could stand up in that way.  You can listen to sample clips to decide.   ;)   

               

I was a little kid, 5 or 6, when i heard Surfin' Safari and Surfin USA on the radio. My sister brought home the Surfin' USA LP in late '63 and that was on the record player in my house constantly. I used to stare at that cover and think those guys were so damn cool, especially Dennis. Then the Beatles happened and we all got distracted by that for awhile. But soon after my grandparents bought us a bunch of new LP's, Beatles, DC5, Animals etc... And in that pile of records was All Summer Long and Beach Boys Concert. This would be late '64 when I'm not even 7 yet, but I remember it like yesterday. As soon as I heard the All Summer Long LP it began a life long love affair with that record. I still think its the quintessential Beach Boys album. Sure, there are some higher artistic achievements. But in the context of '64, that LP was so California. It spoke to us, it reminded us of how golden our life was. It was gorgeous...but in a cool way, and people forget...The Beach Boys were very hip, but in a particular American way. I loved the Beatles and the Stones, and I started bands and emulated them. But the Beach Boys were like the home team. And they were so freakin' good, that music was magic...and never got old. I never lost my love for their music, but I stopped buying or acquiring their new records after BB's Today. For awhile it was Beatles, Beatles, Beatles, Stones, Stones, Stones. I saw Two Lane Blacktop at the drive-in in '73 and yep, Dennis was still cool as all hell. Then in '74 or '75 In a fit of nostalgia and curiosity I bought Wild Honey, Friends, 20/20, Sunflower, Surf's Up, Carl and the Passions, Holland and In Concert over a several week stretch. It became obvious that no music by anyone was this good. I got back into them heavily...went and saw them in '75 and in  '76 with Brian(twice). Saw the initial airing of the Its OK TV special while vacationing in Newport Beach! In '77 I heard a preview presentation on the radio of the POB LP after a night of hardcore partying. I was in the right frame of mind...and that record just blew me away. I met Dennis the next year while trying to get my band together in L.A. I got my first Smile bootleg cassette a year or two after that. All of these things contributed to getting me "hooked" on the Beach Boys. I feel so lucky to have had their music as a constant thread through my whole life.

I'm with Jon - All Summer Long is the definitive early sixties California lifestyle concept album.

1. Kinda liked Kokomo--it was organic sounding for 1989.
2. Mid-nineties, hearing oldies at work all the time,  remember thinking about certain songs ' that was actually a pretty good song'(songs in question: Sloop John B, Wouldn't It Be Nice, Good Vibrations and God Only Knows.)
3. Used 'Wouldn't It be Nice' in class, after several lessons using it, got to know it and thought 'that's actually a pretty incredible song.'
4. Bought Sounds of Summer--kids liked it so listened to it a lot in the car. Thought: 'There are actuallya  lot of incredible songs on this albums.
5. Found some version of Smile on youtube, was BLOWN AWAY.
6. Bought everything they ever made.
7. Joined Smiley Smile.
8. Spent days googling in attempt to track down unreleased bootleg type stuff.

Like Jon said, for me it was Beatles Beatles Beatles but my brother had a cassette with the Beach Boys greatest hits on it.  To this day, I am not sure what one it was because there was a lot of stuff taped on it.  I couldn't believe how good it was.  I used to press the headphones so tight to my ears enjoying every second of it. Then I read an interview (I think it was a 1990 Guitar Player issue) with Macca and he was talking about Pet Sounds.

Well, I made a trip to the used record shop.  I went to the B section, found Pet Sounds and Endless Summer on CD used.   Now, buying a CD back then for me was a big deal...you chose carefully because 20 bucks or so seemed like a lot of money for me at the time.  I remember I wanted the White Album so bad and it was 40 bucks or so.  I remember staring at it but would not buy it because "it was so expensive."  So, I used to scour the used record stores for deals.  And that was the only time I found used Beach Boys CDs.  I always after that checked the B section and never again found anything used by the Beach Boys.  So in a way, that find was an incredible starting point into the journey of discovery the Beach Boys.

I remember looking at the cover of Pet Sounds.  Brian stood out.  I remember thinking "this guy is in charge, he knows what he is doing." lol This was before I knew hardly anything about the history of the band.  I also remember thinking Brian looked beautiful.  So groomed.  Immaculate.  That hairstyle and the coat.   So I devoured those CDs, read up on the band and never looked back.  Getting the Good Vibrations box set was a BIG deal.  Also, at the time, Leaf's liner notes were a big help to us new fans. 

Brian and the boys have been in my life ever since!

Well the first thing was my parents bought Pet Sounds years before I really listened to it. I always knew of Brian as an eccentric genius, and from an early age loved "California Girls" and "Good Vibrations," but that was it; and I was then and still am someone who loves and appreciates albums. It wasn't until I was 14 almost 15 I got into Pet Sounds over a really terrific summer. It touched me like nothing else and soon I had a VHS of American Band and that was the ticket. Everything else fell into place...and here I am years later still with this love of the music;D

I have always loved the Beach Boys.  My Dad used to play them for me when I was a little kid.  Sometimes he would try to play other bands like CCR, but he said I would start to cry until he put the Beach Boys back on.  Several years ago he let me take records from his collection, so I grabbed the CCR records and some others.  The Beach Boys records were unplayable.  It seems that when I was a little kid if a record skipped, I would just push the needle over.  All The Beach Boys records were scratched up, none of the other ones were.  When I became a teenager I got my first CD, the Today/Summer Days two-fer in 1990.  It was hard to get a CD after that first one that was as good.  I read Brian's autobiography, and collected all the released albums, as well as started going to record shows where boots were available and began buying those too.  I have always been a Beach Boys fan and always will be.

I bloody love this post.

I was channel surfing late one night and stumbled on a documentary about Brian Wilson.  What was being said intrigued me, then they showed the Surf's Up performance from Inside Pop.  The song blew my mind.  I'd known about the Beach Boys before, and loved Good Vibrations, but hearing Surf's Up really converted me.

This is what life is all about the beauty of music to transform, comfort, and heal. Thanks to Billy C for sharing his personal life story, If their's anyway that Brian or anyone of the Boys could read this it will make them even prouder making the music we all love.

Another special moment happened a few weeks ago, I was watching T.J. Hooker on Sky and it was centred around a Beach Boys Concert and at the end T.J. Hooker and co was at the concert when Carl spoke out saying something along the lines "Our good friend T.J. Hooker is here doing all the good work for LAPD we all like to thank him for keeping our streets safe" Very cheesy but very funny given all the problems the Boys had over the years  ;D

My Story is that i got interested in 1950s culture from my US history class and bought American graffiti to learn more. I immediately got hooked on the soundtrack from the movie and realised that what i was told my whole life, that there was no good music really before the Beatles was a huge lie. So i looked up "do you wanna dance" by Bobby Freeman on youtube and found the beach boys version instead. I got hooked on the song and the band immediately and bought a greatest hits collection with from a music store. I got a good sample of the band for a week and wanted to hear more from them album wise. So I went back to the store and found copies of Today! and Sunflower in the bargin bin. I loved both so much i bought the rest of their albums in the months to come.

The first BB single I actually purchased.  While it was on the top 40.  My dad had a really nice console stereo compared to my little record player.
I would sneak in when he was in a tolerant mood and play the single on that big console.  No record EVER sounded that good.  My ears were opened to that music and harmony and that excellent Capitol sound.

I believe it was 1989 or '90 " I Get Around" was on America's Funniest Home Videos and I was immediately hooked by the song as a 9 yr old kid. I asked my parents who did it and they said it was The Beach Boys. I remember buying one of those cassettes Capitol used to put out with a mix of songs. This was For All Seasons and it had a great mix of songs so that was a great introduction. Everything from Darlin to Finders Keepers and of course I Get Around. I also bought a mixed tape that had Surfin USA and that along with I Get Around were my first favorites.  Rented American Band for more background. Got a ton of other cassettes, the Still Crusin CD was new. Once I got into middle school and high school, i Lost touch with them and got into other stuff. Then in 2001, I heard Do It Again  (ironic) on the radio at work and got hooked all over again.  Dug up the In Concert CD and was mesmerized all over again.  When I first started as a kid, Mike and the older songs were my favorite.  In my 2nd wave of fandom, I developed a much deeper appreciation for Carl and Al.

Hearing Pet Sounds Memorial Day of 2004 on vinyl. Life was never quite the same again.

Studying Pet Sounds in music class, needless to say I didn't miss a music class that term.

Hearing Brian's final "nooooo" at the end of Caroline No for the first time on the surround sound speakers, I fell in love with the album then and there.

My Uncle was a Beach Boys fan but never really got into it after he died young.

Was going through some of his tapes. Found a Beach Boys tape and put it into my 2XL toy robot I got for Christmas back in the 90's (hey, it was my only tape player right in front of me  :lol) Think I was about 16 at the time.

Most of the sons were of the beach variety...but when Heroes and Villains came on that was something. Freaked me out but man...I think that's what got me hooked on SMiLE.

When 11 I was at a party in a cosy cottage, we played records all night, someone put on "California girls". When I heard the opening bars I was hooked!! :)

And then came Pet Sounds - my first album... What a thrill!! :)

/Bengt

About 3 years ago someone sent me a Sweet Insanity boot, he informed me of the history of that album, Landy and everything else around that time... I'm sad to admit, that is what turned me on to The Beach Boys

I've posted my own "in" before but here we go again, in more details:

T'was the summer of 1976 and the UK was enjoying a heatwave. The BBs were back on the radio as Good Vibes had been released to promote 20 Golden Greats and it actually charted.

That was the first time I'd consciously heard the BBs and I fell in love with the track. Would get home from school (I was 12) and play it continuous on my old box record player, leaving the arm off so the needle automatically went back to the beginning of the track. At times I'd close my eyes and the room seemed to swim around me.  And no, at the innocent age of 12 I had yet to discover the delights of alcohol, tobacco and self-pleasuring, so it was definitely the music what did it for me!

On the strength of that I made sure I got a copy of 20 Golden Greats and began to realise just how many of the tunes I recognised – I'd simply never known that they were all by the same band until then.

Heroes & Villains was new to me though, and I spotted the way it was in sections. So I put my cassette recorder next to the player and started to record sections again and again, mixing the order, repeating some, shuffling others, until I had a mammoth version of H&V. That got me kooked.  I mean, hooked.

Eventually read David Leaf's book and learned of SMiLE; as a young 'dult (prob late 80s) I picked up a cassette version of one of the early SMILE boots (record stall on Norwich market I think) and was mesmerised (and yes, I was fooled by the Miles Davis track… liked it so much that when I discovered the truth I bought Porgy & Bess).

Thing is, it was a near-miss, as I asked my dad to get the 20 Golden Greats LP, and he nearly came out of the store (Macro, a big cash & carry wholesale near Leeds) with a copy of 15 Big Ones.  Thankfully he came over to the window first, as I was waiting outside, and showed me the sleeve to make sure he'd found the right one, so I had chance to correct him.

Otherwise I might have spent the last 35 years trying to track down such lost, unreleased BBs gems as Battle Hymn of the Republic and Running Bear!   :D

Believe it or not, watching Brian & Mike on 'American Bandstand' performing "Almost Summer."
(Still a favorite that I remind Mike of every chance I get.)

I've been a Beach Boys fan for 20 of my almost 26 years. Goes back to kindergarten when I heard Good Vibrations or Surfin Safari on the radio, either one. I was only 6 years old and didn't know that much about discographies so I would get whatever CD or cassette I could get my hands on. The first CD I owned was Endless Summer, and the first LP I owned was Little Deuce Coupe. From that moment on I spent my childhood into my 20s collecting everything I could. First concert I ever went to was them when I was a kid before Carl died, and now I've seen them several times in different variations.  I have every LP, CD, and I'm workin' on the 45s. When I was 17 I was inspired (by Dennis) to pick up the drums and I been goin' since. I've been a devout punk rocker for a decade and I always latch on the bands and artists that draw some kind of Beach Boys influence or sound. Their music will forever be a huge impact on my daily life.

facebook.com/kookadams

Early on I was more of a Byrds & Beatles fan. The Beach Boys seemed like also rans but their early sixties look & sound was cool in a contrarian way.

What really hooked me on The Beach Boys was when I traded a copy of Dylan's Planet Waves for a beat up copy of The Beach Boys TODAY. Had moved away from home and played that album along with After School Session by The Milkshakes that whole summer long.

Later on the same guy who traded albums played the An American Band video & the live energy of the group really surprised me.

The 2fer CDs were also key. I'd try & get them the moment they arrived at the stores & then studied the liners.

Then Look!Listen!VIBRATE!SMiLE! really amped things up.

So it was a slow build but with many special moments.

Brian Wilson tribute concert.  I was like..."oh they're doing a tribute concert for that beach boys guy who is kind of nuts".  Then I heard him sing and I was like wow, no wonder why he is famous.  Then I watched some documentaries on the Wilson family and start to get more intrigued.  I think they're the most fascinating story in all of popular music.  The nostalgia only increases when I meet people who don't know who he is, even though he wrote the songs they are listening to.

June '88, I was 15 and seriously into 50's rock'n'roll.
A friend suggested I might like the Beach Boys, but I wasn't sure.
I rented the "Surfer Girl" LP out of the library.
Fist listen, wasn't too impressed and went back to my Chuck Berry.
Second listen, still not that bothered........then, at school I found myself humming "Catch a Wave", and couldn't wait to get home and hear it. The magic of Brian Wilson had struck, and that was it for me.
Funnily it's the only 20th century music I still listen to, as I went from Pet Sounds and SMiLE to Mozart and Bach, this seemed the only logical step,  and these are my main musical loves now.
I will always love the BB's though, and cannot wait for the 1 second of the Boxset I haven't already heard.

I remember a TV commercial back in the early 80's that was for a greatest hits Beach Boys album and all those songs sounded so "fun" to me.  I always liked the hits whenever they came on the radio.  But I never owned anything by them until much, much later when I got Pet Sounds and a friend loaned me the GV box.  I finally got hooked once I opened up and listened to the studio albums and all the great non-hit tracks.  I also was happily surprised at how good the post 1966 music is. 

An American Band on Vh1 in 1988. Bought Endless Summer and it rolled from there.

From Wikipedia:
"The album was released in July [1964], peaking at #4 in the United States, and being certified gold; the album did not make the UK charts, however."

Can't believe ASL did not make the charts in the UK. And that Surfin USA didn't make the charts until 1965!!  :o

http://www.everyhit.com

/B

I may be wrong, but wouldn't the reason for this be that "Surfin' USA" wasn't released in the Uk till '65?

pretty common story im sure. i came in late in the game; it was '98, and i was a 23 yo with some mild ocd, a lot of free time, and a new pc on pretty fast dial-up...musically, my tastes ran the gamut of about every "alternative/indie" band that was inspired by a wilson composition of some form/era, or alluded to in reviews. i guess my primary means of arrival was via the o'hagan highway through stereolab and the high llamas. i would keep running into oft-drawn comparisons to the beach boys in most everything i was listening to/reading about at the time, but i hadn't yet explored that mythic font of inspiration.

there was a time before this when i naively considered most of what i had heard of the wilson canon to be dynamically subdued (compared to more modern music), cloying, and even "simple":lol

that would of course change when i began to hear fragments of SMiLE floating around the internet. i loved the childlike innocence and exuberance - how it felt tossed off, yet inexplicably profound. it was a great mystery to me! i hadn't yet heard anything about smile or the epic lore that accompanied it, an oversight that was rectified when i began exploring the beach boys webring (around '99 i think). i grabbed whatever i could get and read everything i could on the anne wallace site, the smile shop, tobelman's zen page, and somewhere during that time i became hooked...smile was all i could think about. eventually i acquired my first boot, as well as what i could find on napster and kazaa. i bought LLVS, the good vibrations boxset, the pet sounds box, the SS/WH twofer, pastmasters, offshoots, and  everything i could find on vinyl.

my interest in smile fell to the wayside until 2004, which was nice to finally have a cohesive "official" assembly, but as such it didn't resonate with me - there really is a musical magick to those 66/67 recordings that i haven't been able to find anywhere else. consequently i started collecting again; anything i hadn't heard yet from the smile era,  just in time for the smile sessions box.

and that's where im at now

Exactly - and what is even more strange is that "Surfer girl" was released in 1967!!!
And that "Party" - which is a true summer album - was released in November (US) and February (UK)...
And that "Pet Sounds" and "Summer days" were released simultaneously in the UK...
And... and... :ahh

http://esquarterly.com/bellagio/UKcharts.html

http://www.sergent.com.au/beachboys/1963.html

/B

That is weird. Must've been disorientating having those albums released in that order.

Won't they ever think of us Brits?!  :psyche

initially it was 'The Beach Boys - Endless Summer' in a knackered and vvvvcheap 1st car
one side of the car speakers didnt work too hot, which fortunately was the side with the lead vocals on.
Meant you could sing all the leads and have the BB's backing you

after that - my very first listen to the first song i found of SMiLE... 'Our Prayer'
blew my mind - best album opener ever, period.