Lets make a list of all the songs that The Beach Boys inspired. Everything from The Sun Rays to the Explorers Club.


I'll start

Little G.T.O. - Ronny & the Daytonas
I Live for The Sun - The Sun Rays
New York's a Lonely Town - The Tradewinds
Back In The USSR - The Beatles
Little Willow - Paul McCartney (The influence of Pet Sounds, especially 'You Still Believe in me" is very apparent here.)
Thru My Window- Jeffrey Foskett
Hey Little Cobra - The Rip Chords

Just a correction to your post. "Thru my Window" is a Mike O'Rourke original song.  Jeff Foskett may be inspired by the Beach Boys, but not in this case, where he copied this and several other of Mike's original recordings.  Mike was indeed inspired by 62-66 Beach Boy records with a passel of his experiments in recording and onstage arrangements here in Las Vegas over the years.  You, and other readers here may have missed his story and songs: http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,27573.0.html

Give it a look and a listen if you haven't yet. I believe you'll be in for a pleasant surprise.

Mike O'Rourke is my dad. 

Thanks,
Matt O'Rourke

Hidden Treasures Revealed.  Man what a 63-66 Beach Boy fan I was, and still am.  I hope you agree.

One of these songs "I'm in Love with You" Foskett imitated me for his 1st album.  I never did hear anything from him, other than reports the he did very well with it in Japan. 


https://mikeorourke.bandcamp.com/album/hidden-treasures-revealed

Still digging, digging, digging.  These six originals are more reflections of the 63-66 "classic period" as described by Rob Dean.  Have many more coming,  plus Beach Boy covers I forgot that I even did.  Hope you enjoy, Let me know what you think.

Mike

https://mikeorourke.bandcamp.com/album/cars-stars-and-guitars

Hello again,

Check this one out if you haven't already.  I didn't finish it, so you can play along, get your own Sparkletts bottle and tambourine, and head down to the railroad tracks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvjDhU5Z_n0

Surf's Up 1971 Album, but this song was from another time and other pieces.  I understand Bruce Johnston was responsible for saving the pieces and putting them together. Carl, great vocal in the verse and a great Brian Wilson haunting vocal in the bridge, and who knows what goes on in the exit.  I tried to capture the tone of the album. A few really good songs are on the "Surf's up" album.  Thanks, and I hope you enjoy my version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yz3U5PjnNH4

Great job on these, Mike! You're a very talented songwriter and certainly deserve to be a familiar name in rock music circles. I'm absolutely loving "Don't Tell Me No"!

Thanks for those nice comments

Attention Brian Wilson fans, you'll love this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw1OK2mrjas

Hello again everyone, 

Another album for you to enjoy.
https://mikeorourke.bandcamp.com/album/more-modern-mike


Moving away from the 60's, Fender reverb and surf guitars, make way for fuzz tones and wah-wah pedals. I had a "Vox Super Beatle" not a very good amp, but when you wheeled it into a gig, even before you plugged it in, people thought you were great! It burnt out several times, I went back to a Twin. Todd Rundgren, Neil Young, and Bread influenced some of these songs, of More Modern Mike. If you listen carefully though, you'll hear the production methods of the Beach Boy Formula. More 63-65 covers and originals coming as we un-earth more 7 inch reels

Thanks!

"Something's Better Than Nothing"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLohNEl7bow

Beach Boy covers and others

Here are some of the tracks I made to accompany my duo "Deuce Coupe" playing throughout Las Vegas.  Beginning in 1992 and since, they have evolved many, many times.  The original 4 track recordings of drums, guitar, piano, and background vocals were transferred to a mini disc player for stage use.  We would sing and play along adding guitar, bass, and lead vocals live on stage.  This process worked well for many years, building up eventually 200+ song impressions.  

Later I had to add bass guitar, horns, and more vocals forced to play as a single to keep on working.  It was peculiar for me playing alone on stage, I mean all of this sound coming from one guy?  People who didn't know what was going on seemed to enjoy it. Those who did know were complimentary.

Creating this format in this way, was more fun than programming a synthasized sequenced plastic sound.  Nothing store bought on these.  

Finally, I've added my live stage parts to them, just recenetly, so they can be called complete and presented for your ears.  I did not doctor them and I left in the mistakes, imbalances and vocal cracks.  I hope you'll enjoy them, all 26 of them.  

Thanks, so much.  

Oh by the way, these were done on Tascam 4 track cassettes from beginning to end.  

Hello, Mike O'Rourke again.

How about a few more of my songs produced in a United Western Studio fashion.  It's all gone now including the style, I wish it weren't so. 

https://mikeorourke.bandcamp.com/album/only-semi-perfect

I hope you enjoy listening to them as much as I did making them. 

Thanks!

Thanks for the nice responses, and the understanding of the Jeff Foskett situation regarding my original songs.  There's more of those coming, but we had requests for more of my originals of this sound that have never been revealed.  

https://mikeorourke.bandcamp.com/album/californias-callin-me

They're all back from the 80's and 90's using the authentic equipment to attain this sound.  I hope you enjoy them.   If you want to read more about each one, you can click on the "info" link next to each song.  More Coming as Matt brushes off the dust and mixes them down.  

To answer the question of the guitar sound, it's just about using the right equipment, and being able to "hear" how it was done, and reproduce it.  Here's a picture of my 1964 Jagur.  It's been in storage for decades.  

https://imgur.com/a/xXUo86J

Thanks,
Mike

Hi Everybody,

This is Matt, Mike's son, I'm kind of the middle man since like my dad said, all he knows is tape and pencils, so this whole Internet Message Board is absolutely foreign to him.  

Firstly, Thank you for the replies and comments!

As foreign as the internet is to him, working with the old reels and TEAC is foreign me, so learning about the process of all of this has been quite amazing.   I have grown up in the digital age and used D.A.W.'s to record everything.  To transfer everything we are taking the outputs of the TEAC into channels of my interface, pressing play on the TEAC and record in protools, and to quote him, "with no other technology jazz applied".  

I will ask him about how he went about achieving the classic Beach Boy guitar sound, and his recording process.  Hopefully I can pry it out of him  

There is a lot of material to sort through and organize, so if there is anything you'd want me to upload in particular, let me know.  Everything from Beach Boy covers, more of the Foskett stuff, to his other Beach Boy inspired originals and so on.  

Once again,
Thank you for your interest in this, and I will be continuing to upload to the bandcamp we set up, and will be checking back here!

Nice to meet you all,
Matt.

Greetings everyone! I hope this is the right place to post this, as most old people, I'm not very familiar with anything other than magnetic tape, and pencils.  

       Due to Covid creating time on everyone's hands,  my son, Matt and I decided to expose myself (no, not that way) and reveal my study of the Beach Boys music, and my contacts with them.  
I have had requests to present my original versions of the songs Jeffrey Foskett released on his "Thru My Window" Album.  It started, for me it started, with a Phone call from Carl Wilson...

https://mikeorourke.bandcamp.com/track/carl-wilson-phone-message-from-1988


For years prior,  I had been expiermenting, dissecting, and recording the 1963-1966 Beach Boy Sound.  In the early 80's there were no computers, no song lyrics printed on the internet, or isolated tracks on youtube of their music.  The best you could do was to play their albums over and over again, to discern information.  

I made cassettes of my Beach Boy expeirments.  I would send them to concert venues that they played, even dropping my record "Weekend and Mary Ann" at Brian Wilson's house in L.A. (the one with his psychedelic painted mail box).  He had moved out several weeks prior.  

Apparently one of my cassettes got through to Carl at Caesars Palace in 1988.  We made contact and I was invited to attend the Beach Boys performances at Caesars, icluding my birthday where my wife and I were comped to the Beach Boys' guest booth in the showroom.  During the performance I made my way to the more exciting area of the stage sound booth. By the way Carl Wilson was a very generous gentleman.  The next time my wife and I saw him at Caesars' he remember my wife's name, only being introduced once.  Carl had that gift to remember people's names amongst other great qualities.  Even though I only knew him in passing, it seemed like he regarded my wife and I as close friends.  What a loss.  

During this period, Jeffrey Foskett also showed an interest in my tapes, since the Beach Boys were no longer producing music in this fashion.  Jeff approached me with a deal that he would aquire my record label "New Surf" and other songs of mine to record.  There has been some confusion on the orgins of these songs as they appeard on the internet labeled as performed by "Good Vibrations"  I had a Trio I named "Good Vibrations" but they did not appear on these records, nor did Jeffrey Foskett.   These are the Yellow and Blue 45's that are the subject of the curiosity.  

Jeffrey re-recorded "Weekend" and "Mary Ann" and a bunch of other songs of mine, for his album "Thru My Window"
He had high hopes for a Japanese market, where there would be a divison of royalties.  I hope he did good with it, but other than $800 for "Mary Ann" in the movie "Bring it On: All or Nothing" as brief background music, I failed to recieve anything above that.  Jeffrey Foskett then went on to other soruces for his music.

To answer the requests for my original performaces, my Son and I, unearthed my old Teac A2340, a box of memrobilia and 7 inch reels and transfered them digitally for you to have.  I have uploaded them to bandcamp for your ears and to download them.
There is also info on each song if you'd like to read further.  We will be continuing to upload other songs that were recorded by Jeffrey Foskett, and more of my original compositions, and Beach Boy cover songs as time permits, and the Teac stays working, so continue to check my bandcamp page. Thanks.  

 I hope you enjoy them, and appreciate how much I appreciate the Beach Boys records 63-66.
 https://mikeorourke.bandcamp.com/album/quintessence-the-dodechedron-music-of-the-spheres

The Beach Boys'  regular gigs at Ceasars were drawing to a close in late 1990, and I was contacted by Jeffrey Foskett that Carl wanted me to attened a Beach Boy rehearsal at Disney Studios in Burbank.  They had arranged a flight to Burbank, where I was picked up by Jeff at the Burbank Airport.  We preceeded to the studio as I'm inquring "what am I doing here?" He replied, "They need more people on the stage"?  

It was a full sound studio with all their equipment, I met Bruce Johnston first, who noticed my wedding ring and said "I've got the same ring, you're not here to take my job are you??"  making me very curious as to what is going on.  Al Jardine was there, he said "Hi" and the 3 of us discussed their music.  Carl was very late, and I had to return to Las Vegas for my nightly gig.  I sang Mike Love's lead to "California Girls" and a couple of other songs.  They took my picture for a badge and I had to leave. I was driven back to the airport.  They said they would be in touch.  

In Novermber 1990 back at Caesars, I had my regular spot in the sound booth on stage right, towards the end of the show, I heard someone backstage, Chaz somebody, calling my name.  He said "Carl wants you on stage"  I said "huh??"  I went to stage left and they were getting ready to do their encore of "Fun Fun Fun". I asked Carl what he wants me to do, and he was not specific on which part.  I asked him if I could play also.  His guitar tech set me up with an old Stratocaster and plugged in Carl's amp.  They started the song and there I was, playing the introduction double tracking Carl's lead guitar.  I sang one of the background parts on the same mic with Carl Wilson, Wow.  I even got a free pick to take away!

The next night I was asked to repeat the encore.  This was the end of their Vegas engagements.  I had an address for Carl in Fallbrook, CA and sent a few more songs and I continued to stay in touch through Elliot Lott who told me I was "on the roster".    Jeffrey Foskett was no longer with the Beach Boys during my onstage performances at Caesars and I never heard from any of them again.  I assume I didn't pass the audition.  But I continue to write and record in this style.  

Thanks for your interest,
Mike O'Rourke


For a few more pictures of more items we uncovered click here: https://imgur.com/a/Xpezb3p

I recently picked up a 45 by a combo called Good Vibrations entitled Weekend backed with Mary Ann. Both sides are wonderful Beach Boys pastiches (one uptempo, one ballad), written & produced by one Mike O'Rourke, who also produced Jeff Foskett's early LPs (indeed, I think that both of these sides appear on one of Jeff's early outings). It really sounds like a great lost classic to me...
Has anyone else ever come across this one? Does anyone know who Good Vibrations were? Or when this was released? Was Jeff actually in the band? Did they release anything else? Any more info gratefully received...

greetings..this is mike orourke...thank you all for those kind words about mary ann and weekend .....to clear up the mystery...i wrote and recorded the songs in 1980 at my home in vegas ..i did all the vocals and instruments myself on a teac  4 trk at 71/2 and pressed it appropriately in hawthorne ca at fidelitone ...no one else was on this project...i later met foskett thru carl wilson during their vegas shows at caesars in the late 80s.... i did have a trio i named good vibrations from 1978-92 but the guys were not involved in the recording...i sold foskett these two songs plus the name new surf and several other of my songs  ( thru my window ,dancing girl and others) which were redone by foskett...... imitating me imitating the beach boys imitating chuck berry and the 4 freshmen.....i was honored that he though enough of my songs to do them....since then we've lost touch ,,,,this is a brief note on my beach boy experiences  including being asked by carl to sit in on stage with the beach boys and play their ceasars palace encore of fun fun fun ..their manager chaz somebody  called me from backstage and said carl wants you on stage to sing........ corralling my ego which was running out the door i was handed one of carls guitars and we both played the lead fun fun fun i sang on the same mic with carl .....what a thrill that was nov 1990..... he told to me" you could step right in" what a compliment       anyway.............check out youtube      mike orourke only semi perfect.....some more originals and covers you'll recognize....and as ed sullivan used to say "for the youngsters " check out tyrantslv my sons group........thanks again to all for the comments.