Hi all!

[RiC]

Hi,

I've been following this board over a year now. I really like the stuff here and enjoy the knowledge people have.
But anyway I'm from Finland (sorry for my bad language skills) and I'm 20 years old. Beach boys ain't a big deal here and never has been.
My knowledge of them before 2011 was really minimum. I knew some of the hit songs like I get around, Wouldn't it be nice and Good vibrations
and always loved all of them. But Beach boys has never had any kind of media attention here, or radio play. Then I heard Surfin' safari on my
vacation in Miami. I didn't know what band or song that was, but I got really weird vibes (in a good way weird) from that. When I got home and
googled the parts of the lyrics that I could remember, I was really surprised that it was a Beach boys song.

Well anyway I downloaded some hits collection cd with all the old car and
surf songs and listened that the whole summer. Nobody else liked it but I did. Still I didn't take a look at the other, (better stuff) they had
done. I thought that that one hit compilation had all the good songs they ever made and rest is crap. That's because I was an idiot and
believed everything what internet told me.

Then came That's why god made the radio and 50th anniversary tour. My first impression before hearing anything from the new album was that it
has to be crap. Then I heard the title track on youtube and I actually liked it. It wasn't as good as the old ones but it had something
really interesting in it. After that I listened to Summer's gone, and wow I was blown away by it. I wasn't expecting anything like that. All
the tracks were in youtube at the time already but I decided not to listen any of them until I have the actual CD. I immediately drove to nearest store
which had it and was so excited to play it in my car. And wow! Isn't it time was immediately my favorite song, I liked it lot more that the title
track. And then the last 3 songs, just pure awesomness.

And that got me into the deeper stuff, I listened to Pet Sounds which I loved, but I liked even more the Smile stuff, and bought the smile
sessions box set. Then it all went crazy, I had to get all the albums on vinyl, even though I hadn't ever even owned a vinyl player. And I read
everything I could find about the band and Brian Wilson and watched every video I could find about them. Oh and I even fly to London see them
play at Wembley last year. That was propably the best night of my life. Now I have pretty much all of their albums and releases, some even in
multiple copies.

Long story but I told it as short as I could This thing that has like infected me to the Beach boys is really weird, my parents haven't
ever listened them, nobody has really liked them, and then just suddenly I'm here and all the people around me thinks I've gone crazy
because of this obsession. But I already have managed to get some people dig Beach boys too, not as much as I do but still a little bit.
Now I'm listening to them everyday. It doesn't matter what my mood is, there's always the right Beach boys album for every day.

[smile-holland]

Welcome RiC, enjoy your (undoubtly many) visits here.

[SMiLE Brian]

Welcome!

[feelsflow]

RiC,  Welcome.  One long story deserves another.  Sorry, if I get a bit wordy.  All us Beach Boys fans have our "Get that Sh*t out of my ears and off the turntable" stories.  Back in the early 70's, me and my friends had listening parties.  I couldn't understand why nobody liked when I picked a Beach Boys record.  And, this is in America!  One such night, I played Sunflower, the rule was a pick got played all the way thru.  So as the gentle sounds of Cool, Cool Water faded into the night...In came "Cambridge 1969" -you may not know this one... It's from John and Yoko's Life With the Lions.  That track has Yoko wailing while John feed-backs an electric guitar for 26:31.  Side 2: recorded in a hospital room, stand-out tracks include "Baby's Heartbeat" - just that, a heartbeat looped for 5:10, "Radio Play" - as it sounds, John playing around with a radio for 12:35.  And, wait for it..."Two Minutes of Silence" - two minutes of the needle running through the grooves... Even the guy that put it on went to the kitchen for drinks.  Calls for "Revolution #9" and John and Yoko's Two Virgins filtered in from around the house, where many looked for relief and chatted while this was going on.  True story.             Moving on... There is indeed a lot of knowledge around this place.  What I did for years before becoming a poster (a few weeks ago), was find a poster who looked smart, then go into their posting log - some of them have hundreds of pages, there you will find the beginnings of this site from 2005.  Most of what is argued about now, is in that history.  Some of the old posters are still here.  Also, check "ask the honored guests" section.  Some heavy hitters there.  By all means take part in the current threads, you can even bring an old thread back up to the top, to add a comment.  Enjoy this place.  It can be fun.     Will

[RiC]

Thank you all for welcoming me here! =)

And great story feelsflow, I'll definetely check that Lennon record

[feelsflow]

Well, after the B-52's made that sound more popular, Yoko has earned a degree of success.  I would suggest a trial run on YouTube, if it's there, first.  That long-long-player did sell about 50,000 in the USA, not so well in the UK.  As a completest, I own it, but it hasn't been on my turntable for, what, over thirty years.  I found mine sealed in a dump-bin.  And it stayed sealed for many years.  Actually, not that much of a completest on the Yoko stuff, but do have some of it.  That stuff would serve better for sale on E-bay.  There is a great comp. out there where artists re-recorded some of her material.  I'd start there.  Or just stick with The Beach Boys, much better.         

[RiC]

Yeah I haven't yet reached the solo stuff that came after The Beatles. Getting there soon though. And I like weird stuff so I'll give that Cambridge 1969 a try right now, it's in youtube...

[RiC]

I got to somewhere around 12 minutes, that's just horrible sh*t! Whoever decided to release that record, was crazy! Well that's propably not the best thing to start of anyway. I'm pretty sure they did a lot better stuff too. At least can't get much lower from there...