POP-A-LOOZA: THE EVERLASTING FIRST! The Beach Boys

Each week, the pop culture website Pop-A-Looza shares some posts from my vast 'n' captivating Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) archives. The latest shared post is another gem from the files of The Everlasting First, this time recalling my introduction to the music of the Beach Boys.

I've often said that my three all-time favorite bands are the Beatles, the Ramones, and the Flashcubes, with the Monkees and the Kinks filling out my Top 5. And while it's a free-for-all beyond that, I sometimes think of the Beach Boys as riding the top of that second wave. Surf's up!

I haven't written all that much about the Beach Boys. "God Only Knows" earns a chapter in my long-threatened book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1), and the influence of Hawthorne's Finest is cited in GREM! chapters about Bruce Springsteen's "Girls In Their Summer Clothes," the First Class' "Beach Baby," and the Ramones' "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker." The "God Only Knows" chapter incorporates parts of my Virtual Ticket Stub Gallery memoir of seeing Brian Wilson and his band perform Pet Sounds. TIRnRR Fave Rave Anny Celsi's NPR piece about Wilson's Pet Sounds tour inspired this piece reflecting further upon my own path to the Beach Boys, and that path had an early essential and informative pit stop at Main Street Records, the wonderful little shop in my college town of Brockport, NY in the late '70s and early '80s.

The Beach Boys have also turned up on few occasions in my weekly 10 Songs column. Two of those 10 Songs rants merit quick excerpts here:

THE BEACH BOYS: Don't Worry Baby

"When I was a teenager, I never would have predicted that the Beach Boys could ever become one of my favorite bands. Although I liked some of their '60s hits even then--'Good Vibrations,' 'Help Me Rhonda,' 'I Get Around,' 'Fun, Fun, Fun'--I could not or would not reconcile my perception of them as dorky and uncool with my own pursuit of hip. Although I would never actually be hip at any point in my life--let's not get crazy--I also couldn't accept the preposterous idea of the Beach Boys being anything other than fully four-cornered. Go be true to your own school, ya hopeless squares!

"I was wrong. Totally, totally wrong. I learned in time. I got Endless Summer when I was still in high school. I got Pet Sounds in college, drawn in by 'Sloop John B.' If my embrace of punk and power pop--that's power pop, dig?--made me reluctant to accept the Beach Boys, I was also aware of their influence on my beloved Ramones. The owner of Main Street Records in my college town of Brockport vowed that he would make a Beach Boys fans out of me, just as I said several paragraphs back that I was intent on making This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio listeners into Flashcubes fans. That is one of the most consistently rewarding experiences we can have with the music we love: our ability to share that music with our friends.

"Friends. 20/20. Smiley Smile. Wild Honey. I built my Beach Boys library in brief bursts of expanded interest, not quite there yet, but surfing in the right direction...."

THE BEACH BOYS: Girl Don't Tell Me

"...But I don't think I've mentioned the specific importance of 'Girl Don't Tell Me' in that evolution. It was almost incidental; I knew the song from my old copy of the Endless Summer compilation, so it wasn't anything new to me when I heard it again in, I guess, the late '80s. I had borrowed a copy of the Capitol Records two-fer CD reissue of Beach Boys albums Today! and Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!), a loan courtesy of the local library. 

"My interest in the Beach Boys at this point was slightly more than perfunctory, considerably less than devoted. But something clicked for me this time. I was enjoying the CD, but for some reason that familiar 17th track stood out, and hooked me in a way it hadn't before. 'Girl Don't Tell Me.' It had a Beatles aura about it, yet it sounded uniquely American, Californian, Beach Boys '65. It was roughly contemporary to my favorite Beatles albums. It was fantastic, just inviting and all-encompassing. 

"And it set me on the better-late-than-never path to discover and eventually adore this Beach Boys music I'd mostly ignored for so long. I bought all the Capitol two-fers. I bought the Pet Sounds CD reissue as soon as it hit the stores. Later, I bought the Pet Sounds boxed set, the first of a few occasions where I shelled out cash for a multi-disc collection of what had originally been a single LP. All worth it, though. And for me, a proper appreciation of the Beach Boys began with 'Girl Don't Tell Me.'" 

So I have written a little bit about the Beach Boys after all. And the start of my Beach Boys story serves as the latest Boppin' Pop-A-Looza.

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This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.

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