The Beach Boys' "Surfin' USA" single released on this date, in 1963. I'm a lifelong out-and-proud Beach Boy fan, but "Surfin' USA" is a throwaway. "Sweet Little Sixteen" pasted over with counterfeit surf lyrics, plus Mike Love and his adenoidal USC frat-boy voice on lead vocal. (Love also sang lead on "Kokomo," and I just found out that Brian Wilson, who was still pretty checked out in 1988 when the song came out, heard it for the first time on the radio, like the rest of us. Except Brian like it.)

"Surfin' USA" went to #3 on the Billboard charts, and I'm glad it went big if for no other reason than the Beach Boys' early success gave Wilson the confidence and the money to move on to bigger, better songwriting projects, including what he described, justifiably, as his "teenage symphony to God"—otherwise knows as the Smile album.

I remember Mike Doyle having some choice words to say about the Beach Boys, and vocal surf music in general, so I called to see if his impression of "Surfin' USA" was in line with my own.

Do you remember the first time you heard that song?

I do, yeah. Kemp Aaberg and I were driving back from Mammoth, and it came on the radio, and it was like, What the fuck! Who are 

 were real! This was kiddy crap! God, we hated it. It was Gidget shit all over again. Gidget spreading into music. That's how I felt at the time, anyway.

Yeah, except . . . good story there. Mike Mejek and I were going to a party in Bel Air, at Jan's place, or Dean's place, I'm not sure which. But we got lost, so Mike goes up to this huge mansion, looking for directions. Knocks on the door. Nobody's home, but the door is unlocked and it kind of opens up a bit. In the foyer is this huge life-size marble statue, like a knock-off Michelangelo thing. Mike looks at it for a second, then runs in and grabs the thing—which wasn't easy, it weighed a ton—hauls it out, stuffs it into the back of his lowered '52 Mercury and we beat it. A mile or so later we get stopped by the cops because the car was too low. First thing the cops see is that we've got beer in the car, so off we go to jail. My first and only time. The cops never even saw the statue. We got out the next day and buried it in Mike's backyard. As far as I know it's still there. That's my Jan and Dean story.

John Severson told me a few years back that he hated the Beach Boys when they were first popular, but ended up liking them. Partly because the songs were actually way better than he first thought, but also because the music reminded him of a certain period.

I think that's exactly right. When I hear the Beach Boys now it brings back a lot of nice memories. The '60s—that was California at its best. Still plenty of room. A great place to be if you were a surfer.

What kind of music were you listening to in the early- and mid-'60s?

I was heavy into R&B and jazz. We used to go regularly to the Lighthouse in Hermosa beach; the house band was Bud Shank and the Lighthouse All-Stars. Shank did the soundtrack for a couple of Bruce Brown's early movies. Early rock and roll, I liked that a lot too. Little Richard, wow. My favorite. Just belted it out, and tore up the stage. Everything that happened in rock, not just in American but the UK, I believe, was because of Little Richard.

Still a blues guy. I like the 12 bar structure, it's so simple but endless in it's combinations. Today I play the ukulele, but I play mainly blues. In the key of A. I also like playing old folk songs when you have a group of players and singers; party stuff, really simple fun songs like "How Much is that Doggie in the Window," and everyone gets to do the howl of their favorite dog. From that to Segovia. There's great music everywhere.

MIKE DOYLE ON THE BEACH BOYS, JAZZ, AND SOME LIGHT B&E

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