#159 – Fun, Fun, Fun by The Beach Boys
– Though I’m tempted, we won’t go all the way back to 1964 and when we first heard this one. In fact, there’s no reason to even focus on just the 1960’s since Fun, Fun, Fun has lived on through the decades. It’s still almost impossible to visit a beachside bar, diner, ice cream stand, or fast food joint where sand could be called a condiment, without hearing this classic rocker on the sound system.
By the way, if we were returning mentally to the 1960’s I’d have to change that statement to read “jukebox.”
Fun, Fun, Fun is one of the Brian Wilson and Mike Love collaborations that defined the Southern California lifestyle many of us could only imagine while growing up in the Midwest. For the boys of summer, it was year-round sunshine, surfing, riding in convertibles, and hanging out with girls at the beach (listed not necessarily in preferred order). For me personally, it only took a few decades after The Beach Boys started sending us these messages via Top 40 AM Radio that I finally surfed into the 1990’s and was living in Los Angeles.
But it wasn’t quite the easy fun, fun, fun that they had promised.
After a cross-country drive from New York City, I crashed with a former girlfriend who after a few years of Splitsville had morphed into the close friend zone, in The Hollywood Hills for a month and began my California lifestyle. The first non-fun shock was having to buy a car and pay insurance after years of subways, taxis, buses and walking. The next step was embarking on a career move, which took a while but eventually turned out pretty good. But the move that was the biggest hassle was a physical one. When the rich girl that owned the house where I was crashing learned an extra person (me) was sharing the large basement apartment (I had my own room, just to make the arrangements perfectly clear) she decided to double the rent.
The California Sound
It’s too bad because it was cool starter space while I tried to figure out Los Angeles. And though we called it a basement, it only fit that description if you looked at it from the front of the house. From the back it was just another ground floor space with lots of full windows and a private entrance.
It also came with a bit of star power.
The renter before us had been the actor Randy Quaid who was still getting junk mail sent to him at that address. My close friend zone roommate also told me our rich landlord, who was a semi-famous model, actress (with a very famous New York sports legend father) and lived in the upstairs house, was dating one of The Eagles. I took her word for it, though I never saw him and can’t remember which one. But we also assumed she was dating the actor Andrew Stevens since we looked out our window one day and he was mowing the back lawn.
Fun, fun, fun in The Hollywood Hills.
With the threat of raised rent meaning I’d have to start paying my fair share, I felt it was a fair idea to get my own place. Through the connections of an actor pal who had also made the move from Manhattan to Hollywood, I sublet a super-fab condo in the Silver Lake neighborhood (with a mountain view looking down at Dodger Stadium) for the summer. The owner, who was also an actor no one had ever heard of, scored a gig touring the country doing regional theater and for a fair price I would take care of his place and his cat. Fair enough.
But he had one stipulation: no one else was allowed to live in the condo with me. Okay…
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I moved in on a Saturday as he was leaving for the airport. A couple hours later my best rock and roll pal from NYC (imagine Steven Tyler and you’ll be close) who was also making the move to Southern California, arrived at the same LAX Airport. I picked him up in my Mustang convertible and moved him into the condo’s off-limits spare bedroom.
Okay, not exactly fair as a renter – but a great way to kick off a Southern California summer of fun, fun, fun.
Inspiring Place
Being a Beach Boys fan, one of my first goals was to find a Foster’s Freeze. If you’re not familiar with the legend of the song, these are well-known ice cream stands (and restaurants) with locations around California. Supposedly Brian Wilson and Mike Love were hanging around the F.F. on their home turf in Hawthorne when they spotted a girl drive by in her daddy’s car and looking like she was having too much fun.
It inspired the 1964 song.
For a couple guys from NYC making this new turf their new home, I thought it would be a symbolic way for my Steven Tyler-ish pal and I to kick off the fun, fun, fun. We may not have made it all the way out to Hawthorne, but we found one not too far away in The San Fernando Valley and toasted with what we referred to as “A Bucket ‘O’ Shake.“ In other words, the Foster’s Freeze milkshakes were SO huge that a steady diet would have us looking like Brian Wilson in the 1970’s. Not a pretty thought, so we kept ourselves on a strict limit.
And speaking of the song, Fun, Fun, Fun joined this list on September 23rd. Of course, I own a copy as any wannabe sun drenched rocker dude should, but since the beaches where I live now are closed by Labor Day, I hadn’t heard it for quite a few sunsets. It surfs its way into the subliminal category of Dream Songs.
Finding a Foster’s Freeze held promise of a Beach Boys inspired summer, but then reality set in.
Beach Boys Landmark
Since Silver Lake was nowhere near a beach and we discovered it was a long drive to the sand and surf. One of our first potential beach bum lessons learned was if you didn’t arrive before… oh, let’s say eight o’clock in the morning – regardless of the day – good luck finding any parking within an hour or two walking distance. In our seemingly endless desperate searches for an open parking space, we spent more hours cruising packed streets and full lots from Santa Monica to Redondo Beach than the amount of time the girl in the song spent behind the wheel of her daddy’s T-Bird.
More often than not we’d scrap the idea of meeting any California beach girls and hit a Foster’s Freeze where we’d make plans to find an apartment with a swimming pool and reserved parking spaces when my sublet was over.
But we were still enterprising guys from New York cruising into our first summer in Southern California. If we couldn’t get to the party, we’d bring the party to us.
When I had hit Los Angeles a few months earlier, I immediately – and I’m talking within the first week – got involved with an acting group and an improvisational comedy troupe. The benefits of both were not only as creative and performing opportunities, but also a fast track to make new friends. The acting group actually cost money to belong since we rented a weekly rehearsal space and occasionally a small Hollywood theater to showcase audition scenes for agents and casting directors. The improv troupe performed in bars and clubs on the weekends, but our “pay” usually consisted of chicken wings and beer. So neither could be considered a get rich quick showbiz deal. In fact, it turned out to be the opposite.
But the real payoff was fun (fun, fun).
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The majority of my friends have always been creative people. And who would be more creative than actors, writers, comedians and rock and rollers? Right… I can’t think of any either. So instead of stressing out about making early morning beach treks hoping for nonexistent parking opportunities and if we were lucky, enough empty space on the sand for a beach towel, we decided to throw Saturday night parties in my condo sublet and let the fun happen on its own.
At least a few of these might still be legendary for our Southern California guest list attendees. The condo would be standing room only packed, with the overflow filling our backyard patio. My Steven Tyler-ish pal (who shall remain nameless to protect any possible identity crisis) gave the rocker girls someone to drool over and there was never a shortage of alcoholic beverages that were either brewed and iced or blended and decorated with tiny paper umbrellas.
The laughs were loud and the music was louder. And the only time the parties would end was when my New York actor pal, who had turned me on to the condo in the first place and lived upstairs with his wife, would appear somewhere in the early morning hours and politely suggest it might be time to shut everything down.
Out of respect to our good pal, we would. Some partiers would hit the road while most crashed on whatever piece of furniture or empty floor space was available. The next morning would resemble an outtake from the movie Animal House, but no one was allowed to leave until the place was clean, spotless and damage free.
It’s the least I could do after promising no one else would inhabit the condo. And yeah, I know… not fair at all. But at least I got away with it.
Or thought I did…
After an amazing summer and a growing crowd of creative friends, the landlord’s regional theater tour was coming to an end and my Steven Tyler-ish pal and I had to vacate the premises. We put our Foster’s Freeze planning sessions to work and scored a large two bedroom apartment in North Hollywood with parking and a swimming pool and moved out. But before we left there was a major and thorough (at least we thought) cleaning of the condo. Everything was left looking just as it did the day we moved in.
But when you’re dealing with actors, writers, comedians and rock and rollers, there’s always the unexpected.
SomeTHING like this…
About a month after our North Hollywood relocation I received a call from the actor who had sublet me the condo. He was sitting on the couch watching television when his hand slipped between the cushions. He felt something funny, so he reached in – and pulled out a rubber human hand.
Needless to say, he freaked out – at least a little bit. But on the good side, he thought it was funny.
As mentioned, our crowd was creative. And though no one aspired to be Carrot Top, there was no shortage of gag gifts, stupid decorations and a general sense of craziness at our parties to keep everyone entertained. I don’t remember what improvised excuse I came up with for the rubber hand in the couch, but I had the feeling he knew I hadn’t been living the lifestyle of a solitary monk all alone in the condo taking care of his cat.
That was the last conversation we had.
Of course, those weren’t our last parties in Southern California as we shifted our focus into making North Hollywood more fun (fun, fun) than sitting in beachside traffic jams. And though we didn’t have the same Hawthorne experience as cousins Brian and Mike decades before, I remember hanging out at a Foster’s Freeze in the San Fernando Valley creatively coming up with a theme and guest list for our next Saturday night hit.
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Here’s a video of The Beach Boys from 1964 performing Fun, Fun, Fun.
To purchase Sounds of Summer: Very Best of The Beach Boys with Fun, Fun, Fun visit Amazon.
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Dave Schwensen is The Classic Rocker and author of The Beatles At Shea Stadium and The Beatles In Cleveland. Visit Dave’s author page on Amazon.com.
Copyright 2019 – North Shore Publishing
– Take an old Russian folk song, rewritten English lyrics, a talent show winner and a Beatle and you come up with a 1968 hit record. That was the formula for one of the earliest releases by Apple Records that hit number one in England. In the States it was kept from the top spot by another early Apple release, Hey Jude by the same Beatle and his three business partners.
– For some, moving to New York City can be like relocating to Ork. Now, if you get that reference you’ll want to continue reading. If not, go for it anyway and you’ll understand…
– Surprised? Yeah, I was too. I had no idea the singer, producer and songwriter of the 1972 Reggae hit, I Can See Clearly Now, was the same voice leading us into each episode of this 1963-1966 cartoon series. It’s amazing what can be learned through a quick online search for something – really, anything – about an obscure and mostly forgotten television cartoon theme song.
– When this song came out in 1980 boomers were still controlling the music scene, but something strange was starting to happen. Our rebellious nature had been focused on the older generation, but now we were feeling the push of a generation coming up behind us. They were tagged as Generation X and many of us considered them too young to be of any real notice as we continued to groove through our late twenties. It was noticeable when the punks and new wave bands of the late 1970s (with members born in the boomer generation) started calling our favs like The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles and The Who “dinosaurs.”
The music consisted of more electronics than guitars and the beat came from drum machines. To be fashionable and anti-prehistoric, the guys had ditched bellbottoms for skinny legs and shirts with skinny ties topped with loose jackets. Hair on girls would continue to get higher throughout the decade while the guys went shorter.
– This song has me running in my mind. Notice the wording of that sentence. It’s not running through my mind, though it is at this moment. But I’m talking about running, like on a track team, which is something I haven’t done since Soul Finger was running on a regular basis on AM radio when it was released in the spring of 1967.
The Bar-Kays released the instrumental Soul Finger in April 1967. It became a legitimate hit and not only because it’s a catchy tune, but like the exclusive Nowhere Man we probably heard it every hour. But for a different reason.
– There was a popular television show when I was a kid called, I’ve Got A Secret. The song I Want You Back by a preteen Michael Jackson and his brothers has really nothing do with that, except for bringing back how I felt – sort of – when I first heard it in 1969.
