Made In California: A Beach Boys Podcast

By September 1963, things are moving quickly for The Beach Boys. Surfin’ U.S.A. has taken them to number two, Al Jardine is back in the fold (briefly giving us a six-man Beach Boys), and Brian Wilson finally has his name on the producer credit.

This week we get into Surfer Girl, the album where the group really starts to sound like a confident recording unit. We trace the strange history of the title track, Brian’s first song and its connection to When You Wish Upon a Star, before working our way through Catch a Wave, another visit from the Jan & Dean pirates, the tangled story of The Surfer Moon and Bob Norberg, Little Deuce Coupe, and one of Brian’s earliest masterpieces, In My Room. There’s also a bizarre German-language detour, the first documented appearance of Hal Blaine on a Beach Boys session, a possible early diss track aimed at The Four Seasons, car clubs, richer chords, and yet another completely unnecessary instrumental to finish the album.

Made In California: A Beach Boys Podcast

A chronological journey through the music, history and strange little corners of The Beach Boys story.

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We covered the title track in the previous episode, so this time we drop the needle on the rest of Surfin’ U.S.A. Brian’s falsetto steps properly into the foreground on “Farmer’s Daughter”, “Lonely Sea” gives us an early glimpse of the more introspective Brian Wilson to come, Mike Love gets behind a saxophone, and Murry Wilson discovers lyricist Roger Christian on the radio. We also work our way through an awful lot of surf instrumentals, take an unexpected Fleetwood Mac detour, compare “Lonely Sea” to Soundgarden, and ask whether The Beach Boys actually did “Let’s Go Trippin’” better than Dick Dale. By the end, the band sound considerably more assured than they did just one album ago. Whether Surfin’ U.S.A. needed to be quite this long is another matter.

Made In California: A Beach Boys Podcast

A chronological journey through the music, history and strange little corners of The Beach Boys story.

Find all our podcast and social links via the link in our bio.

Watch more: clips, video episodes and Collectors Corner on YouTube.

Get in touch: Questions, corrections, comments, obscure Beach Boys trivia, or just want to say hello?
[email protected]

Instagram: @madeincaliforniapod
TikTok: @madeincalipod
YouTube: Made In California: A Beach Boys Podcast

We’re into 1963, and this is where things start getting serious.

First, a little housekeeping from Surfin’ Safari. What happened to Gary Usher? Was Ten Little Indians a fairly major misstep? And why is future Beach Boy Bruce Johnston suddenly turning up on a surf instrumental years before he joins the band?

Then it’s onto Surfin’ U.S.A. Brian isn’t happy with the sound of the first album, so he gets Capitol to let him produce the next one himself, takes the band back to Western Recorders with Chuck Britz, and starts building a much bigger sounding Beach Boys record.

We get into the title track, including the surprisingly murky question of who is actually playing drums, and follow the song’s family tree through Chuck Berry, Jimmy Bowles and Duane Eddy.

The band also head out on their first proper national tour, although Brian is already discovering that he’d sometimes rather stay home and write songs.

Which brings us to Jan & Dean. Brian refuses to give them Surfin’ U.S.A., hands them another half-finished song instead, and watches Surf City go all the way to number one.

Murry takes it well.

Made In California: A Beach Boys Podcast

A chronological journey through the music, history and strange little corners of The Beach Boys story.

Follow / subscribe:
Find all our podcast and social links via the link in our bio.

Watch more:
Clips, video episodes and Collectors Corner are available on our YouTube channel.

Get in touch:
Questions, corrections, comments, obscure Beach Boys trivia, or just want to say hello?
📧 [email protected]

Follow us:
Instagram: @madeincaliforniapod
TikTok: @madeincalipod
YouTube: Made In California: A Beach Boys Podcast

At last, we have an actual Beach Boys album.

This week we arrive at Surfin’ Safari, the band’s 1962 Capitol debut, and hear a group growing up almost in real time. Dennis Wilson has barely learned to play the drums, Brian is already beginning to take control in the studio, and Murry Wilson may have helped stumble onto part of the early Beach Boys sound.

We also get into the suspiciously neat story of Gary Usher wandering past the right window, Murry’s creative approach to getting DJs on side, the terrifying social pressures of the county fair, the decidedly old-fashioned recording technique behind 409, Mike Love singing notes that don’t quite exist on a piano, and a teenage Carl Wilson already sounding frighteningly capable on guitar.

It’s rough, rushed and occasionally baffling, but you can already hear the ingredients of the band they’re about to become.

Made in California: A Beach Boys Podcast

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How exactly did The Beach Boys become The Beach Boys?

In this episode, we dig into the band’s origin story — the early rehearsals, first songs, first recordings and the various people who helped get things moving. The trouble is, the story gets surprisingly murky surprisingly quickly.

How much of the familiar “official” version is actually true? Do the band members themselves even remember it the same way? And was it The Pendletons, The Pendletones, or something else entirely?

Along the way: conflicting memories, questionable Murray Wilson impressions, and the strange process by which a family group from Hawthorne somehow turned into The Beach Boys.

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Made In California: A Beach Boys Podcast

A chronological journey through the music, history and strange little corners of The Beach Boys story.

Follow / subscribe:Find all our podcast and social links via the link in our bio.

Watch more:Clips, video episodes and Collectors Corner are available on our YouTube channel.

Get in touch:Questions, corrections, comments, obscure Beach Boys trivia, or just want to say hello?📧 [[email protected]]

Follow us:Instagram: @madeincaliforniapodTikTok: @madeincalipodYouTube: Made In California: A Beach Boys Podcast

Before The Beach Boys had their own sound, they were absorbing everything around them.

In this episode, we look at the music Brian, Dennis, Carl, Mike, David and Al grew up with, and how those different influences started to come together.

Using audio examples along the way, we explore some of the individual ingredients that would eventually come together to create the unmistakable sound of The Beach Boys.

We’ve also put together an Early Influences playlist, featuring the music discussed in the episode alongside additional songs and artists we didn’t have time to cover.

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Made In California: A Beach Boys Podcast

A chronological journey through the music, history and strange little corners of The Beach Boys story.

Follow / subscribe:
Find all our podcast and social links via the link in our bio.

Watch more:
Clips, video episodes and Collectors Corner are available on our YouTube channel.

Get in touch:Questions, corrections, comments, obscure Beach Boys trivia, or just want to say hello?
📧 [[email protected]]

Follow us:Instagram: @madeincaliforniapodTikTok: @madeincalipodYouTube: Made In California: A Beach Boys Podcast

Made in California: A Beach Boys Podcast.

The Beach Boys made some of the greatest pop music ever recorded. They also have one of the strangest, funniest and most chaotic stories in popular music.

Made in California is a journey through all of it.

Starting at the very beginning and working chronologically through more than six decades of music, we explore the songs, albums, sessions, personalities and events that made The Beach Boys one of the most fascinating bands of all time — celebrating the extraordinary music while embracing the sheer absurdity of the story surrounding it.

And we're going deeper than the greatest hits. Alongside the main story, we'll pull apart the recordings themselves, diving into individual instruments, vocal parts, arrangements and production techniques to discover how that unmistakable sound was actually made. We'll dig through alternate mixes, obscure releases and the physical records themselves, uncovering the details, oddities and forgotten corners of an enormous catalogue.

But Made in California isn't just for people who already know the difference between SMiLE and Smiley Smile. This is a podcast for anyone who wants to discover why a band so often reduced to surfing, cars and striped shirts deserves to be considered among the most remarkable stories — and greatest bodies of work — in popular music.

Come for the harmonies. Stay for the increasingly inexplicable decisions.