Susan Playmate

To bridge the gap between volumes of “Where The Girls Are”, my oppo Malcolm Baumgart and I have taken Stephen J McParland’s recent book Bikinis, Black Denim & Bitchen Sounds* as our inspiration to concoct this fun new diversion to tide girl group buffs over. It’ll plug a few gaps in the collections of aficionados of surf, drag and hot rod music too, no doubt. The influence of California’s Beach Boys permeates “Hey, Beach Girls!” as it did the world of music in 1963. Brian Wilson and his cohorts had not long vacated the Top 3 with ‘Surfin’ USA’ when an opportunist East Coast record company exec with his eye on the latest pop fads dreamed up a plan to grab a piece of the action. Foisting the Surfer Girls moniker on a new teenage duo, he ushered them into the studio to parlay ‘Draggin’ Wagon’ to the very same tune. Meanwhile, over in Paris, France’s top girl group Les Gam’s flipped over the same Beach Boys platter to give ‘Shut Down’ their distinctive yé-yé treatment.