"Wipe Out" by The Fat Boys with The Beach Boys

 

        Hey friends, if you haven’t noticed (and shame on you if you haven’t…), it’s SUMMER! The season for sunshine, blue skies, gnarly waves, and collaborations between rap trios and surf rock pioneers… wait… what??? Yep, the Dial happily brings you one of the most campy and undeniably fun forgotten hits of the 1980s… Crank up your boom-box as The Fat Boys and The Beach Boys take on the surf classic “Wipe Out”!

“For three years straight, we toured the nation… when got through, we needed a vacation…”

Featured on The Fat Boys 1987 LP “Crushin’” (and later on The Beach Boys’ 1989 LP “Still Cruisin’”), “Wipe Out” peaked at US #12 pop, and US #10 R&B, and also scored quite high across the pond at UK #2.

Produced by Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys, and featuring new rap lyrics for the verses and pop harmonies for the chorus, the unusual collaboration also features Dweezil Zappa shredding the guitar.

Wipe Out proved to be the biggest pop crossover hit for The Fat Boys, as their only other US top 40 showing would soon follow with 1988’s “The Twist (Yo, Twist)”, (US #16), which featured Chubby Checker on a cover of his original “The Twist” from 1962. Of course, this repeated the formula of pairing the rap trio with an oldies act on a cover of a classic tune.

The original Wipe Out, a US #2 smash in 1963, was an instrumental by The Surfaris. The iconic surf rock classic also charted highly on a 1966 re-release at US #16. It was even reissued a second time in 1970, but it only bubbled under at US #110 on that release.

“We wanted to party and get a little rest… so we packed our things and headed out west…”

The new lyrics tell of The Fat Boys’ vacation to the beach, whereupon they cross paths with The Beach Boys, and the two groups end up rocking out in an impromptu jam on the classic surf song. This makes me wonder what happened after “Wipe Out” ended… did the two groups continue to hang out at this beach party and do versions of each other’s tunes? Could The Fat Boys have tackled “Help Me Rhonda”? Maybe The Beach Boys worked up a version of “Jail House Rap”? The mind reels!

The video clip for “Wipe Out” is one of the greatest intentionally campy videos I’ve ever seen. Clearly everybody involved was having a blast. We see the two groups mixing it up in a boxing ring, The Beach Boys acting as rappers, wearing LL COOL J style Kangol hats and scratching on a turn table, The Fat Boys dreaming that they are great surfers, volleyballers, and weight lifters, and Beach Boy Bruce Johnston mugging for a doorman.

Yeah, I can see this being deriding as cheesy, but I like light-hearted fun, “party rap” like this. In the 90s, things took a dark turn with the whole East Coast vs West Coast rap feud, the deaths of 2Pac and Biggie, profanity in nearly every rap song, etc… so I like to revisit a time when hip hop was fun and light hearted.

“There was sand and sun and lots of sun… but when we got there the fun really begun!”

It’s interesting to note that the order of the two acts’ names is listed differently depending upon what copy of the song you owned. On the Still Cruisin’ LP, the song is credited to “The Beach Boys with The Fat Boys”. On Crushin’, it is credited solely as a Fat Boys release, but in the small print credits, we see: “Extra special thanks to The Beach Boys for appearing on Wipeout”.

On the single, the artists are listed as The Fat Boys with The Beach Boys. Surely this was some sort of legal arrangement between the two record labels (Polydor for the Fat Boys, and Capitol for the Beach Boys) as to where and which act would get top billing.

“So we cut on the box, and started to shout…

It was the Beach Boys rocking huh-huh, the Wipe Out!”

Sadly, we lost Darren “The Human Beat Box” Robinson on 12/10/95, as he succumbed to a heart attack at the age of 28. A tragic loss for the world of music and fans of ‘80s pop culture alike.

But the two remaining Fat Boys have soldered on. Mark Morales “Prince Markie Dee” has continued as a songwriter, producer and radio deejay, and though Darren Wimbley “Kool Rock-Ski” has kept a lower profile, he has periodically reunited with Morales as The Fat Boys.

The Beach Boys of course, are still popular draws on the oldies tour circuit, and they followed Wipe Out with their only #1 hit single of the 1980s, the platinum selling “Cocktail” movie soundtrack extraction “Kokomo”.

 

Interestingly, after over 20 years of singles chart absence, and despite the crushing loss of founding member Carl Wilson to lung cancer on February 6 1998 at the age of 51, the remaining bandmates, Mike Love, Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston, and Brian Wilson returned in 2012 with the hit tune “That’s Why God Made the Radio”, which hit #30 on the US Adult Contemporary singles chart, and #16 on the US Hot Singles Sales chart.

“We was partying hard making lots of noise,
when around the corner come the real Beach Boys…
So we all jumped up and started to shout…
“Let’s all sing the song called the Wipeout.”

So what exactly would the modern day equivalent to this collaboration be? It would have to be a current hip hop act working with a critically acclaimed rock group from two decades prior, covering an instrumental from an earlier era of pop music. How about Wiz Khalifa and The Smashing Pumpkins doing a vocal cover of Van McCoy’s “The Hustle”? Ehhh… maybe not.

All jokes aside... Wipe Out is a great slice of goofy, exuberant summertime pop, one that sounded great in ’88, and one that probably could have only come out of that era. Despite the unlikely pairing of two very different groups, together, ALL the boys... Fat, and Beach, created an upbeat hit that succeeds in making for a fun listen.

Give it a spin, and try to stop the smile from creeping on your face!

“Wipin’ out, wipe out… Wipin’ out, wipe out… wah wah wah…

Hey watch out… wah wah wah…. Wipin’ out, wipe out”

 



"Where Were You When I Needed You" by The Triplets

   Hello friends! It’s the beginning of the month, and with that, another overlooked song and corresponding review has been posted on the ever lovin’ blog! Today’s tune should’ve had a shot at the hot 100, but as it remained an album cut, most pop music fans never heard it. Stay tuned for Latin American sisters The Triplets, and their 1991 tune “Where Were You When I Needed You”.

“Don’t bother cryin’, don’t bother crawlin’… It’s all over now, no use in stallin…”

Diana, Sylvia, and Vicky Villegas, actual triplets who hail from San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, first made waves in the U.S. by winning the 1986 MTV Basement Contest for their song “Boys”, which led to a contract with Elektra Records and the release of an English language EP entitled “Break the Silence”.

The sisters’ first full length album, 1991's “… Thicker Than Water” (yes, the album’s official name begins with the ellipsis, but I will omit that for the ease of reading throughout this article) contained “Where Were You...”, a cover of a minor top 40 entry by The Grass Roots (US #28) from 1966. 

Written by the songwriting team of P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri, “Where Were You” is a “kiss off” to a prior lover that the singer wants no part of anymore. The song is a bit deceptive, because Diana, Sylvia, and Vicky harmonize sweetly on the track, but there exists an anger and frustration toward the former love interest that bubbles just below the pop sheen.

I was expecting that this tune would be the follow up single to the girls’ US #14 uptempo charter “You Don't Have to Go Home Tonight”, the only sizable hit from this LP, but the remake was destined to remain an album cut.

“The love I once felt, I don’t feel anymore for you… this time, I’ll even open the door for you.”

I had no idea this was a cover when I first heard The Triplets LP playing in store at the Square Circle record store at which I was a cashier. Even though I was well versed in “oldies” pop tunes by this time, and I was already a fan of The Grass Roots, especially “Midnight Confessions” (#5 / ‘68) and “Temptation Eyes” (#15 / ‘70), I had never heard the original version of “Where Were You”. XTRA 104 (my local oldies station) wasn’t playing this lower charting single, so as a result, the very first version of the song I heard was courtesy of The Triplets. So even though I have since learned of the song's history, my ears still hear their version as the “original”.

“Livin’ with you, is worse than without you, I won’t spend a lifetime worrying about you…”

Interestingly enough, "Where Were You" was also covered by The Bangles as the B-side to their 1984 single "Hero Takes a Fall". Had I heard the Bangles recording first, I certainly would have assumed that The Triplets were covering Suzannah Hoffs and her bandmates! On a related note, I’d love to hear the Villegas sisters cover the Bangles’ hit “Walking Down Your Street”. That would be cool.

So take a listen below, and enjoy the beauteous Villegas sisters’ rendition of this overlooked ‘60s pop nugget. And be sure to check back in about two weeks, when the Dial will bring you another classic tune that is rarely heard anymore - a late ‘80s summertime party jam that unites a then-contemporary hip hop act with a pioneering ‘60s pop and rock group. But you gotta wait until the review is posted!

Kyle’s Radio Dial… the more you listen… the MORE you remember!

“Where were you when I needed you…

Where were you when I wanted you…

Where were you when I needed you…

Where….”