GOOD VIBRATIONS: BEACH BOYS BRINGING CALIFORNIA GOOD TIMES TO HOUCK STADIUM

For male Midwestern teen-agers in the early 1960s, California was the Promised Land where life was an endless summer filled with surfing, cruising and girls in bikinis. How did they know that? The Beach Boys told them so.

"We often have people tell us we were the reason they moved to California," says Mike Love, one of the band's founding members.

Songs like "Surfin' U.S.A.," "Surfin' Safari," "Surfer Girl," "Little Deuce Coupe," "California Girls," "Fun, Fun, Fun," "Good Vibrations" and "I Get Around" described a carefree, innocent lifestyle that still appeals to people nearly 40 years later.

The Beach Boys will perform Saturday at Houck Stadium at the conclusion of Southeast Missouri State University's 6 p.m. football game against Eastern Kentucky University. The entertainment is part of Family Weekend at the university.

The Beach Boys were formed in the Los Angeles suburb of Hawthorne in 1961 by brothers Brian, Carl and Dennis Wilson, their cousin, Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine.

In a telephone interview from New York City earlier this week, Love said not all of the Beach Boys were surfers but some -- including him -- were.

Though instrumental bands were playing songs already identified as "surf music," the Beach Boys were the first to sing about surfing.

"We were taking inspiration from the life we were living and had lived in Southern California," Love says.

The band's distinctive sound simply was a product of its range of voices, he said. Brian sang the distinctive high parts and Love took care of the bottom.

The term "good vibrations," used to describe positive feelings about a member of the opposite sex, entered the lexicon thanks to the Beach Boys.

Because their songs were about hot rods and girls and hanging out at the beach, some critics didn't take their music seriously at first. But then the Beatles' album "Rubber Soul" inspired Beach Boys' musical einstein Brian Wilson to create "Pet Sounds." This was an album of sophisticated instrumentation and harmonies layered on top of introspective songs like "God Only Knows" and "If You Believed in Me" along with the pleasingly melodic "Wouldn't It Be Nice" and "Sloop John B."

Paul McCartney has said "Pet Sounds" challenged the Beatles to create "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," perhaps rock's greatest album.

"It was kind of like the arms race between the Russians and the United States," Love says.

He is not shy about proclaiming the Beach Boys' place in rock n' roll history.

"If there was a Mount Rushmore of rock 'n' roll, the Beach Boys would be up there with John, Paul, George and Ringo," he says. "We have carved a niche that has lasted for a long time."

On July 4, 1984, they played before more than 750,000 at the Washington Monument. First Lady Nancy Reagan personally invited them to play a year after then-Secretary of the Interior James Watt had banned rock 'n' roll and thus them from the 1983 Fourth of July celebration.

Perhaps that was the moment they became "America's Band."

The Wilson influence in the Beach Boys has diminished over the decades. Brian has battled depression through the years and joins the band on tour only infrequently.

Dennis, the band's drummer, drowned in 1983, and Carl died of cancer last year. But the Beach Boys carry on.

Keyboardist Bruce Johnston joined in 1965 when Brian quit touring. Guitarist David Marks, who had been with the band early on, rejoined this year. With Love, they form the nucleus of the band that still remains.

Love now lives near Lake Tahoe in Northern California and spend much more time in a hot tub than the ocean. Johnston still surfs but prefers exotic locales like Costa Rica.

They California dream may have faded in the face of overcrowding and riots. But it still exists in the heart of anyone who comes to a Beach Boys concert to have "fun, fun, fun until my daddy takes the T-bird away."