For about a decade, I slogged my way through the highly competitive— and often shady—ad-agency world as the owner of a small music production company called Music By Design. The work could be brutal, but I genuinely loved writing and producing music for commercials and corporate underscores. Take the HBO piece that opens this reel, for example.

The year was 1989. And the hit song that agencies wanted everyone to “borrow from” for their demo submissions? “Love Shack” by The B-52’s, which was sitting at the top of the charts. Naturally, the producers didn’t come right out and say they wanted us to rip off The B-52’s. Instead, they told all the composers to “write something that sounds like it came from the ’60s.”

I decided to take that instruction literally—just not the way they expected.

I hadn’t held a guitar pick in nearly 30 years, so I played with the technique of a 12-year-old, which turned out to be perfect. That was the age when I was learning surf music, especially the sound of The Ventures. So I wrote a surf-style track and packed it with every ’60s cliché I could think of. You’ll hear them loud and clear.

The multitalented keyboardist/programmer/singer Stephen Kay handled the keyboards and stacked the vocals. If you listen closely at the tail end of the track, you’ll hear a sample drifting off—teenagers partying on the beach, straight out of a lost summer movie.