BILLY JOEL played a number of secret small club dates in July recorded by Columbia Records for an upcoming live album. His visit to Washington, D.C. was announced on the local radio only an hour before tickets went on sale at midafternoon; all 400 seats were snapped up by a few listeners in another hour. Some of the fortunates scalped their tickets for up to $50 per. Summer in D.C. can do that to people.

THE BEACH BOYS were also recorded live in the Nation's Capital this summer, but their arrangements were a bit more extravagant: a British TV production crew and a Fourth of July audience of 425,000 under sunny skies on the Washington Monument grounds. There were fireworks afterward, naturally. The videotape will be released worldwide in 1981 as part of a Beach Boys 20th anniversary celebration, and the Boys have ambitious plans of their own for the big Two Zero. Mike Love has told reporters the band will play in Copenhagen, London, Washington, Los Angeles and Honolulu, all on the Fourth of July next. Sounds like they'll need a Concorde for transport between shows. Is sonic boom surfing just around the corner?