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From: eli@uw-june.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Re: The Monkees
Message-ID: <1357@uw-june>
Date: Tue, 1-May-84 19:37:20 EDT
Article-I.D.: uw-june.1357
Posted: Tue May  1 19:37:20 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 2-May-84 06:22:25 EDT
References: <416@opus.UUCP>
Organization: U. Washington, Computer Sci
Lines: 57

While I can't argue with Mr. Dunn's assertion that The Monkees were pre-
fab'd to cash in on The Beatles' popularity, I certainly disagree that
those of us who were listening back then are trying to forget them.

Quite to the contrary, a good number of people are working to get most of
The Monkees' records back in distribution.  All of their Lp's (including
the latter ones without Tork, and later without Tork or Nesmith) are cur-
rently available as Japanese imports, and Rhino Records in Los Angeles is
busy issuing Monkees' compilations.  Arista Records in Australia also
issued an excellent 2-Lp compilation a few years ago.

To dismiss The Monkees solely because they were manufactured is to miss a
good deal of the point.  First, they were manufactured in a way that has
really yet to be duplicated:  The 'project' invloved some of the very finest
pop songwriters of the day, as well as the best studio musicians and producers.

The first two "Monkees" albums, while not using the instrumental talents of
the four Monkees, did include an incredible number of pop gems, nicely per-
formed and produced.  Both of these albums also displayed the songwriting
talents within the band (Nesmith especially).

After the second LP the situation changed.  At a press conference, Nesmith,
who had had a good deal of previous musical experience (releasing singles
under the name of Michael Blessing), let it be known that the four were
being prevented from playing on their LP's.  From that point on (the third
LP, "Headquarters"), the four Monkees actually did perform the bulk of the
instrumental work on their albums, and credited the auxilliary studio mus-
icians that were used.

Apparently they were all hired to be actors for the television series--
they all went through auditions (and weren't just picked off of the street).
An interesting sidelight is that Peter Tork heard of the interview from
his roommate who was turned down due to bad teeth... the roommate being
Stephen Stills.  It seems however that the musical talent of at least one
of the members (Nesmith) couldn't help but come through and steer the
band away from being complete puppets.

Their live shows were much more than getting a bunch of large amplifiers
and ka-razy looking instruments... in fact the show was usually done in
segments, aimed at highlighting each of the four Monkees' talents.  Thus
Tork would come out and play some banjo, Dolenz his James Brown routine,
Jones would serenade the pre-teens, and Nesmith would play some country,
each with a backing band that was on-stage (i.e. not hidden behind a
curtain).  At the end of the show the four of them would play with the
backing band as they performed the "Monkees" hits.

There is much more to the "Monkees Story" than simple manufacturing and
manipulation.  To directly compare them to some of today's image-manufactured
bands seems to me to be rather short cited.

... uw-june!eli

PS.  Remember, for good or bad, Michael Nesmith almost single handedly
created the music-video boom.  His "Pop Clips" show on the cable Nickel-
odian network was the basis for MTV.  (Let us also not forget his solo
work with the 1st and 2nd Natl. Band, the Prison project, The Witchita
Train Whistle Sings LP, ...)