When I was a kid MTV aired a
marathon of a television show that rocked my world. On February 23, 1986, MTV aired a marathon of
The Monkees television show. I had never
seen The Monkees before. I’d only heard
of them via the oldies station that my old man forced down my throat in the car
in lieu of me and my brother getting to listen to anything contemporary. I only knew of Davy Jones from his episode of
The Brady Bunch. To say that I was
transfixed was an understatement. Before
me were four cool guys, who drove a cool car, lived in a cool pad, had zany
adventures, and sang cool songs that sounded an awful lot like my beloved
Beatles. In next to no time Micky, Davy,
Peter and Mike would become synonymous for me along with John, Paul, George and
Ringo.
That marathon started a resurgence
for The Monkees. Soon the Monkees were
being broadcast in syndication nationwide.
The group reformed (sans Michael Nesmith) and toured to sold-out shows
across America. My twelve year old self
woke up by nine or ten every day that summer to watch The Monkees and sit there
with my boom box ready to record, from the TV, whatever song played during the
show’s ubiquitous montage. By summer’s
end I had a tape full of Monkees songs along with snippets of the show that I
would listen to over and over again until RCA wised up and began re-releasing
their albums on record and tape.
One of the things The Monkees get
slagged off for is that they were a manufactured band created for a television show. And while that may be true it discounts the
contribution that the band made to their recordings in the studio. From the first album there were songs written
by members of the band, and members of the Monkees, primarily Michael Nesmith
and Peter Tork, contributed to the music on the albums. Most specifically The Monkees were at their
most band-like on their hard-fought-for third album, Headquarters.
Headquarters was released in 1967
and was the first Monkees album to feature significant songwriting and
instrumental performances by the group.
The Monkees sang AND played on the album. Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork handled the
guitar work, and Tork handled the keyboards and pianos. Micky Dolenz took his place behind the drums,
and Davy Jones handled all other percussion.
Bass was provided by Chip Douglas, a former member of The Turtles, who
was asked by Nesmith to produce the album.
Seven songs on the fourteen-song album are either written or co-written
by one of The Monkees, and one song, No Time, was written by all-four Monkees
but credited to their sound engineer Hank Cicalo.
Sadly the experiment in turning Pinocchio
into a real boy didn’t work. By The
Monkees fourth album, Pieces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones, the collective group
was heading back toward entering the studio as individuals to dub their voices
over pre-recorded tracks, or to simply add their own instrumental part to a
song selected and/or written by one of The Monkees.
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