Post by Edith Grove on Feb 22nd, 2011 at 6:53am
IT'S MONKEE BUSINESS AGAIN!
The Monkees are set to tour Britain this year - 45 years after they first formed
Tuesday February 22,2011
By Adam Edwards
Here they come, walking down the street … 45 years after they first formed the original TV boy band are back – and they are touring Britain this year
In 1966 Britain ruled the airwaves. We had knocked the US off its rock and roll perch with our pop groups – first and foremost The Beatles but also The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Kinks and The Hollies. So America took a leaf out of our book. A group of actors and musicians were brought together for an American network TV show modelled on The Beatles’ film A Hard Day’s Night.
With the show came a soundtrack album that shot to the top of the charts in both the UK and the US. Within a year the band had outsold The Beatles and The Stones combined. Their name? The Monkees.
Here was a phenomenon that nobody had predicted – a manufactured boy band that became for a short time the most successful pop act on the planet. So much so that Jimi Hendrix was once their opening act (dropped after complaints that his act was too erotic). John Lennon called them “the Marx Brothers of rock”. You could even argue that without them there would have been no Take That, Boyzone or JLS. Even the Sex Pistols, who were created by Malcolm McLaren, included a Monkees song, (I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone, in their repertoire.
Yesterday it was announced that three of the four Monkees, Britishborn Davy Jones plus Mickey Dolenz and Peter Tork, have reformed to celebrate their 45th anniversary and will tour the UK this spring. Only Mike Nesmith – the one with the woolly bobble hat – will be missing.
“At first The Monkees were seen as a poor imitation of The Beatles, particularly in the UK,” says Peter Buckley in his book Rough Guide To Rock.
“They weren’t a proper band who had grown up together and played together. They were strangers who could sing a bit.”
It was a 1965 advertisement in the daily show business newspaper Variety that prompted 437 hopefuls to audition for a TV show about four young men sharing a carefree lifestyle. The format of the show, the first of its kind, involved the day-to-day adventures of a pop group obviously modelled on The Beatles. The music was written and performed by session musicians.
The first episode aired the following year and became an almost instant hit. The songs from the show were put on to an album, called with perhaps a slight lack of originality The Monkees, but which nonetheless became a bestseller around the world with such chart-toppers as Last Train To Clarksville and I’m a Believer.
Merchandising was not slow to follow – from a Monkee Talking Hand Puppet to Monkee toy wallets and pencil cases. Davy Jones became a teenage pin-up – the Justin Bieber of his day – while the others all had large followings and their own fan clubs. A second No1 album followed, which musically had almost nothing to do with the band. However its success put enormous pressure on them to play live. Eventually they would do so – but only after it was revealed that they had not played their instruments on their albums.
“The press went into full-scale war against us,” said Mike Nesmith later. “They said that The Monkees were four guys who had no credits, no credibility whatsoever and have been trying to trick us into believing they are a rock band. It was not true but it stuck.”
By 1968 viewing figures for the second TV series began to drop and after 58 episodes the show was cancelled. A year later Peter Tork announced he was leaving. The Monkees released two albums as a trio, neither of which was particularly successful, and finally in 1970 they were reduced to a duo, Mickey Dolenz and Davy Jones.
“The Monkees have been dismissed as the work of a bunch of hired hands,” said Buckley. “But their records are celebrated by many as the pinnacle of trash culture, mixing poppy psychedelic with catchy folk rock. Almost by accident they were a credible band – although the band was never going to make it with the rock crowd.”
They did make one last effort to be taken seriously with the production of the feature film called Head, co-written by the actor Jack Nicholson. It was a dig at hippy culture and had a cast that included boxer Sonny Liston and rock star Frank Zappa. But neither the film nor the soundtrack album was a success.
And that might have been that with The Monkees forgotten like so many other Sixties and Seventies bands. But their undeniably catchy tunes and, most important of all, endless repeats of their hit TV show kept them in the public’s memory.
In 1986, five years after the birth of music channel MTV, the station ran a 24-hour Monkees Special. It sparked a huge interest among a new generation of pop fans. It led Tork, Jones and Dolenz to get back together for a 20th anniversary tour. Nesmith, who had been more disillusioned than the others by the whole Monkees experience in the Sixties, refused to take part. The band later re-issued on all its old albums on CD which all made it into the American charts again.
“The MTV generation loved the Monkees re-runs,” said Buckley. “It has been said that the Monkees were the first MTV band. And certainly they began the idea in the Sixties – albeit accidentally – of using a music video as promotion and the marketing of a TV show to pre-teen audiences.”
Now 45 years after the group was first manufactured, Jones, Dolenz and Tork are to tour once more, with dates lined up at numerous UK venues this May, including Liverpool, Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham and London’s Royal Albert Hall. Nesmith continues to refuse to rejoin the band.
“Mike Nesmith is not an entertainer in the sense that Mickey, Peter and I are,” said Jones last year. “He has his back to the audience half the time. He’s a brilliant businessman but as a person he’s very aloof and separate.”
They may have been created by television executives and their musical reputation may be a bit suspect, even though the film Head and the album from it are now regarded as cult classics.
However anyone who ever sang along to that catchy Monkees theme tune will be delighted to hear that here they come, walking down the street all over again.
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/230515/It-s-Monkee-business-again-/It-s-Monkee-business-again-#ixzz1EgviNe4A
The Monkees are set to tour Britain this year - 45 years after they first formed
Tuesday February 22,2011
By Adam Edwards
Here they come, walking down the street … 45 years after they first formed the original TV boy band are back – and they are touring Britain this year
In 1966 Britain ruled the airwaves. We had knocked the US off its rock and roll perch with our pop groups – first and foremost The Beatles but also The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Kinks and The Hollies. So America took a leaf out of our book. A group of actors and musicians were brought together for an American network TV show modelled on The Beatles’ film A Hard Day’s Night.
With the show came a soundtrack album that shot to the top of the charts in both the UK and the US. Within a year the band had outsold The Beatles and The Stones combined. Their name? The Monkees.
Here was a phenomenon that nobody had predicted – a manufactured boy band that became for a short time the most successful pop act on the planet. So much so that Jimi Hendrix was once their opening act (dropped after complaints that his act was too erotic). John Lennon called them “the Marx Brothers of rock”. You could even argue that without them there would have been no Take That, Boyzone or JLS. Even the Sex Pistols, who were created by Malcolm McLaren, included a Monkees song, (I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone, in their repertoire.
Yesterday it was announced that three of the four Monkees, Britishborn Davy Jones plus Mickey Dolenz and Peter Tork, have reformed to celebrate their 45th anniversary and will tour the UK this spring. Only Mike Nesmith – the one with the woolly bobble hat – will be missing.
“At first The Monkees were seen as a poor imitation of The Beatles, particularly in the UK,” says Peter Buckley in his book Rough Guide To Rock.
“They weren’t a proper band who had grown up together and played together. They were strangers who could sing a bit.”
It was a 1965 advertisement in the daily show business newspaper Variety that prompted 437 hopefuls to audition for a TV show about four young men sharing a carefree lifestyle. The format of the show, the first of its kind, involved the day-to-day adventures of a pop group obviously modelled on The Beatles. The music was written and performed by session musicians.
The first episode aired the following year and became an almost instant hit. The songs from the show were put on to an album, called with perhaps a slight lack of originality The Monkees, but which nonetheless became a bestseller around the world with such chart-toppers as Last Train To Clarksville and I’m a Believer.
Merchandising was not slow to follow – from a Monkee Talking Hand Puppet to Monkee toy wallets and pencil cases. Davy Jones became a teenage pin-up – the Justin Bieber of his day – while the others all had large followings and their own fan clubs. A second No1 album followed, which musically had almost nothing to do with the band. However its success put enormous pressure on them to play live. Eventually they would do so – but only after it was revealed that they had not played their instruments on their albums.
“The press went into full-scale war against us,” said Mike Nesmith later. “They said that The Monkees were four guys who had no credits, no credibility whatsoever and have been trying to trick us into believing they are a rock band. It was not true but it stuck.”
By 1968 viewing figures for the second TV series began to drop and after 58 episodes the show was cancelled. A year later Peter Tork announced he was leaving. The Monkees released two albums as a trio, neither of which was particularly successful, and finally in 1970 they were reduced to a duo, Mickey Dolenz and Davy Jones.
“The Monkees have been dismissed as the work of a bunch of hired hands,” said Buckley. “But their records are celebrated by many as the pinnacle of trash culture, mixing poppy psychedelic with catchy folk rock. Almost by accident they were a credible band – although the band was never going to make it with the rock crowd.”
They did make one last effort to be taken seriously with the production of the feature film called Head, co-written by the actor Jack Nicholson. It was a dig at hippy culture and had a cast that included boxer Sonny Liston and rock star Frank Zappa. But neither the film nor the soundtrack album was a success.
And that might have been that with The Monkees forgotten like so many other Sixties and Seventies bands. But their undeniably catchy tunes and, most important of all, endless repeats of their hit TV show kept them in the public’s memory.
In 1986, five years after the birth of music channel MTV, the station ran a 24-hour Monkees Special. It sparked a huge interest among a new generation of pop fans. It led Tork, Jones and Dolenz to get back together for a 20th anniversary tour. Nesmith, who had been more disillusioned than the others by the whole Monkees experience in the Sixties, refused to take part. The band later re-issued on all its old albums on CD which all made it into the American charts again.
“The MTV generation loved the Monkees re-runs,” said Buckley. “It has been said that the Monkees were the first MTV band. And certainly they began the idea in the Sixties – albeit accidentally – of using a music video as promotion and the marketing of a TV show to pre-teen audiences.”
Now 45 years after the group was first manufactured, Jones, Dolenz and Tork are to tour once more, with dates lined up at numerous UK venues this May, including Liverpool, Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham and London’s Royal Albert Hall. Nesmith continues to refuse to rejoin the band.
“Mike Nesmith is not an entertainer in the sense that Mickey, Peter and I are,” said Jones last year. “He has his back to the audience half the time. He’s a brilliant businessman but as a person he’s very aloof and separate.”
They may have been created by television executives and their musical reputation may be a bit suspect, even though the film Head and the album from it are now regarded as cult classics.
However anyone who ever sang along to that catchy Monkees theme tune will be delighted to hear that here they come, walking down the street all over again.
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/230515/It-s-Monkee-business-again-/It-s-Monkee-business-again-#ixzz1EgviNe4A
