The weekend music thread

[Stans]

It's been a while since we've done one of these. It seems pretty dead around here, so let's get things started with some southern rock. Here is 38 Special with their 1982 hit, So Caught Up In You.

[mikew]

Is that Ronald McDonald on lead guitar?

Didn't know you could embed Vevo tracks...let's try

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7R7q1lSZfs

[Donster]

.38 Special, great band and 'Caught Up In You' a great hit!

Sorry to intrude, but I am going to take you back to a more innocent time. A more innocent band and song I'd say. Life was easier, raising children was better and safer. And since it's Saturday, and yesterday so many innocent children in a Kindergarten class had their lives stolen from them, I felt that this was a good time to go back to a more innocent time. The time I grew up in. We never feared strangers, never locked the house. Everyone cared and watched over everyone else's kids.

"Saturday's Child" - The Monkees - Release Date: October 1966

http://youtu.be/FT1nZGmUnrY

Rest in Peace Sandy Hook Elementary School kids and also those adults that died too.

[Stans]

There was little to fear when I grew up too. Now, you send children off to school and they might never return home. I don't have any answers, just a heart filled with sadness.

[Achmed]

This Infidel music will soon be outlawed by the New and Improved New World Order®!

Hail Emperor! Hail to the New and Improved New World Order®! Hail King Obama!

[No105_Archie]

never liked the Monkees much ..was always a Stones kinda gut...but had to learn to play Daydream Believer and Last Train to Clarksville etc to play for sock hops

[Stans]

Did the Monkees ever actually play instruments?

[Donster]

Did the Monkees ever actually play instruments?

For the first few months of their almost five-year initial career, the four actor-musicians were only allowed limited roles in the recording studio. This was due in part to the excessive time spent filming the TV series, which in turn limited the amount of time available to the group to rehearse and coalesce as a band. Nonetheless, Nesmith did compose and produce some songs from the beginning, and Peter Tork contributed limited guitar work on the Nesmith-produced sessions. They soon fought for and earned the right to collectively supervise all musical output under the band's name. Although the sitcom was canceled in 1968, the band continued to record music through 1971.

On the first studio album "The Monkees" (1966), the boys didn't play instruments in the studio. They did the lead vocals and back up vocals. Instruments were played by studio musicians, some famous musicians playing were Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, they also did some back up vocals (Boyce on Saturday's Child) with Dolentz singing lead), Neil Sedaka and Glenn Campbell. Boyce/Hart also wrote a number of songs for The Monkees, as did David Gates (Saturday's Child), Carole King/Gerry Goffin, Neil Diamond, Neil Sedaka/Carole Bayer.

In assigning instruments for purposes of the television show, a dilemma arose as to which of the four would be the drummer. Both Nesmith, a skilled guitarist and bassist, and Tork, who could play several stringed and keyboard instruments, were peripherally familiar with the instrument but both declined to give the drum set a try. Jones, who did know how to play drums, tested well enough initially as a drummer, but the producers felt that the camera would exaggerate his short stature and make him virtually hidden from view. Thus, Dolenz (who only knew how to play the guitar) was assigned to become the drummer. Tork taught Dolenz his first few beats on the drums, enough for him to fake his way through filming the pilot, but Dolenz was soon taught how to play properly. Thus, the lineup for the TV show most frequently featured Nesmith on guitar, Tork on bass, Dolenz on drums, and Jones as a frontman, singer, and percussionist. This, however, is the exact opposite of the lineup which would have made the most sense based upon the Monkees' respective musical strengths; i.e.: Tork is actually a better guitar player than Nesmith, and while Jones' voice was certainly distinctive, Dolenz's voice is regarded[who?] as one of the most distinctive in popular music history and the hallmark of the Monkees' sound. This theoretical lineup was actually depicted once, in the music video for the band's song "Words", which shows Jones on drums, Tork playing lead guitar, Nesmith on bass and Dolenz fronting the group. In concert appearances, Tork also took much of the guitar duties, even in appearances with Nesmith, and Dolenz often plays rhythm guitar on stage.

Their second album, "More Of The Monkees" (1967) was more of the same studio musicians playing due to time constraints of the group having to spend most of their time at the television studio, or making public appearances. It is not because they couldn't play.

Pleased with their initial efforts, Columbia (over Kirshner's objections) planned to send the Monkees out to play live concerts. The massive success of the series - and its spin-off records - created intense pressure to mount a touring version of the group. Against the initial wishes of the producers, Dolenz, Jones, Nesmith, and Tork went out on the road and made their debut live performance in December 1966 in Hawaii.

The band had no time to rehearse a live performance except between takes on set. They worked on the TV series all day, recorded in the studio at night, and slept very little. The weekends were usually filled with special appearances or filming of special sequences.

These performances were sometimes used during the actual series. The episode "Too Many Girls (Fern and Davy)" opens with a live version of "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone" being performed as the scene was shot. One entire episode was filmed featuring live music. The last show of the premiere season, "Monkees on Tour", was shot in a documentary style by filming a concert in Phoenix, Arizona on January 21, 1967. Bob Rafelson wrote and directed the episode.

In DVD commentary tracks included in the Season One release, Nesmith admitted that Tork was better at playing guitar than bass. In Tork's commentary, he stated that Jones was a good drummer and had the live performance lineups been based solely on playing ability, it should have been Tork on guitar, Nesmith on bass, and Jones on drums, with Dolenz taking the fronting role. The four Monkees performed all the instruments and vocals for most of the live set. The most notable exceptions were during each member's solo sections where, during the December 1966 – May 1967 tour, they were backed by the Candy Store Prophets. During the summer 1967 tour of the United States and the UK (from which the Live 1967 recordings are taken), they were backed by a band called The Sundowners. In 1968, the Monkees toured Australia and Japan.

The results were far better than expected. Wherever they went, the group was greeted by scenes of fan adulation reminiscent of Beatlemania. This gave the singers increased confidence in their fight for control over the musical material chosen for the series.

With Jones sticking primarily to vocals and tambourine (except when filling in on the drums when Dolenz came forward to sing a lead vocal), the Monkees' live act constituted a classic power trio of electric guitar, electric bass, and drums (except when Tork passed the bass part to Jones or one of the Sundowners in order to take up the banjo or electric keyboards).

[No105_Archie]

Wow Donnie...you know a lot about these guys. I knew that Mike was a skilled guitar player and writer and that Peter was able to play as well but did not know the other guys could play at all.

[Donster]

They were the first Rock band I followed as a kid. My older sister was a big Beatles fan, and that is probably why I didn't care for them as much. Though I did like their early music when they first hit the scene. I started to really hate them later on as they came out with "Yellow Submarine" and "Hey Jude". Never was a big Elvis Presley fan either. My oldest brother was an Elvis fan in the very early 1960's, and I would wake up every morning to Elvis records playing from my brothers room.

Both Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones were actors before they were hired to be in The Monkees TV show.

Micky Dolenz began his show business career in 1956 when he starred in a children’s show called Circus Boy under the name Mickey Braddock. In the show, he played an orphaned boy who is the water boy for the elephants in a one-ring circus at the start of the 20th century. The program ran for three years, after which Dolenz made sporadic appearances on network TV shows and pursued his education. He also played guitar and sang with obscure rock and roll bands, including one called The Missing Links.

Davy Jones began his acting career, appearing on the British television soap opera "Coronation Street". He also appeared in the BBC police series "Z-Cars". He was cast in the role as the Artful Dodger a production of Oliver!' in London's West End, a move which consequently changed the course of Jones' life forever. He played the role in London and then on Broadway and was nominated for a Tony Award. On 9 February 1964, he appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show with Georgia Brown who was playing Nancy in the Broadway production of 'Oliver!'. This was the same episode of the show in which the Beatles made their first appearance. Jones said of that night, "I watched the Beatles from the side of the stage, I saw the girls going crazy, and I said to myself, this is it, I want a piece of that!" Following his Ed Sullivan appearance, Jones signed a contract with Ward Sylvester of Screen Gems (then the television division of Columbia Pictures). A pair of American television appearances followed, as Jones received screen time in episodes of Ben Casey and The Farmer's Daughter.

I still have the original albums that I bought as a kid, the years they were released in the original covers. Yeah, I guess you could say I am a "Closet Monkee". People put their music down just because of their beginnings and the corny TV show. But they had some excellent young writers, who all would go on to make big names for themselves. Did you know that Jimi Hendrix was The Monkees opening act for 6 or 7 dates on U.S. leg of their concert tour in 1967?

[Stans]

Ok, that explains a lot about the Monkees and since you have demonstrated superior knowledge of the subject, does that mean you are a Monkee and have finally come out of the closet?

So they actually were musicians, but the tv show producers assigned them to instruments not based on talent, but how they looked on camera. That's Hollywood thinking at its finest. Nice to know that they actually were musical performers and not lip/instrument synch artists.

By the way, I enjoyed their music too.

Probably my favorite Monkees song.

[Donster]

Yeah, I wasn't a teenage Monkee, I was a prepubescent Monkee. I was like those young Monkeys that tend to fall out of the trees often and land on their heads. Explains a lot about me, doesn't it?

[Stans]

Yes, yes it does.

[mikew]

What the hell is up with Csim today? I come to this site to escape 'vintage pussy'.

While I like 'Daydream Believer', I thought the only claim to fame to Monkees had was Nesmith's mom inventing Typewriter correction fluid, a fact seemingly ignored by Donster's otherwise exhaustive treatise.

Anyway, here's my contribution to the music thread...well, I like it.

[Stans]

This is twice this site has been successfully hit by a porn spammer.