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Monkees ?

#23
My band performs "pleasant valley sunday" (goffin/king) and we are working up "a little bit me,a little bit you" (neil D.) for our next gig in tribute to Davy Jones passing. Man, I would love to do "Goin Down" with a horn section, such a groovin tune and a mouthful of words to spit out, wonder how many passes they took at that before they got a keeper.
 
#27
Tampabass said:
...actually, much more Larry Taylor, Bob West, and Chip Douglas than Carol Kaye.
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I'm with you, TB...Carol Kaye was not the 1st one I thought of as The Monkees' bassist.
Larry Taylor & CHIP DOUGLAS (Producer/bassist The Turtles) are the 1st ones that popped into my head. Douglas (from Headquarters) has a McCartney-eque vibe & tone
 
#29
I my current band we have played Daydream Believer for years.

I was pretty sceptical about playing it as we are a pub rock band but our singer guitarist was adamant. Guess what, it goes down a storm no matter where we play it.
 
#30
lowfreq33 said:
I heard at some point that Mike Nesmith's mom invented liquid paper. Don't know if that's true, but I heard it pre-Internet, so there's a chance.
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I was good friends with mikes daughter in college. It wasn't Mike's mom, I believe it was his (ex) wife that invented liquid paper.
I could be mistaken, but I am pretty sure. It might have been her mom.
 
#31
Jim Gordon, credited with being the drummer on "The Kind of Girl I Could Love" was sent to jail back in the 80's for murdering his mother (16 years to life). Not sure if he's still there or not. I knew about him as he showed up alot on Gordon Lightfoot recordings back in the 70's (and GL is one of my favorite singer/song writers).

Reading his discography is like reading a who's who....


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#32
I would not put the Monkees in the same category as Wonder Bread or Bud Light. They were a creation of Don Kirshcner for TV, he saw a void once the Beatles went psychedelic, and got four talented, charismatic musicians/actors to sing and act in a Beatles inspired TV show. Add amazing songwriters like N. Diamond, C. King, and Boyce and Hart, and you have essentially, the first boy band in music history. Except better than any boy band that came after them. So they didn't play instruments or write their own songs. So what? Neither did Elvis Presley, and he was pretty good! :)
 
#35
GRAHAM SG1 said:
Our guitarist has suggested covering `Im a believer, Stepping stone and Last train to clarksville` by the Monkees, there was me thinking `oh yeah, they wont take long to grasp` but I am surprised how much bass there is on these songs, I thought they were just simple tunes but they actually have some nice basslines in them, I have been trying them out on `songsterr`, the more I play them the more I like them :D
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Those are the three Monkees tunes we do. In addition to playing the bass, I sing lead on them too.
 
#39
Rob Martinez said:
So they didn't play instruments or write their own songs. So what? Neither did Elvis Presley, and he was pretty good! :)
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Well...

Both Mike Nesmith and Elvis Presley have several hit songs to their credit as writers or co-writers. All The Monkees either were musicians before, or became decent musicians after taking on their characters. And Elvis could knock out chord progressions on both guitar and piano.

But I do agree that their level of musicianship and vocals was more than sufficient to make great pop music.
 

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