British guitarist analyses The Monkees NOT faking in 1996!

on the agenda tonight we're going back to 1996 we're gonna be taking a look at the monkeys and they're gonna be performing lost train to Clarksville hello Phil here from wings of pegasus and welcome to another analysis video if you enjoyed this video please give it a thumbs up and subscribe so let's get the monkeys up on screen and see how they get on [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] and I don't know [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] and there we have it so the monkeys as a band are one of those that have been requested a lot and thank you for all of those requests because it is pretty much going down that Avenue of did they used to play their instruments or could they play at all and it is such an interesting story in relation to the monkeys and how they started out and very much made for TV but then it was so well marketed but bringing it in line with this performance there's no doubt that these guys are singing and playing and Peter Peter talked on guitar the way that he's playing fingerstyle you can see he's got that thumb pick on as well so he's playing and he was a top guitarist and from what I've heard as well used to teach guitar so he definitely had that level of ability of playing it might have been the case that's when they did set up the show the actors as they were were put on different instruments even though they might have had a history of playing another instrument it didn't quite look right to the people that were organizing the show so they'd put one member behind the drum kit because it looked better even though somebody else might have been able to play the drums also putting the spotlight on the vocals because we've got the three part harmonies here and they are solid throughout we've got Davy Jones on tambourine supplying his harmonies Peters playing guitar singing at the same time and then we've got a stellar lead vocal and it's the kind of lead vocals that you wouldn't question if you hand heard of the Monkees and you didn't know of Mickey before you would assume that he's a singer Micky Dolenz and providing the lead vocal here you would just see him that these guys are a touring band and then it wasn't from a TV show that then turned into being a band obviously here we haven't got Michael Michael could have been playing keys and that's something that he could do as a band member so as a quick answer to that question did they play their own instruments and could they play live the answer to that is yes but straight off the bat when they started the TV show they wouldn't have been naturally playing the instruments that they were seen to be playing on the TV show obviously here we can see that Michael Nesmith isn't involved but he is one of those that could have played keys he had that ability so we could get that live sound just to say that this live setup with the three guys that are playing and singing it wouldn't be questioned in the modern day as a live band setup and I know that we've got keys in the background and another rhythm guitar and drums but that's what you get in a live show Lofton the not the top artists nowadays are backed by a huge band in order to get that same sound that was produced on the album and back in the day of course these guys had albums sound is so good because of the Wrecking Crew and a massive hats off to them and Glen Campbell another guy that I've mentioned before with not only videos on him but the Beach Boys and the amount of work that he did with the Wrecking Crew this is the thing that I think when these guys got a little bit more in control and were allowed to play the instruments that they wanted to and play to their strengths it certainly did show how good they were as musicians also just putting that spotlight on Mickey again because Micky Dolenz as an artist and a singer playing guitar he at the same time as singing bum he has got that standalone voice the other thing is that this performance is from 1996 and it's about 30 years since they were riding high in the charts and so many bands you see over the years that start to decrease in their performance level and it isn't quite the same as it used to be but these guys ironically are a great band thirty years later considering that they started off not even really being a band so it just goes to show how talented they were back in the day at pulling this off as a band and being seen as a band even though they might not play the instruments particularly well to begin with but then fast forward 30 years and they are at that level of being able to perform live and sing at the same time like I said you would not question this you can't just turn up on TV do a live performance and blag it to the point where everyone assumes that it's amazing even though you're not very good at playing and singing anyone who has started to play the guitar and started to learn to sing we're know exactly how difficult it is not only to master both of those things independently but then throw them both together and then just put on top of that performing live on TV in front of an audience another thing to mention about for actors auditioning for a TV show and something that people often forget about actors is that they have to cover every angle of their career possible so it means that they learn to sing because there might be a job at the West End or Broadway they're all actors that requires a singing part and they have to sing a song if they can't sing they won't get that job and it is a competitive marketplace so you make sure you can get as many skills as possible that are related to acting whether it be at the West End on a Broadway stage in a musical on TV in movies it doesn't matter so you'll be surprised at how many actors are very good singers if not top level singers because they have trained to do that because it's all part of their job if they want to get as many parts as possible these guys were already good vocalists and they could harmonize with each other it was just then the playing the instruments part that they preferred particular instruments that then they won't put on for the TV show so became a little bit trickier that way but we can hear with these harmonies they are spot-on they've got that vocal talent which would have been a foundation to their acting in the first place just to throw another point in there with the current day industry how many bands and artists go on to a TV show nowadays and perform totally live with the band playing their instrument and not having any fakery at all it's a rare thing to see nowadays so looking back at these guys and saying all were they faking how good were they this is all the proof you need we are going to get into a bit of the background behind the monkeys and how these guys came to be in the band or seen as the band because it's all interesting stuff the idea had been around in the early 60s and it was pitched to different TV companies but at that time it wasn't a popular idea to have a show about a band and it just so happened that later on in that decade 1964 a hard day's night was released by the Beatles which was a movie and really did open the door to the idea that had been pitched years earlier so once this idea was pitched again with that background of the Beatles just having released their movie it was then taken on initially the idea was to have the lovin spoonful who were a band at the time as the focus for the TV show but they had just signed a record deal which meant that anything that they performed any music that they had on the TV show would have been owned by the record label so the producers didn't want that they wanted to keep all of the rights for themselves to make some money and that's why they started auditioning actors to play the parts of the band members for the show they already had Davy Jones in mind for a part in the TV show because at the time he was a rising star on Broadway and the other three turned up with hundreds of other hopefuls auditioning for the parts in the show and once it was decided on the four they then started organizing them into who would play what instrument so like I mentioned earlier the instruments that they were put on didn't play to their strengths and an example of this was that Davy Jones had a little bit of experience on the drum kit but because he was short in stature they thought that he wouldn't be able to be seen behind the drum kit so they got him out the front of the drum gear and put Micky behind the drum kit and this is another thing that Micky then had to pretend to play the drums because he didn't have any experience where there it is so easy to see when somebody isn't natural playing an instrument but these guys and especially Micky behind the drum kit just learn to play as quickly as possible too make it look as authentic as possible an important thing to appreciate is just how efficiently this business model had been put together in order to make money from the monkeys as a band having your own TV show and being able to put music on a TV show and then sell it as an album is something that I do mention in other videos about the importance of being on TV especially back in the 60s I do mention about MTV in the 80s but the further back you go the more profound the effect was of being on TV and these guys certainly experienced that because to get your head around the time scale here the first show was aired in September of 1966 and the album came out in October of 1966 so as soon as they were on the air they then had an album within a month and to think of how well-planned that is everything is ready to go from a marketing perspective in order to maximize the amount of money they could make so if you can get a monopoly on the TV especially back in the 60s where we're talking about two or three channels maximum anything that you're showing on that TV is going across the whole country and when you're talking about the u.s. saying that's quite a big place so it really was a case of fantasy meeting reality because these four actors who were playing the parts of musicians on a TV show now had an album out that was real music and had their voices on it so it was one of those things that when Mike Nesmith saw the album cover he went crazy because he knew that they were pretending to be musicians on the TV show but then the album cover made it look like they were a band so anybody at that hadn't even seen the TV show would assume that this album that they're buying is a genuine band anyway they released that album as I said just the month after the TV show went live and it was a monster hit went to number one and stayed there for 13 weeks in the charts it certainly shows you the advantage of being on TV so it meant that these guys were at the top of the charts who are competing with other genuine musicians and that left a sour taste in a lot of people's mouths especially in the music industry because they knew that these guys were acting on a show but then we're getting to number one in the music charts and weren't really a band so the monkeys really did take off as a band and these four guys started to take more control over it because they knew that they had just been placed on instruments from that image perspective that the producers had but they wanted more control if they were going to be seen as a band they were then going to start working as a band just to give a perspective on the album's and when they're released because I mentioned about that TV show starting the album coming out within a month and then right at the beginning of 1967 January considering that the first album was out in October of 1966 so just a few months later the second album came out and that was called more of the Monkees and that was a massive number one and it did displace their first album from the number one spot so that's how popular it was obviously great tracks great compositions I'm a believer stayed a number one for 18 weeks so they had such strong songs just to give a bit of insight into how things were run at the time because the guys in the band The Monkees weren't told about the album release so they first found out about it from people asking them about the new album that has just been released and they had to go out and buy their own copies so all of the songs all of the distribution were nothing to do with the band or the actors as they were seen by the TV company Mickey has said himself that he did approach her as an acting job turning up at the TV studio playing the part and if they ever needed a vocal in the studio here to go to the studio lay down the vocal and then just go about his normal daily business it wasn't until this time early 1967 that things really were kicking off number one albums and these guys then seriously started to approach it as a bound rather than just being actors on a TV show just to give you guys an idea the first two albums both went five times platinum and by the third album which was called headquarters this is where the guys wanted to play the instruments and they wanted to sing and not rely on session musicians because they were now a band especially when you've got two albums that go five times platinum people will see you as a real band so they recorded headquarters and that went two times platinum so that third album with the guys playing and singing that was still a number one album and for the fourth album they did go back to that original formula of using session musicians and this is where the Wrecking Crew come in with Glen Campbell as I mentioned earlier and that album was Pisces Aquarius Capricorn and Jones limited and that came out in 1967 the other thing is that these guys were releasing albums like it was going out of fashion just throwing albums out there all the time because we're still in 1967 and this is the fourth album and that fourth album was another massive hit as their fourth number-one album in a row and it had Daydream Believer on it which was a monster number one and like I said the compositions the songs everything that they had with the session musicians as well top-quality playing it was just a perfect mix so when you think about this being set up as a TV show and then the domination of the charts that they experienced there was only one way that they could go and that was being a real band and practicing the instruments and getting up to a professional level as quickly as possible I'm not gonna have time to cover everything in this video but throughout the 80s they had a bit of a resurgence because of reruns of that original TV show but in 1996 they did release an album called justice which was written as one word but it's exactly like it sounds just us just the guys playing and singing just to mention finally that these guys definitely went through it with people calling them fakes because they came from a TV show the modern equivalent would be calling it trolling but back in the day it would have been the media that really would have set upon these guys as a band so I think as members of the band and actors as they started out you can't have a go at them because they were just starring in a TV show when Mike saw that album cover he was outraged at the fact that the people that did all of the creative work in there the session musicians didn't get any credit for it and it was packaged and marketed in such a way that they could maximize the amount of money made from this music and the monkeys as a commercial enterprise and these guys wouldn't have been aware of that when they entered that TV show and just to get up to a level where they could perform live and do a performance like this thirty years on and be so accurate pitch wise and have all of the professional elements that you're looking for in a band and nail it or you can do is take your hat off to these guys like I said before this performance is equal if not better than some of the actual bands around at that era whose performance levels just declined whereas these guys just got better and better and became even more the finished article but thank you guys for all of the requests to take a look at the monkeys is one of those powder kegs of discussion with the whole fakery thing being thrown out there but they did sing on all of the albums and from that third album started to get involved with the actual playing of the instruments so they weren't faking any of it when you consider that especially nowadays people only sing on albums and have session guys that play all of the backing and have guys that write the songs for them so in no way can they be called fakes it just so happened that they were on a TV show and that was their break in the industry I think certainly what did put people's backs up was their instant success within a month of being on TV they were then at the top of the charts and within dominating the charts for the following four albums like I've mentioned going multi-platinum all the time anyway keep their suggestions coming in the comments below let me know what you guys think and if you enjoyed this video please give it a thumbs up and subscribe and I'll see you guys at the next one rock

Channel: Wings of Pegasus

Views: 193,469

Rating: 4.9057913 out of 5

Keywords: the monkees, the monkees live, the monkees live in concert, the monkees live 1996, the monkees last train to clarksville, last train to, last train to clarksville, last train to clarksville the monkees, last train to clarksville live, wings of pegasus, wingsofpegasus, british guitarist reacts, british guitarist analysis, british guitarist analyses

Id: m9_D3-EE51I

Length: 21min 25sec (1285 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 09 2020