The Monkees: Classic or Dud?

Only classic as long as Davey sings lead. He was the one who managed to sound English. Mickey sounded like a fucking American country singer. The Monkees - like absolutely everybody else - were at their best when they sounded like The Beatles, like on their debut album.

geir shouldn't you be looking for a white whale somewhere?

He was the one who managed to sound English.

that, almost creepily coincidentally, is cos he was english

Stephen Stills was a great guitarist, listen to Buffalo Springfield - it wasn't all Neil Young ya know!

i know buffalo springfield well, and i always thought of him as very competent, but lacking taste or focus, too prone to meandering and throwing out boringly weird counterintuition. Not something I'd say of the utterly direct and thrilling guitar lines in 'do i have to do this...'

speaking of which, i believe neil young plays (beautifully) on 'as we go along' from 'head'

I imagine Geir means Mike here. Does Geir usually swear? Is this in fact Geir at all?

i still have this slight cognitive dissonance that the beatles are being characterised as having no r&b or country influences upthread. why i'm letting it worry me i don't know but it just takes sheer myopia and wishful thinking into the realms of performance art

One of these days the kids will see some Monkees TV shows and we'll be watching that intensely. (I have "Head" but I'll spare them that for the moment...)

Pete would have to be Phoebe, from the ditziness to the enviro-awareness.

Davy is Rachel: all body, no brains

Mike's the hardest to pinpoint, I guess he combined Ross's intelligensia defensiveness with Monica's pedantry.

WCBS in New York, from 6:00 to 10:00. I think AOL streams it online as well.

P.S. Among Stephen Stills' other talents: he played percussion on the Bee Gees' "You Should Be Dancing," I'm told.

P.P.S. Among the great songs the Monkees wrote themselves: "Sweet Young Thing," "Randy Scouse Git," "For Pete's Sake," "... All Over Again," "You and I," "Mommy and Daddy," "Bye Bye Baby Bye Bye," "Good Clean Fun," "Tapioca Tundra," and "The Girl I Knew Somewhere" (to POX).

"Goin' Down"'s lyrics were written by Diane Hildebrand, as confirmed by Micky recently (though the music was their reinvention of "Parchment Farm" and Micky's masterful delivery of those tongue-twisting lines deserves loads of credit).

-- Joseph McCombs (jmccomb...) (webmail), April 5th, 2005 4:52 PM. (link)

Ah, right. I remember seeing thison the end of one of the Monkees' shows and thinking "That's surely after the fact" but no it wasa b-side of "A little bit me" if i rem....

"Goin' Down"
"Pleasant Valley Sunday" (still fucking relevant)
"Mary, Mary"

Destroy:
"That Was Then, This Is Now"
The New Monkees

P.S. to Mr. Grout - "Goin' Down" was the B-side to "Daydream Believer." The B-side of "A Little Bit Me" was "The Girl I Knew Somewhere."

And if I ever see a karaoke bar with "Goin' Down," fuck if I'm not gonna try it.

I would love to hear someone pull that off - that's a fucking tongue twister.

SOCK IT TO ME!