brent johnson digs up another lost treasure, this week from The Monkees …
Ask music junkies about 1967, and they’ll tell you all about the sonic experiments of the Summer of Love. They’ll reference Sgt. Pepper. Jefferson Airplane’s Surrealistic Pillow. Debut albums by The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, The Velvet Underground.
But what they likely won’t mention is The Monkees’ Headquarters.
The Monkees weren’t technically a band at first. They were four men who didn’t know each other, cast to play a rock group on a zany 1960s TV show. Studio musicians recorded the backing tracks to their hits, and The Monkees simply added their vocals. Critics have called them “The Prefab Four.” The Rock And Rock Hall of Fame has shunned them, even when similar pop acts like ABBA and Neil Diamond — the man who wrote some of The Monkees’ biggest hits — have earned enshrinement.
And in the wake of it all, the Monkees’ masterwork remains unjustly overlooked.
In 1967, after two hit albums, the group fought for — and won — creative control of their music. For the first time, The Monkees entered the studio as a working band, writing many of the songs and playing most of the instruments themselves. The result was Headquarters. The album didn’t have any hits, but it had plenty of diverse, catchy and well-crafted songs. The quartet tackles folk-rock, baroque pop, proto-Americana and sub-psychedelia, and you can hardly tell the difference between them and the hired studio guns who used to play for them.
Want proof? Listen to drummer Micky Dolenz’s ‘Randy Scouse Git’ (the title is British slang for “horny jerk from Liverpool.”). I dare you to tell me that the ominous drums, dance-hall melody, freak-out chorus and wacko lyrics are the work of lightweights.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihXygclhvsI
(Note to Beatles fans: The clever nod to “the four kings of EMI” in the lyrics is a reference to John, Paul, George and Ringo. The Fabs’ record label in Britain was EMI.)
Anyway, it’s a good time to reclaim The Monkees. Three of the original members — Dolenz, Davy Jones and Peter Tork — are reuniting for a summer tour. (Guitarist Michael Nesmith, who went on to a solo career that helped pioneer country-rock, has been estranged from the band for more than a decade.)
If you can’t afford tickets — or want to see a ’60s icon in a more intimate venue — you can catch Tork this Sunday, April 3 in an 8 p.m. show at Triumph Brewery in New Hope, Pa. (right across the Delaware River from Lambertville, N.J.).
Tork didn’t sing lead on many Monkees songs. But he and Nesmith were the band’s most seasoned musicians. In addition to plucking guitar, bass and banjo, the blond-locked Tork was the man behind the lovely keyboard parts that populate Headquarters.
These days, his music might surprise you. For years, Tork has fronted Shoe Suede Blues, a band that specializes in chugging 12-bar tunes — sprinkling in a few Monkees hits along the way.
For more information, visit www.shoesuedeblues.com.
For tickets, visit www.triumphbrewing.com/new-hope/live-music.
Great article, brent. i used to watch the monkees on the tele in my youth. i was aware of their backstory from a made for tv movie on vh1. i have some of their singles, but you have made me interested in this album. ill check it out. thanks.