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**WOM** · 01-10-2010, 02:29

The Monkees - That Could Have Been Your Face

Oh, this is brilliant. You have just made my night. Cheers, T.

**Taylor** · 01-10-2010, 02:38

The Monkees - That Could Have Been Your Face

I should have mentioned - Davy Jones only sings lead on one track (and it's a bloody good one), in case anyone was worried about this being spoilt by a nasal failed jockey from Manchester.

**Brandenburger Toro** · 01-10-2010, 03:10

The Monkees - That Could Have Been Your Face

Ah, you total legend!

**Gerontophile** · 01-10-2010, 07:43

The Monkees - That Could Have Been Your Face

Thanks Taylor. If I wake up enough to work out how to convert a .rar, me and mine will really enjoy this.

**WOM** · 01-10-2010, 14:42

The Monkees - That Could Have Been Your Face

Taylor, have you written anything on them. If so, is there a link?

If not...er...you know...get cracking.

**Reed John** · 01-10-2010, 15:01

The Monkees - That Could Have Been Your Face

The Monkees were my gateway into the wide world of popular music. MTV started showing the old shows when I was in sixth or seventh grade (so, 84-85-86) and I liked the show, and then got into the music. Having then realized that there was music older than myself that was worth listening to, I got into the Beatles and Bob Dylan and dug the Simon and Garfunkle out of my parents' rather modest record collection (my parents are a bit square when it comes to pop music).

Then, having gotten into the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, the Beach Boys, Buddy Holly, and some others, I began to think, as moody teenagers of that era (perhaps any era) often do, that "authenticity" was important and therefore the Monkees were not worthy.
But age and OTF have persuaded me otherwise. Taylor sums it up well (as he usually does), the fact that they weren't a "real band" turned out to be a strength. If nothing else, they were four different guys who probably never could have come together under traditional band-creation circumstances.

I don't think something like that could happen again. The "manufactured" pop of our day is, I think, much more tightly controlled with a lot more spectacle, cross-marketing, and all around corporate excess slathered on top.

But I could be wrong. Maybe in 20 years, we'll be treated to a compilation of Miley Cyrus B-sides and lost demos that will blow our fucking minds.

**Taylor** · 01-10-2010, 16:05

The Monkees - That Could Have Been Your Face

Gerontophile wrote:

Thanks Taylor. If I wake up enough to work out how to convert a .rar, me and mine will really enjoy this.

If you haven't worked it out already Ger, you need to use WinRar or UnRar or some other similarly free program to unpack the file, which will turn miraculously into a folder full of mp3s. All very straightforward once you've got the program.

Worn Old Motorbike wrote:

Taylor, have you written anything on them

No, never. I'd like to, though... might look into it. There are loads of great stories, actually. The title of this comp comes from the most famous of these: The Monkees had a showdown meeting with Don Kirshner at (I think, off the top of my head) the Beverly Hills Hotel, where - led by Mike Nesmith - they laid it on the line and said that if they weren't allowed to control their own records, they'd quit. Some Screen Gems bigwig growled at Nesmith, "you'd better read your contract." At which Nez flew into a rage, punched a hole in the plaster wall, screamed "that could have been your face!" and stormed out.

Reed John wrote:

The Monkees were my gateway into the wide world of popular music. MTV started showing the old shows when I was in sixth or seventh grade (so, 84-85-86) and I liked the show, and then got into the music.

That's a bit like me. I was a loyal viewer of Monkees reruns on British kids' TV in about 1982 or 83. I'd already got into The Beatles, thanks to a mate at school and my auntie's record collection, and The Monkees soon became my second favourites. Eventually I found a budget-price best-of double album in the local record shop and saved up my pocket money. Played that to death. I remember it had an essay inside the gatefold by Brit rock hack John Tobler, one of those guys who made a living writing music biographies to order, often of acts he didn't even like. I don't think he was a huge Monkees fan, but he told me the story, and his dark hints about the rubbishness of later Monkees product actually got me intrigued. What on earth was this strange film "Head", which apparently no one had ever seen, and which effectively killed the band's career with its self-destructive druggy weirdness? Tobler only gave it about four lines, but getting to see "Head" became an ambition... finally realised some years later when Channel 4 showed it late one night. First five minutes of that film left me open-mouthed... I taped it to watch the next day after school, and ended up rewinding the video to watch the opening sequence five or six times before going on to watch the rest.

Reed John wrote:

Then, having gotten into the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, the Beach Boys, Buddy Holly, and some others, I began to think, as moody teenagers of that era (perhaps any era) often do, that "authenticity" was important and therefore the Monkees were not worthy.

See, I never got this, just because I always loved The Monkees. I mean, I loved The Monkees, and even as a stroppy teen, deep down I knew that I'd be a bit of a hypocrite to criticise bubblegum / manufactured bands of the day for anything other than the quality of the actual music. I remember loving some Wham! singles (not that Wham! were a manufactured band), and arguing with kids at school that once the dust had settled, these would be seen as fine pop records and no one would care how "serious" or "authentic" the band may or may not have been. Basically The Monkees stopped me from becoming a pop snob.

Reed John wrote:

I don't think something like that could happen again. The "manufactured" pop of our day is, I think, much more tightly controlled with a lot more spectacle, cross-marketing, and all around corporate excess slathered on top.

Well, yeah - the first two Girls Aloud singles reminded me of the early Monkees, being state-of-the-art pop records put together by very talented professionals, fronted by conveniently good-looking hopefuls, blah blah... much more than, say, Stock Aitken and Waterman records, which were closer to the pure bubblegum of Ohio Express, 1910 Fruitgum Company etc (except with actual singers, rather than a revolving cast of session guys). But it's hard to imagine Girls Aloud, much less any of the boy bands, wandering off the reservation in quite the same way as The Monkees.

Then again, they didn't have a Nesmith. It's a bit of a canard that Nesmith was the only "real" musician (Peter Tork was a far better player), or the only real talent (Micky Dolenz turned out to be a truly amazing songwriter, at least for a while). But The Monkees breaking out of their box was very much his doing - Tork never had the strength of character to really force the issue and would probably just have quit instead, while Jones and Dolenz would almost certainly have been happy to go along with the program. The Monkee powers-that-be got more than they bargained for with Nesmith, in various ways. That version of "Propinquity" on the comp is from one of the first-ever Monkees studio sessions, when Mike recorded acoustic versions of a few of his songs for publishing purposes. You can imagine the response. "Oh shit. This guy's a proper songwriter."

Luckily, the guys in ultimate charge of The Monkees project were the producers, Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider, pretty hip fellows who went on to make "Easy Rider", "Five Easy Pieces", "The Last Picture Show" etc. They got on very well with Nesmith personally, and had a lot of sympathy for his view. When the shit hit the fan with Kirshner, they initially tried to mediate, but eventually just thought "Kirshner's a dick, let the guys do their thing." Actually, Kirshner's dickishness is another story altogether...

Reed John wrote:

But I could be wrong. Maybe in 20 years, we'll be treated to a compilation of Miley Cyrus B-sides and lost demos that will blow our fucking minds.

Dunno about that.

**Spearmint Rhino** · 01-10-2010, 16:13

The Monkees - That Could Have Been Your Face

Hah, I used to know John Tobler (he was a mate of my dad's). Everything you say about him is fairly accurate. He was the Rob Jovanovich of his day.

**Tony C** · 01-10-2010, 16:50

The Monkees - That Could Have Been Your Face

"Even when they (regularly) lapsed into total self-indulgence, The Monkees always sounded great".

Absolutely.

I posted on here some time ago about how I first - as a 11 or 12 year old - got a taste for bebop via The Monkees majestic "Goin' Down". It was originally on the b-side of 'Daydream Believer' and as I only had a handful of records at the time I actually played b-sides. Forty years later it's still some of the best jazz I know.

**WOM** · 01-10-2010, 16:57

The Monkees - That Could Have Been Your Face

I used to watch them after school when I was 7 or 8 years old. One day, my dad came home with a copy of 'The Monkees Re-Focus' for me. It's apparently a Canada-only best of, with the usual Monkees best-of tracks. The first record I ever owned. Still have it.

This'it. (Bell Records, 1973)

**Reed John** · 01-10-2010, 17:34

The Monkees - That Could Have Been Your Face

The only Monkees I had were casettes, including several second and third-hand copies. Such were the mid 1980s when one's only disposable income was about $4 a day from a paper route.

See, I never got this, just because I always loved The Monkees. I mean, I loved The Monkees, and even as a stroppy teen, deep down I knew that I'd be a bit of a hypocrite to criticise bubblegum / manufactured bands of the day for anything other than the quality of the actual music. I remember loving some Wham! singles (not that Wham! were a manufactured band), and arguing with kids at school that once the dust had settled, these would be seen as fine pop records and no one would care how "serious" or "authentic" the band may or may not have been. Basically The Monkees stopped me from becoming a pop snob.

Part of that is because, when it comes to music, you're just better than most of us. But part of that is the different milieus. As far as I can tell, Britain in general was a bit less "rockist" than the US and certainly less rockist than where I grew up, a town in which the only commercial rock station was an AOR classic rock station, the campus station could barely be picked up off campus (its gotten better now) and despite holding one of the largest populations of undergraduate students in North America, has never produced a single original rock combo of note. It's the biggest drawback to this place, I think.

**Alderman Barnes** · 01-10-2010, 20:17

The Monkees - That Could Have Been Your Face

Oh man, Taylor you're a star.

I was determined to have an early night tonight but it looks like I'm going to have to open some beers and listen to this instead.

The Monkees were pretty much the first thing I can remember watching on television. Like the Banana Splits and Batman, it seemed they were on permanent repeat in the early 70s. I think I was more interested in the plots than the music back then, but I'm pretty sure it must have been one of the things that got loads of people of my age into music later.

Maybe it's because I'm part of the generation that just missed punk, but the Monkees were never a guilty pleasure for me, even as the card-carrying indie snob I was at the time. I think they'd been rehabilitated by the mid-80s, over here at least.

Even so, I never heard "Sometime In The Morning" until years later, mainly because I had that bloody compilation which it wasn't on. What a beautiful song, though, and (tying in with the mid-80s reappraisal) one that I reckon Primal Scream based their entire career on until they went baggy.

**Purves Grundy** · 01-10-2010, 20:39

The Monkees - That Could Have Been Your Face

Mike Nesmith's wikipedia entry is badly written even by wikipedia standards, but does offer this gem at the end:

An opportunistic lookalike from the US cashed in on his similarity to Nesmith by appearing on talk shows and doing interviews in Australia during the 1980s. The scam was successful, the lookalike being far enough from America to avoid detection as a fraud (which is less likely in the US, where the real Nesmith has made many media and show-business acquaintances). An entertaining interviewee, the impersonator's charade was not discovered until after he had vanished from the public eye. The imposter, Barry Faulkner, who had pulled various fraudulent scams for forty years, was finally apprehended and sent to jail in 2009.[8][9]

**Reed John** · 01-10-2010, 20:44

The Monkees - That Could Have Been Your Face

Where can I safely download a program that will download Taylor's file?

**Alderman Barnes** · 01-10-2010, 20:57

The Monkees - That Could Have Been Your Face

Do you need a program? All I had to do was click the "Regular Download" button on the link. You might need something to unzip it.

**Alderman Barnes** · 01-10-2010, 21:18

The Monkees - That Could Have Been Your Face

Taylor wrote:

I should have mentioned - Davy Jones only sings lead on one track (and it's a bloody good one), in case anyone was worried about this being spoilt by a nasal failed jockey from Manchester.

You know, if I hadn't known, I'd have been quite prepared to believe it was by that other chap with the same name.

Zilch - so that's where it came from.

Riu Chiu - eerie madrigals!

Man, this is fun.

**Taylor** · 01-10-2010, 21:25

The Monkees - That Could Have Been Your Face

Reed John wrote:

Where can I safely download a program that will download Taylor's file?

You can download it from the link, but if you don't have anything to unpack it, this will do fine: http://download.cnet.com/WinRAR-32-bit/3000-2250_4-10007677.html

Alderman Barnes wrote:

Taylor wrote:

I should have mentioned - Davy Jones only sings lead on one track (and it's a bloody good one), in case anyone was worried about this being spoilt by a nasal failed jockey from Manchester.

You know, if I hadn't known, I'd have been quite prepared to believe it was by that other chap with the same name.

It's Neil Young playing the wailing guitar on that track, by the way. You know, if you're a generally talentless twat like Davy, it helps to be able to say "I'm going to record my new song in the RCA Studios in Hollywood. I think I'll ring up the 23-year-old Neil Young and get him to play lead guitar."

Same as novice songwriter Peter Tork inviting his mates Stephen Stills and Dewey Martin from the Buffalo Springfield to come in and play on "Long Title" (Stills is the crazy guitarist on that one). The other one that cracks me up is "Sweet Young Thing", which is from mid-66: it's the result of a writing session where the young Mike Nesmith was invited to sit in with Goffin and King for a day, and then for the recording session they wheeled in James Burton, formerly Elvis Presley's guitarist, to play the solo. Hilarious.

Alderman Barnes wrote:

Zilch - so that's where it came from.

Where what came from?

**MsD** · 01-10-2010, 21:32

The Monkees - That Could Have Been Your Face

Has everyone forgotten that the Pistols covered Stepping Stone ? The Monkees were much loved by that generation of punks, who'd grown up listening to them. So never a "guilty" pleasure for us.

**Alderman Barnes** · 01-10-2010, 21:34

The Monkees - That Could Have Been Your Face

[To Taylor]

The sample on [looks it up] Mistadobolina by Del the Funkee Homosapien.

**Alderman Barnes** · 01-10-2010, 21:41

The Monkees - That Could Have Been Your Face

[To MsD]

Good point, but then the Pistols were one of the best pop bands ever. Even so, the Monkees would have been slated by the type of of fat-tied tossers in the years above me at school, proggies and hair-shirt punks alike.

**Taylor** · 01-10-2010, 21:59

The Monkees - That Could Have Been Your Face

I don't think I know that Del The Funkee Homosapien track. Might look it up.

"Stepping Stone" is proper (garage) punk, isn't it? Boyce & Hart, who wrote it, were a little bit hipper than some of the contract songwriters on Kirshner's books, but it's still pretty wild to think that they were getting songs like that to the top of the charts. I mean, they were probably just trying to rip off The Troggs or The Who or someone (rather like the actual garage punks) but it's funny to think that for a couple of minutes The Monkees were shoulder to shoulder with The Standells. I've got a few live recordings of The Monkees in the 60s, and as a live band they're absolutely fucking terrible, but they end the set with "Stepping Stone" and it works brilliantly, because in terms of technical ability they're basically a 1967 garage punk band, and that song suits them perfectly.

Always thought the Pistols should have had a Monkees-like TV show in 1977. Although, having seen "Swindle", I'm not so sure. Still, imagine the musical segments: "Bodies" playing while they're chased around west London by an evil town councillor, all running frantically with their arms held out in front of them, changing direction abruptly and bumping into each other. And instead of every episode being shot in the idyllic California sunshine, it'd all be shot on horrible drizzly, overcast days, like The Sweeney.

I was just thinking more about these guitar parts played by Neil Young, Stephen Stills and James Burton, all uncredited at the time - no wonder people thought Mike Nesmith was the "talented one".

**Sundeporino** · 01-10-2010, 22:05

The Monkees - That Could Have Been Your Face

Summer 1976 was the hottest Ive ever known. A Pistols TV show wouldve been great though.

I had the "Music For Pleasure" compilation sold in Woolworths, Boots etc. The one with them standing around a car (monkeemobile?) in those maroon shirts with the strange collars that they used to wear.

Great "CD" Taylor.

**MsD** · 01-10-2010, 22:39

The Monkees - That Could Have Been Your Face

Indeed, thanks for the download.

Totally agree with all this Standells/Monkees/Pistols stuff (excuse me being lazy and sloppy). Spot on.

I've got The Best of the Monkees, one of the few LPs to survive the Year Zero sacrifices. I didn't discover the Standells till much later, but a lot of That Lot were familiar with them.

Marco was thrown out of his school band (Anthrax) for playing Sugar Sugar (the Archies' tune) and we joke about him constantly rewriting the Batman theme. Siouxsie and the Banshees covered Captain Scarlet (with Marco) and songs from Jungle Book in their early sets. None of that pofaced hairshirt, attitude back then. There was also the fact that they were barely learning to play and to write their own songs, so plundered songs from childhood, anything a bit offbeam, anything with a bit of energy. Also obscure (so they thought) b-sides that they could try and pass off as their own.

**Gerontophile** · 02-10-2010, 21:12

The Monkees - That Could Have Been Your Face

Fucking wonderful.

I love otf, and I love that set, thanks Taylor.

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