Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

collin wrote:...they are no less "cheesy" than Herman's Hermits and Gerry and the Pacemakers. If you're into kitschy sixties stuff, then the Monkees seem like a natural fit to the whole era. No need to compare them to the "greats" like the Beatles etc......it's apples and oranges.

Herman's and Gerry weren't greats, Collin? Well, Gerry, anyway. Herman's were probably on the Monkee's level at the time...

jingle_jangle wrote:
Herman's and Gerry weren't greats, Collin? Well, Gerry, anyway. Herman's were probably on the Monkee's level at the time...

Well, they're all greats---it wasn't my intention to say they weren't. It's just that, to me---Ferry Cross the Mersey is just as cheesy, if not cheesier, than Last Train To Clarksville being sung by a bunch of guys who can't play instruments.

Same with Herman's Hermits----like Henry VIII is a very serious song. A very serious type of music far more "hardcore" than the Monkees at the time.

jingle_jangle wrote:

winston wrote: Peter was a fine musician and Mickey could sing. I'll leave it at that.

Brian! Mike Nesmith remains a fabulous musician and genuine Renaissance Man!!

Yeah I meant Mike not Peter...........they all looked alike ya know..................except for Davy

winston wrote:

jingle_jangle wrote:

winston wrote: Peter was a fine musician and Mickey could sing. I'll leave it at that.

Brian! Mike Nesmith remains a fabulous musician and genuine Renaissance Man!!

Yeah I meant Mike not Peter...........they all looked alike ya know..................except for Davy

Glad you rectified your mistake identity, Brian. When I initially read your post I just thought you had bad taste.

Yeah Stan as you can probably tell the Monkees were never a favourite of mine.............I would almost say that I could hardly stand them.

Nothing much has changed either and that was brought home a while back when Davy went on a public rant about how they ought to be in the R&R hall of fame because they were really a great band and were on par with other influential bands of the time. What on earth was he thinking?

They belong somewhere, but I don't think it's the Rock Hall of Fame either, Brian. But they're one band, if not the only band, who can claim they had Hendrix open up for them on tour. However briefly it lasted.

collin wrote:It's just that, to me---Ferry Cross the Mersey is just as cheesy, if not cheesier, than Last Train To Clarksville being sung by a bunch of guys who can't play instruments.

How to address this without raising hackles or seeming pedantic...

No question that the Beatles and Stones were the "AA" list of Invasion musicians. They were so because of a (to us in the States, anyway) fresh, "new" sound, working-class origins giving a very direct, straight-talking translation of experience into music. Their originality made them tops to a young world ready to cast off the shackles of derivative Pop sounds and wide their horizons beyond Bobby Vee, Sandra Dee and Dickie Doo and the Don'ts. Perry Como, born in 1912, had his final Top 40 hit three years after the Beatles broke up, underscoring the fact that Pop was far from dead.

Although the Beatles wrote and performed a few "Pop" lightweights, these were mostly with enough verve and originality to lift the tunes above their humble, schmaltzy origins. However, acts like Gerry, and even the Dave Clark Five and Searchers kept one foot planted (in the case of Gerry, both left feet, his tongue and composing and fretting hands) in light Pop territory.

I was a mid-teener when "Ferry" hit the airwaves, and at the time I had been steeped in conventional pop music, so I did not have the perspective of someone looking back at the times from nearly a half-century of music history--I was in the middle of it. Radio and TV were it. No Rolling Stone, Crawdaddy, Spin, MTV or internet blogs. Still, we teenagers had a hierarchy of the "coolest" down to stuff we wouldn't be caught dead listening to, and it was based, as now, on race, class, and even geography.

The Beatles and Stones were "AA", the Animals, Zombies, Searchers, Who and about a dozen more acts were "A", Gerry and the Pacemakers and another dozen or so were "B", based on an insincerity factor in Gerry's case--he was a sort of goody-two-shoes who we knew was really Eddie Haskell in Brit mufti. "C" acts were most American acts who pretended to be Brit or borrowed unabashedly--Buckinghams are a good example, but one Brit act (Herman's Hermits) stayed in this category for five solid years. We went all the way to what we thought of as phony or joke acts (an "E" category), the two toppermost of which were Freddie and the Dreamers (I mean, "Do the Freddie"?) and The Monkees, who were the FIRST "Pre-Fab Four", indeed. They were recruited and every aspect of their ascension and demise tightly controlled by Don Kirshner, The Original Combover from Brill. This was not serious biz, as far as we Chicago punks were concerned.

As I mentioned before, time puts a nice friendly glaze on things and though nostalgia comes in many flavors and two spellings (don't forget "flavours!), most of it gets less vitriolic in retrospect. I still am glad, however, that my Trial-Sized-Wife from the mid- '60s did have a hamster named after Freddie Garrity and was nearly as tall as Freddie himself. Poetic justice with little license, as far as I'm concerned.

But, sorry, no way would I group "Ferry" with "Freddy" or "Henry VIII". "Ferry", you see, was trad schmaltz that seemed grown-up to us teenagers at the time (we called it a "slow song" and danced with our dream girls to it on basketball dance floors). The other two and lots more were Tin Pan Alley pandering, plain and simple, and novelty is, by definition, short-lived. The sentiments expressed with such cornball aplomb in "Ferry" have withstood time's test, as has the melody.

I'm not a big Gerry fan, but I did think that some sorting-out was due, if only the sorting-out of my own feelings on this.

Well said Paul. I could not agree more.

Yeah, I wasn't saying that I dislike ANY of the above bands.

I simply stated that (with the two operative words) to me, they were all as cheesy as each other (and that can be a good thing! If you're into it...). No doubt that Gerry paid his dues and was a fine musician etc, but he puts out stuff like "Ferry" and it's hard to call him part of the harder edged British Invasion (ie Stones etc..)........he would musically seem even softer and colder than the Monkees at time!

I'm glad that I am young enough to employ the benefit of selectively choosing music from the last half century without the pressures of social tastes, cliches etc that were around when the music was created. (That's the good part about history----being able to assess things after the fact. )

That said, I can appreciate the Monkees for what they are. Which is, naturally softened in the "glaze of nostalgia," from people's perspectives back in the day.

Likewise, there are probably tons of bands that I won't give the time of day to right now, because it would seem weird listening to them, or they don't seem to "fit" with me right now etc----but thirty years down the road, when social pressure is off......hey! They might be enjoyable, for what they are.

knowhatimean,vern?

collin wrote:
I'm glad that I am young enough to employ the benefit of selectively choosing music from the last half century without the pressures of social tastes, cliches etc that were around when the music was created. (That's the good part about history----being able to assess things after the fact. )

To do so is missing the experience of being in the world, in the moment of creation. The sizzle of this gives the ability to compare and contrast.

It's what makes older people seem so damned smug sometimes.

jingle_jangle wrote:

collin wrote:
I'm glad that I am young enough to employ the benefit of selectively choosing music from the last half century without the pressures of social tastes, cliches etc that were around when the music was created. (That's the good part about history----being able to assess things after the fact. )

To do so is missing the experience of being in the world, in the moment of creation. The sizzle of this gives the ability to compare and contrast.

It's what makes older people seem so damned smug sometimes.

A veritable observation, Paul. You brought a smile to my face, maybe even a smug one.

jingle_jangle wrote:

collin wrote:
I'm glad that I am young enough to employ the benefit of selectively choosing music from the last half century without the pressures of social tastes, cliches etc that were around when the music was created. (That's the good part about history----being able to assess things after the fact. )

To do so is missing the experience of being in the world, in the moment of creation. The sizzle of this gives the ability to compare and contrast.

It's what makes older people seem so damned smug sometimes.

Paul speaks for all of us "old schoolers." Collin, there is simply no substitute for seeing the Beatles for the first time on the Ed Sullivan show, seeing "A Hard Day's Night" in your teens and deciding to form a band, seeing the Byrds live in concert in 1966, or just hearing the latest Hendrix tune blast through on the radio. Yowza! That's what made the 1960s so special to those of us who were in the moment of that time. Stuff like the Monkees was a droll sideshow. You weren't forced to watch them -- unless you were an invalid and had a younger sister!

At the time, in the moment, the future was/is unpredictable, haunted by burning issues: Would the Beatles release another album? Would The Dave Clark Five be the successors to the Beatles? How can I convey to you the excitement of hearing the long-awaited Sgt. Peppers album for the first time? I am certainly prejudiced, but I am glad to have been a child of the 1960s (and also glad the Vietnam War was over by the time my deferment was up) despite the drek and confusion that was going down.

Be Here Now! Accept no substibutes!

Amen to all that, brothers!

Time for a celebratory Zimmer shake and rattle! Ready? One, two, three...

Collin, you should been around for the really greats! My first semi-pop record, The Rooftop Singers, Walk Right In, Sit Right Down. Sometime in '63, I think. Unbeknownst to moi, the song was done on a couple of acoustic 12 strings. A precursor to how I was going to feel about 12 strings.