Here We Come, Walkin' Down Your Street

Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Bennie and the Jets. The Sultans of Swing. Josie and the Pussycats. Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. If you guessed "made-up bands," then you did just great. Those were the songs I played Friday morning as part of an ongoing tradition of "Friday Music" that I play for my wife and son. Each set contains five songs on a particular theme. Fake bands was the correct response, and my wife guessed correctly. Then she asked me, "Why weren't the Monkees in there somewhere?"
That was the polite conversation ended. The Monkees weren't a real band? Please. I could understand confusion about Josie and the Pussycats, or the Archies, but Peter, Davy, Micky and Mike were not simply artist's renderings strumming guitars and banging tambourines in endless loops of animation. They were the real thing. Did Jimi Hendrix open for the Archies? Nope. That's what happened in the summer of 1967. For a very short while, Jimi played a set before a bunch of very perplexed teenage girls who were waiting to scream at Davy. And Run-DMC covered the Monkees. How's that for "old school?"
Teenage girls weren't the only ones who were fans of the Monkees. They were my band. This was primarily because, as the younger brother I got second pick, and the Beatles were already taken by my older brother. I loved the lads from Liverpool as well, but the Monkees came into our basement every week, live and in color. The fact that Neil Diamond and Carol King wrote their songs didn't make them any less talented in my eyes, and once the boys started composing their own music, it just got better and better.
Until it stopped. Like many stars, they burned fast and hot, and by 1968, my favorite Monkee, Mike, had left the group. The Beatles, by contrast, had a few more good years in them, and so I was left to ponder what might have been in my wool cap with the fuzzy ball on top. They are still the only act to have their first four albums go to number one on the Billboard charts. Over the years, I have managed to dampen my enthusiasm for the "pre-fab four," knowing the general disdain that most people have for my once and future fave raves. I know that it will be some time before the Monkees version of Rock Band comes out, but I can be very patient. Not a real band, indeed.