Archive for category: Music

What if…

September 8, 2017/0 Comments/in Friday Afternoon, Music, Trivia /by Steve Kowalski

They’re not the “Fab Four.” In fact, they are best known for being the “Prefab Four,” but they were good. Like, really really really really good. (above) Vintage Monkees promotion photos. (upper right) Some of their album covers (lower left) Jimi Hendrix actually opened for the Monkees on tour in 1967. The Monkees crowds had no idea what Jimi Hendrix was playing, much less playing his guitar with his teeth. (lower right) Peter Tork, Davey Jones and Micky Dolenz pose during portrait session to announce the bands 45th anniversary tour held at The Groucho Club on February 21, 2011 in London, England.

Some Monkees to listen to while reading this post:

Some Monkees to watch if you have some time on your hands:

Check it out. This is the original screen test for the show: 19 minutes. Rare black and white footage of Mike Nesmith, Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork, and Davy Jones auditioning for The Monkees
Close your office door and take in a full episode of The Monkees TV show: 25 minutes
The story of the time Jimi Hendrix opened for The Monkees

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Ever have an idea? You know, something that feels right at the time. Not with some crazy big goal so much, or the “twenty years from now, people will…” kind, but just an idea. We have them here all the time. Dad started this thinking back in the day, and it’s helped us build a great company, founded on solving your PIA (Pain In The @#$) Jobs! Just the other day I had one of the guys say, “Steve, what if we tried it this way?” And it worked. I love it, and really encourage my gang to have ideas and give them a try! Our best ideas have always started with WHAT IF…

In 1965, over 400 people responded to a talent call ad seeking zany young men for a new television show about a mythical rock group. Kind of quirky, kind of fun, and just the right ingredients at the right time. And so was born – The Monkees, starring Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, and Peter Tork premiered in September 1966. Audiences adored the humorous antics of the band. Though made especially for TV, The Monkees had real-life hits. Some of their best-loved and number one hits included Neil Diamond’s “I’m a Believer”, “Last Train to Clarksville”, “Little Bit Me, Little Bit You”, Gerry Goffin and Carole King’s “Pleasant Valley Sunday”, and “Daydream Believer” by John Stewart of the Kingston Trio. I remember watching the show with my brothers and sisters, and dancing around the house to the “stereo” sound – it was just plain old fun. Here’s some trivia I thought you’d enjoy. (thx Wikipedia)

Aspiring filmmaker Bob Rafelson developed the initial idea for The Monkees in 1962, but was unsuccessful in selling the series. He had tried selling it to Revue, the television division of Universal Pictures. In May 1964, while working at Screen Gems, Rafelson teamed up with Bert Schneider, whose father, Abraham Schneider, headed the Colpix Television and Screen Gems Television units of Columbia Pictures, and ultimately formed Raybert Productions.
The Beatles’ film A Hard Day’s Night inspired Rafelson and Schneider to revive Rafelson’s idea for The Monkees. As “The Raybert Producers”, they sold the show to Screen Gems Television on April 16, 1965. Rafelson and Schneider’s original idea was to cast an existing New York folk rock group, the Lovin’ Spoonful, who were not widely known at the time. However, John Sebastian had already signed the band to a record contract, which would have denied Screen Gems the right to market music from the show.
On July 14, 1965, The Hollywood Reporter stated that future band member Davy Jones was expected to return to the United States in September 1965 after a trip to England “to prepare for a TV pilot. Jones had previously starred as the Artful Dodger in the Broadway theatre show Oliver!, and his performance was later seen on The Ed Sullivan Show the same night as the Beatles’ first appearance on that show, February 9, 1964.
On September 8, 1965, Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter ran an ad to cast the remainder of the band/cast members for the TV show. Out of 437 applicants, the other three chosen for the cast of the TV show were Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork and Micky Dolenz. Nesmith, to work alongside Davey Jones. Of the final four, Nesmith was the only one who actually saw the ad in Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. Tork, the last to be chosen, had been working the Greenwich Village scene as a musician, and had shared the stage with Pete Seeger; he learned of The Monkees from Stephen Stills, whom Rafelson and Schneider had rejected as a songwriter. Dolenz was an actor (his father was veteran character actor George Dolenz) who had starred in the TV series Circus Boy as a child, using the stage name Mickey Braddock, and he had also played guitar and sung in a band called the Missing Links before the Monkees, which had recorded and released a very minor single, “Don’t Do It”. By that time he was using his real name – he found out about The Monkees through his agent.
The band’s music was initially supervised by producer Don Kirshner, backed by the songwriting duo of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart. For the first few months of their initial five-year career as “the Monkees”, the four actor-musicians were allowed only limited roles in the recording studio. This was due in part to the amount of time required to film the television series. Nonetheless, Nesmith did compose and produce some songs from the beginning, and Peter Tork contributed limited guitar work on the sessions produced by Nesmith. They eventually fought for and earned the right to collectively supervise all musical output under the band’s name.
Dolenz described the Monkees as initially being “a TV show about an imaginary band … that wanted to be the Beatles, [but] that was never successful”. The actor-musicians became, ironically, one of the most successful bands of the 1960s. The Monkees sold more than 75 million records worldwide and had international hits, including “Last Train to Clarksville”, “Pleasant Valley Sunday”, “Daydream Believer”, and “I’m a Believer”. At their peak in 1967, the band outsold the Beatles and the Rolling Stones combined.
During the casting process Don Kirshner, Screen Gems’ head of music, was contacted to secure music for the pilot that would become The Monkees. Not getting much interest from his usual stable of Brill Buildingwriters, Kirshner assigned Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart to the project. The duo contributed four demo recordings for the pilot. One of these recordings was “(Theme From) The Monkees” which helped get the series the green light.
When The Monkees was picked up as a series, development of the musical side of the project accelerated. Columbia-Screen Gems and RCA Victor entered into a joint venture called Colgems Records primarily to distribute Monkees records. Raybert set up a rehearsal space and rented instruments for the group to practice playing in April 1966. Kirshner called on Snuff Garrett, composer of several hits by Gary Lewis & the Playboys, to produce the initial musical cuts for the show. The producers quickly found that when brought into the studio together, the four actors would fool around and try to crack each other up. Because of this, they would often bring in each singer individually.
According to Nesmith, it was Dolenz’s voice that made the Monkees’ sound distinctive, and even during tension-filled times Nesmith and Tork sometimes turned over lead vocal duties to Dolenz on their own compositions, such as Tork’s “For Pete’s Sake,” which became the closing title theme for the second season of the television show.
The Monkees’ first single, “Last Train to Clarksville” b/w “Take a Giant Step”, was released in August 1966, just weeks prior to the TV broadcast debut. In conjunction with the first broadcast of the television show on September 12, 1966, on the NBC television network, NBC and Columbia had a major hit on their hands. The first long-playing album, The Monkees, was released a month later, spent 13 weeks at #1 and stayed on the Billboard charts for 78 weeks. Twenty years later, during their reunion, it would spend another 24 weeks on the Billboard charts. This first album is also notable, in addition to containing their debut single, for containing band member Nesmith’s first foray into country-rock, “Papa Gene’s Blues,” which mixed country, rock and Latin flavors.
In assigning instruments for purposes of the television show, a dilemma arose as to which of the four would be the drummer. Both Nesmith (a skilled guitarist and bassist) and Tork (who could play several stringed and keyboard instruments) were peripherally familiar with the instrument but both declined to give the drum set a try. Jones knew how to play the drums and tested well enough initially on the instrument, but the producers felt that, behind a drum kit, the camera would exaggerate his short stature and make him virtually hidden from view. Thus, Dolenz (who only knew how to play the guitar) was assigned to become the drummer. Tork taught Dolenz his first few beats on the drums, enough for him to fake his way through filming the pilot, but he was soon taught how to play properly.Thus, the lineup for the TV show most frequently featured Nesmith on guitar, Tork on bass, Dolenz on drums and Jones as a frontman, singer and percussionist.
Unlike most television shows of the time, The Monkees episodes were written with many setups, requiring frequent breaks to prepare the set and cameras for short bursts of filming. Some of the “bursts” are considered proto-music videos, produced to sell the records. The Monkees Tale author Eric Lefcowitz noted that the Monkees were—first and foremost—a video group. The four actors would spend 12-hour days on the set, many of them waiting for the production crew to do their jobs. Noticing that their instruments were left on the set unplugged, the four decided to turn them on and start playing.
After working on the set all day, the Monkees (usually Dolenz or Jones) would be called into the recording studio to cut vocal tracks. As the band was essential to this aspect of the recording process, there were few limits on how long they could spend in the recording studio, and the result was an extensive catalogue of unreleased recordings.
Pleased with their initial efforts, Columbia (over Kirshner’s objections) planned to send the Monkees out to play live concerts. The massive success of the series—and its spin-off records—created intense pressure to mount a touring version of the group. Against the initial wishes of the producers, the band went out on the road and made their debut live performance in December 1966 in Hawaii.
They had no time to rehearse a live performance except between takes on set. They worked on the TV series all day, recorded in the studio at night and slept very little. The weekends were usually filled with special appearances or filming of special sequences. The last show of the premiere season, “Monkees on Tour”, was shot in a documentary style by filming a concert in Phoenix, Arizona.
During the summer 1967 tour of the United States and the UK (from which the Live 1967 recordings are taken), they were backed by a band called the Sundowners. In 1968 the Monkees toured Australia and Japan. The results were far better than expected. Wherever they went, the group was greeted by scenes of fan adulation reminiscent of Beatlemania. This gave the singers increased confidence in their fight for control over the musical material chosen for the series.
With Jones sticking primarily to vocals and tambourine (except when filling in on the drums when Dolenz came forward to sing a lead vocal), the Monkees’ live act constituted a classic power trio of electric guitar, electric bass and drums (except when Tork passed the bass part to Jones or one of the Sundowners in order to take up the banjo or electric keyboards).
The Monkees went on to produce three years of television, countless concerts and individual recordings. To learn more, visit: http://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-monkees-mn0000478603/biography.

What’s your idea today?

“It’s got a good beat and you can dance to it”

August 4, 2017/0 Comments/in Friday Afternoon, Music, Trivia /by Steve Kowalski

(clockwise from lower left) Dick Clark was at the center of it all for decades; Dick in position on his show; Every male in the 50’s had to have an Ace comb in his back pocket; Dick Clark was a master at promotion; A show pass; Guys in suits and girls in dresses, that’s how it was done; Late 50’s boggie on afternoon TV; John Travolta Sept. 15, 1976; The start of Michael Jackson’s many appearances; Dick Clark’s typical sign off.

Ever have one of those days, when everything is clicking, and you just wanna dance? I do, thanks to the awesome work of my gang here at KHT. It’s an absolute blast for me to walk around the different plants, checking on your PIA (Pain in the @#$) Jobs, and chatting with the crews. With all the doors open, the sun shining in and the weather so nice, I find myself ‘dancin’ from building to building as we solve our customer’s problems. (yes, this really happens!) When we were kids, we had tons of fun music we listened to and danced to (my sisters and brothers also could really dance along with Dad and Mom). On the weekends, when not out playing, we occasionally turned on American Bandstand to hear the latest hits, marveling at the kids swingin’ to the beat. Now, as I have gotten older, Jackie and my girls continue to “teach” me the latest moves. In all fairness, I do have my favorite dance moves and while writing this post I can see them all shaking their heads! Tomorrow marks the 60^th anniversary of Dick Clark’s debut on ABC television. As we all know, Dick went on to be a huge radio and television voice for decades – rock, blues, disco and soul music. Special thanks to Wikipedia for the insights and little known history of AB.

American Bandstand (AB) first premiered in late March 1950 as Bandstand on Philadelphia television station WFIL-TV Channel 6 (now WPVI-TV), as a replacement for a weekday movie that had shown predominantly British films. Hosted by Bob Horn as a television adjunct to his radio show of the same name, Bandstand mainly featured short musical films with occasional studio guests.
After a few years, Horn was disenchanted with the program, and wanted to have the show changed to a dance program, with teenagers dancing along on camera as the records played, based on The 950 Club, hosted by Joe Grady and Ed Hurst.
In spring of 1956, the ABC television network asked their O&O’s and affiliates for programming suggestions to fill their coveted 3:30pm time slot. Dick Clark, active with the show, decided to pitch it to ABC president Thomas W. Moore, and after some badgering the show was picked up nationally, officially becoming American Bandstand on August 5, 1957.
A typical show included popular music, dancing teens and a small studio audience. Clark interviewing teenagers about their opinions of the songs being played, most memorably through the “Rate-a-Record” segment. During the segment, two audience members each ranked two records on a scale of 35 to 98, after which the two opinions were averaged by Clark, who then asked the audience members to justify their scores. The segment gave rise, perhaps apocryphally, to the phrase “It’s got a good beat and you can dance to it. Featured artists typically performed their current hits by lip-syncing to the released version of the song.
The program was broadcast live, weekday afternoons and, by 1959, the show had a national audience of 20 million. In the fall of 1961, ABC truncated American Bandstand’s airtime from 90 to 60 minutes, then even further as a daily half-hour program in September 1962. Beginning in early 1963, all five shows for the upcoming week were videotaped the preceding Saturday, allowing Clark to produce and host a series of concert tours around the success of American Bandstand.^] On September 7, 1963, the program was moved from its weekday slot and began airing weekly every Saturday afternoon, restored to an hour, until 1989.
From the late 1950s and most of the 1960s, Clark’s on-camera sidekick was announcer Charlie O’Donnell, who later went on to announce Wheel of Fortune and other programs hosted or produced by Clark, such as The $100,000 Pyramid.
Production of the show moved from Philadelphia to the ABC Television Center in Los Angeles (now known as The Prospect Studios) on February 8, 1964, which coincidentally was the same weekend that WFIL-TV moved from 46th and Market to their then-new facility on City Line Avenue. The program was permanently in color from September 9, 1967. The typical production schedule consisted of videotaping three shows on a Saturday and three shows on a Sunday, every six weeks.
Bandstand originally used “High Society” by Artie Shaw as its theme song, but by the time the show went national, it had been replaced by various arrangements of Charles Albertine’s “Bandstand Boogie,” including Larry Elgart’s big-band recording remembered by viewers of the daily version. From 1969 to 1974, “Bandstand Theme,” a synthesized rock instrumental written by Mike Curb, opened each show. From 1974 to 1977, there was a newer, orchestral disco version of “Bandstand Boogie,” arranged and performed by Joe Porter, played during the opening and closing credits.
From 1977 to the end of its ABC run in 1987, the show opened and closed with Barry Manilow’s rendition of “Bandstand Boogie,” which he originally recorded for his 1975 album Tryin’ to Get the Feeling. The Manilow version was replaced by an updated instrumental arrangement of “Bandstand Boogie” when Bandstand went into syndication, arranged by David Russo. From 1974 to the end of the ABC run in 1987, Bandstand featured another instrumental at its mid-show break: Billy Preston’s synth hit “Space Race.”
As Bandstand moved towards the 1980s, the ratings began to decline. Many factors were involved in this, particularly the launch of MTV and other music programs on television. The increase in competition hurt Bandstand and the variety of options for music on TV decreased its relevance.
The other reason ratings declined was that American Bandstand was pre-empted on many occasions by televised college football games, which expanded greatly in number in the wake of a court-ordered deregulation in 1984).
Making matters worse, for the 1986–87 season, ABC reduced Bandstand from a full hour to 30 minutes; at Clark’s request, the final ABC episode (with Laura Branigan performing “Shattered Glass”) aired on September 5, 1987. Two weeks later, Bandstand moved to first-run syndication, restored to its former hour length.
After a ten-month hiatus, Bandstand moved to USA Network with comedian David Hirsch taking over hosting duties. In another format shift, it was shot outdoors at Universal Studios Hollywood. Clark remained as executive producer. After 26 weeks, it was cancelled, and its final show (with The Cover Girls performing “My Heart Skips a Beat” and “We Can’t Go Wrong”) aired on October 7, 1989.
In 2002, Dick Clark hosted a special 50th anniversary edition. Michael Jackson, a frequent Bandstand guest, performed “Dangerous” and The Village People performed their legendary song, “YMCA” for a live audience in Pasadena, California. Other performers including Brandy, members of KISS, Dennis Quaid and his band The Sharks, Cher, and Stevie Wonder.
In 2004, Dick Clark, with the help of Ryan Seacrest, announced plans to revive the show in time for the 2005 season; although this did not occur (due in part to Clark suffering a severe stroke in late 2004), one segment of the revived Bandstand—a national dance contest—eventually became the series So You Think You Can Dance.
The show’s popularity helped Dick Clark become an American media mogul and inspired similar long-running music programs, such as Soul Train and Top of the Pops. Clark eventually assumed ownership of the program through his Dick Clark Productions company.
American Bandstand played a crucial role in introducing Americans to such famous artists as Prince, Jackson 5, Sonny and Cher, Aerosmith, and John Lydon’s PiL—all of whom made their American TV debuts on the show. American Bandstand on radio and tv became ritual for many teenagers throughout the nation. The Top 40 hits that everyone heard were matched with fun routines performed by relatable teenagers. It became a staple in homes and heavily influenced American society culturally, musically, and socially. It also was a prototype for musical television properties including cable channel MTV and Fox’s reality-competition show American Idol.