The Monkees band together for reunion tour
9:33 PM, Jun. 16, 2011
The back-story of The Monkees latest attempt at a reunion reads more like a soap opera than a milestone moment in popular music.
A decade ago, the last time the pre-fab boy band attempted a tour, it had an ugly ending when Peter Tork quit near the end of the run and accused his two stage mates, Davy Jones and Micky Dolenz, of booze-fueled abusive behavior toward him.
Just two years ago, as Tork underwent career-threatening cancer surgery and treatment, Jones told the National Enquirer he couldn't imagine ever sharing a stage again with Dolenz and then slammed each of his former partners.
So it was something of a minor stunner in March when The Monkees announced a spring and summer world tour to celebrate the group's 45th anniversary.
Tork, 69, has since accepted responsibility for the problems that derailed the 2001 tour by admitting he, Jones, 65, and Dolenz, 66, were getting along just fine until he had a "meltdown."
"I ticked the other guys off good and proper and it was a serious mistake on my part," Tork admitted to Rolling Stone in March when the latest tour was announced. "I was not in charge of myself to the best of my ability -- the way I hope I have become since. I really just behaved inappropriately, honestly. I apologized to them."
As they've done during past reunion tours, The Monkees, who swing into Borgata for a one-night stand on Saturday, will cover all of the hits they recorded during their run on the pop charts from 1966 until 1970, when the band split up.
With former Monkee Mike Nesmith still sitting out any reunions with his former partners, Tork, Jones and Dolenz will perform songs such as "Last Train to Clarksville," "I'm A Believer," "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone," "Pleasant Valley Sunday" and "Day Dream Believer."
And they'll do it in front of a giant HD screen that will occasionally create a set that looks like the apartment from the band's 1966-1968 television series, which was the whole reason the band was formed in the first place.
The Monkees came by their "pre-fab" designation quite naturally. The four original members were more actors than musicians and didn't know one another when they auditioned for roles on a TV series that was being created by Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider, with music supervised by rock impresario Don Kirshner.
Inspired by The Beatles' film "A Hard Day's Night," Rafelson and Schneider wanted to develop a show about a rock 'n roll band and had initially wanted to cast an established group, the Lovin' Spoonful, in the series. But the Spoonful was already signed to a record label, so the producers of the TV series wouldn't have been able to market the band's music.
Although The Monkees originally provided most of the vocals for songs performed on the show, they weren't skilled enough musicians to back themselves up. Although their singles and albums went gold and platinum and they were among the top-selling artists of the era - rivaled in many cases only by The Beatles - The Monkees were constantly locking horns with management and the studio for the rights to create their own music and control their own sound.
It wasn't until after the series was canceled in 1968, and they each mastered their instruments, that they took control of their music to continue on as a viable band.
Then and now, a love-hate relationship always seemed to pervade the members of the band. There have been bumps in the road for The Monkees as far back as 1969, when Tork - citing exhaustion - became the first member to quit following a tour of Asia.
Jones, Dolenz and Nesmith continued on as a trio until 1970, when Nesmith - whose mother invented Liquid Paper and then died, leaving him her fortune - also quit.
For the past 40 years, Tork, Jones and Dolenz have occasionally reunited for tours to celebrate milestone anniversaries. Nesmith briefly joined the band in 1996 to work on an album and participate in a short European tour before leaving the group again.
Tork, who successfully recovered from a rare form of head and neck cancer in 2009, said he hasn't spoken to Nesmith, a successful music and movie producer, for 14 years. But he won't rule out the possibility of working with him again.
"It's possible," Tork said. "I'd be game for it. Michael's always welcome."
Read More
The back-story of The Monkees latest attempt at a reunion reads more like a soap opera than a milestone moment in popular music.
A decade ago, the last time the pre-fab boy band attempted a tour, it had an ugly ending when Peter Tork quit near the end of the run and accused his two stage mates, Davy Jones and Micky Dolenz, of booze-fueled abusive behavior toward him.
Just two years ago, as Tork underwent career-threatening cancer surgery and treatment, Jones told the National Enquirer he couldn't imagine ever sharing a stage again with Dolenz and then slammed each of his former partners.
So it was something of a minor stunner in March when The Monkees announced a spring and summer world tour to celebrate the group's 45th anniversary.
Tork, 69, has since accepted responsibility for the problems that derailed the 2001 tour by admitting he, Jones, 65, and Dolenz, 66, were getting along just fine until he had a "meltdown."
"I ticked the other guys off good and proper and it was a serious mistake on my part," Tork admitted to Rolling Stone in March when the latest tour was announced. "I was not in charge of myself to the best of my ability -- the way I hope I have become since. I really just behaved inappropriately, honestly. I apologized to them."
As they've done during past reunion tours, The Monkees, who swing into Borgata for a one-night stand on Saturday, will cover all of the hits they recorded during their run on the pop charts from 1966 until 1970, when the band split up.
With former Monkee Mike Nesmith still sitting out any reunions with his former partners, Tork, Jones and Dolenz will perform songs such as "Last Train to Clarksville," "I'm A Believer," "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone," "Pleasant Valley Sunday" and "Day Dream Believer."
And they'll do it in front of a giant HD screen that will occasionally create a set that looks like the apartment from the band's 1966-1968 television series, which was the whole reason the band was formed in the first place.
The Monkees came by their "pre-fab" designation quite naturally. The four original members were more actors than musicians and didn't know one another when they auditioned for roles on a TV series that was being created by Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider, with music supervised by rock impresario Don Kirshner.
Inspired by The Beatles' film "A Hard Day's Night," Rafelson and Schneider wanted to develop a show about a rock 'n roll band and had initially wanted to cast an established group, the Lovin' Spoonful, in the series. But the Spoonful was already signed to a record label, so the producers of the TV series wouldn't have been able to market the band's music.
Although The Monkees originally provided most of the vocals for songs performed on the show, they weren't skilled enough musicians to back themselves up. Although their singles and albums went gold and platinum and they were among the top-selling artists of the era - rivaled in many cases only by The Beatles - The Monkees were constantly locking horns with management and the studio for the rights to create their own music and control their own sound.
It wasn't until after the series was canceled in 1968, and they each mastered their instruments, that they took control of their music to continue on as a viable band.
Then and now, a love-hate relationship always seemed to pervade the members of the band. There have been bumps in the road for The Monkees as far back as 1969, when Tork - citing exhaustion - became the first member to quit following a tour of Asia.
Jones, Dolenz and Nesmith continued on as a trio until 1970, when Nesmith - whose mother invented Liquid Paper and then died, leaving him her fortune - also quit.
For the past 40 years, Tork, Jones and Dolenz have occasionally reunited for tours to celebrate milestone anniversaries. Nesmith briefly joined the band in 1996 to work on an album and participate in a short European tour before leaving the group again.
Tork, who successfully recovered from a rare form of head and neck cancer in 2009, said he hasn't spoken to Nesmith, a successful music and movie producer, for 14 years. But he won't rule out the possibility of working with him again.
"It's possible," Tork said. "I'd be game for it. Michael's always welcome."
Read More