Last year I started four projects in which my aim is to try to learn every part to every song by a particular band (with some stipulations). I'd already been doing this with the Zombies since 2012, and while I knew that actually learning every part to every song is next to impossible, my experience with the Zombies' music showed me that even learning a few parts gave me a new appreciation of the music. As I learned more parts, I started analyzing things from a musicological point of view, which gave me a deeper understanding of the songs. So while the end goal of each of these projects is probably unattainable, it's still an enlightening journey.
I knew the Monkees started releasing records and broadcasting television episodes in 1966 (fifty years ago), so on 1 January, I started reading Andrew Sandoval's The Monkees: The Day-by-Day Story of the 60s TV Pop Sensation, and I planned (and still plan) to watch each episode on the 50th anniversary of its original broadcast and listen to each album on the 50th anniversary of its release (although for some album, Sandoval provides only the months they were released, not the exact days).
Between reading the book and listening to some of the albums for my Collection Audit project, I experienced a recrudescence in my interest in the Monkees. I first got interested in them in about 2008, when I saw re-runs of the television series (the first episode I saw was actually the second episode of the series, which was a pretty good place to start). Seeing Peter Tork playing bass on television was one of my main motivations to be a musician rather than just someone who listens to music (however, at the time, it was easier to get a guitar; I didn't get a bass until the end of 2010). Even now, I still wear my belt bucket one belt loop over, just like he did (apparently to avoid scratching the back of his bass).
So reading about the Monkees and listening to their music sparked this renewed interest, and I found myself figuring out a few parts to their songs (the guitar part to the demo of "She'll Be There" [because it sounded brilliant], the bass part to "Sweet Young Thing" [because it sounded easy], and most of the parts to "She" [because it sounded interesting]). After getting the chords to a couple more songs, I realized that I'd sort of stumbled into doing yet an-other of my cover projects. The only purpose this post serves is to announce that I'm officially adding the Monkees to my roster of bands whose entire catalogue I'm trying to learn. However, I'm going to restrict myself to the original albums by the quartet (even of those, I have only the first four and the soundtrack to Head).
Once I had the idea to do this, I had to come up with a name for the project. I eventually decided on Manufactured Monkees. Most of the inspiration behind this is a stanza in "Ditty Diego" – "You say we're manufactured / To that we all agree / So make your choice, and we'll rejoice / In never being free." However, since I'm also interested in languages, I liked the etymological reference to hands in manufactured. The "manu-" part comes from manus, the Latin word for hand, so there's something of a very subtle allusion to "magic fingers," which is in "Papa Gene's Blues" ("Play, magic fingers!") and which is Micky's moniker in the episode "Monkees on the Wheel" (which is one of my favorite episodes). And also, obviously, hands are important in playing instruments.
Like my other cover projects, I've started a separate tumblr for this, and I'll be uploading rough (and possibly erroneous) versions of what I know of the songs. Like I mentioned earlier, I'm doing my Collection Audit project this year (where I attempt to listen to the entirety of my music collection), so I don't have as much time to devote to this project as I would otherwise, but at least this is a start.
