Re: R.I.P. - Peter Tork

Aged 77 from a rare form of cancer. The best Monkees description for me was when someone said "The Monkees becoming a real band is the equivalent of Starsky & Hutch actually becoming cops".

When I was a young child, finding out that the Monkees didn't play their own instruments might've been an even more upsetting experience than finding out that there was no Santa Clause.

They were real musicians, so it's more like David Soul and Paul Michael Glaser forming a law enforcement union.


Sad day - Peter fought it off for so long.
I've explained before my love of the 'Kees.

Hey, if you saw the show you just knew that they were four guys you’d like to hang around with for that half-hour.

I don’t care a lick if he never played or sang a note in any of their songs. He was fun to watch, the songs were often really good... the world is better off that they existed than if they hadn’t!!



Post Edited (02-22-19 17:32)

And don't forget - even David Soul had a hit single!

Lotta good vibes for The Monkees. I liked them much more than The Beatles, who were just… mediocre [yet omnipresent] to me. To this day I prefer a Beatles knockoff to the real deal who isn't so venerated just because they generated millions of dollars and influenced everyone and their brother. I don't get any oomph from The Beatles remotely equivalent to their cultural baggage. At least The Monkees songs were solid class work. When Jones died first, I was shocked since Tork had the tongue cancer just a year prior. At least he had another good decade left in him. And the quotes I'm seeing from Mike Nesmith about Tork in the media… good gawd the guy is eloquent. A poet, really.



Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®

Definitely agree with Bip. The Monkees may have had little to no instrumental input to their own recordings, but that makes them no different from most other American pop acts of the era. I've seen no backlash against any of those artists ... and the truth about the Wrecking Crew has not only become widely known, but has taken on a certain cachet in the history of American pop music. So there's no point in dismissing the Monkees as a "fake band." They certainly weren't the Sixties' version of Milli Vanilli! They all were very able singers, and the songs they sang were top-drawer.

> I don't get any oomph from The Beatles remotely equivalent to their cultural baggage.

That's how I've always felt about Leonard Cohen.

Wreckless Eric's thoughts on Peter (via our old pal Blasmo, long MIA from these parts):

"I’m sorry to hear of the passing of Peter Tork. Yesterday it turned out that Amy and I both thought one day we might get to meet him. I never got to meet any of them. Mickey Dolenz once came into the Stiff Records office but I was too shy to talk to him.

The Monkees came along just at the point before I started to discern cool from uncool, and even during my brief time as (I shudder to admit this) a prog rock snob I still carried a torch for them. As an art student in the early seventies I renewed my commitment to the Monkees, finding something Warholian in their creation and continued existence.

I always thought Peter Tork was the cool one.

When the Monkees covered Whole Wide World on their comeback album , Pool It, I was thrilled to bits, and even though it wasn’t exactly one of their high points I felt I’d been touched by the gods. Peter Tork was still the cool one.

Next time I play Whole Wide World it’s for Peter, and for all the kids like me who watched the Monkees TV show and dreamed of being pop stars.

I’m so sad I’ll never get to meet you Peter."

After reading that, I really want to know the story behind Mickey Dolenz visiting the Stiff Records office.

Wreckless Eric is a diamond gent!



Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®

Delvin - But I totally get it for Leonard Cohen!



Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®

Also one of the most famous alumni, although certainly not a graduate, of my alma mater, Carleton College. At Carleton the video and pinball area of the student center was named, half-seriously, after Peter Tork. There is an excellent obituary on the Carleton website:

[apps.carleton.edu]

He was also a DJ on KARL, the precursor to KRLX, the radio station where I DJed and served as station manager and programming director in college.

One of the coolest thing about the Monkees: after they did take control of the playing and writing (starting with Pisces and progressing) they came up with the absolutely warped HEAD.

np:: Roxy - fyp