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I don't know if they'll perform that song tonight, but they'd better change the "young" part. As I keep telling Mrs. Funk, "They're senior citizens now, you know."
Three-quarters of the Monkees - Michael Nesmith is sitting this one out - will perform in Pittsburgh tonight as part of the erstwhile sitcom stars' 45th anniversary tour. And we'll be there to hear Davy, Mickey and Peter harmonize on ancient songs that we still like to hear.
OK, go ahead and laugh. We can take it. We're not the only ones paying to see a bunch of has-beens from our childhood.
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People our age tend to fondly recall "The Monkees," either for its prime-time run on NBC or its longtime Saturday-afternoon syndication.
Sure, the show's concept was a blatant rip-off of the Beatles in "A Hard Day's Night." No, the Monkees didn't play their own instruments, at least on their first couple of albums. And yes, the show tended to be "banal and insipid," as Nesmith, himself, conjectured on one episode.
But it was fun.
And musically, the quartet has drawn a great deal of re-examination after being dismissed for decades as bubble-gum schlock.
Nesmith, in particular, took the reins as a serious musician, and the result was a series of late-'60s records that display innovative components for the time.
For example, the song "Daily Nightly" on the album "Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd." features pioneering use of the Moog synthesizer, played by Mickey Dolenz. As he was quoted on the Los Angeles Times music blog:
"It was actually a pretty difficult thing to use. ... I threw a party for John Lennon one night, and he sat there at the Moog for four hours making flying saucer sounds. It was great for flying saucer sounds."
Yes, the Monkees once were big enough stars to hang out with the guys they copied.
They also were astute judges of talent. For their tour in the summer of 1967, they asked a virtually unknown guitarist to open their shows.
While Davy, Mickey, Michael and Peter enjoyed the guitarist's performances, most members of the audience did not. They'd brought their children to see clean-cut TV stars, not a headband-wearing black man who on occasion set his guitar afire.
And so Jimi Hendrix and the Monkees parted ways.
Eventually, NBC canceled the show. The troupe tried the big screen with a project called "Head," but despite appearances by the likes of Jack Nicholson and Frank Zappa, it tanked. Nesmith left the band, then Peter Tork; just Dolenz and Davy Jones remained for the final album of the Monkees' golden era.
That era is what we'll remember as we see a trio of senior citizens help us re-create our youth.
Online editor Harry Funk can be reached at hfunk@observer-reporter.com. Visit www.facebook.com/or.harryfunk.wednesday.
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