I may be guilty of intolerable crimes against humanity. Back in the 80s I used to tell girls that the Monkees were faking it. It generally evoked the same level of outraged denial that telling a four-year-old that there’s no Santa Claus does. I’ve since read other things that contradict this. The spiel I heard was that Nesmith was the only one who even knew how to play an instrument, and he plays acoustic guitar. Moreover, I was led to believe that Nesmith freely admitted so in a Rolling Stone interview. On the other hand, years later, near the dawn of Internet (at least the Internet as we know it now), I read that all of the Monkees knew how to play their respective instruments, and wanted to do so, and that Kirshner was forcing them to fake it, which wiki seems to back up. Moreover, their disagreements over the issue finally led to Kirshner becoming disgusted with humans altogether and deciding that cartoon characters would be easier to manage, hence the Archies. So do I have to get on Facebook and track down a bunch of middle-aged women and apologize for my youthful transgressions?
Peter Tork is a musical instrument savant. I remember reading about the episode where he sold his soul to play the harp. They were going to have a stand-in who could play the harp and just do close-ups of the hands but Peter took an hour to mess with the harp and then did all the playing for the episode.
My understanding is that both Mike and Peter could both play guitars and neither wanted to give up that to play the drums. Davy disappeared behind the drum set and so Mickey had to have extensive lessons to learn the drums quickly. The teacher they found was lefthanded so, despite being righthanded, Mickey plays drums lefthanded and still sets up his drumset that way.
I don’t have any authoritative information, but I remember the buzz around their third LP (I think) that “they play their own instruments on this one!”
Mike and Peter were musicians (Mike went on to record several albums after the Monkees broke up), so they could play their instruments. Davy and Mickey were actors, and originally couldn’t play. Mickey learned drums; he wasn’t a great drummer, but could keep time. Davy never actually played anything other than a tambourine.
Now, in the first album or two, the producers did not believe the Monkees could play well enough, so most of the music was played by studio musicians. But the group insisted they play on the albums, and eventually they prevailed.
On the show, they were probably faking it – there were technical issues with performing and recording the songs live. But that would have applied to any musicians of the time. However, a couple of episodes showed footage from live concert tours, where they were definitely playing (though there were additional musicians on stage).
Without doing research, I seem to remember that the music on the Monkees first recordings was mostly played by LA studio hotshots. But they all had musical backgrounds of various sorts & eventually did their own stuff.
They were “fake” in that they were put together for a TV show–they weren’t a bunch of old folkies who got real stoned one day & decided “hey, like, let’s start a band!”
I was a bit old to be a Monkees fan–most of my heroes were those old folkies. Over the years, I’ve learned how early records by some of those heroes (like The Byrds) were heavily dependent on LA studio pros. Even later albums by various heroes had plenty of studio sweetening; their live shows weren’t always that great.
Another “fake” group was Moby Grape–various SF veterans hired by a record company rather than organically drifting together. (The PR folks hadn’t yet discovered “Supergroups.”) They were massively hyped, to the disgust of many hipsters. The joke: Their first LP was actually quite excellent…
A prime example being an album that is often held out as an “ultimate live performance:” - Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense. As great as they actually were live, that album was sweetened to within an inch of its life.
I too remember the buzz when the Monkees issued their third album.
Antenna TV had a Monkees marathon this weekend, and I watched a few episodes that I hadn’t seen since they originally aired. It was pretty obvious that the studio performances were lip-sync’d and pantomimed, but heck, the same thing happens today on certain shows. However, the concert footage looked pretty authentic. Someone faking guitar or piano is pretty easy to spot if you really listen to the music and watch the hands.
Of course, back in the 60s, I didn’t care about that stuff. They were the best band ever and those who put them down were just liars!!!
When I was a kid, someone told me that the Monkees don’t play their own instruments. I specifically remember thinking “So what if they have to rent them, not everyone can afford a guitar of their own?”
It was many years before the actual meaning of that sentence clicked for me.
The Monkees made that joke themselves in concert.
Micky: “Whatcha doing, Peter?”
Peter: “Playing guitar.”
Micky: “The Monkees don’t play their own instruments.”
Peter: “Oh, it’s OK… this is Davy’s guitar.”
There’s a famous anecdote, which is probably true because people are exactly that stupid, that after one of their concerts a reporter came up to Mike and asked him if the band played their own instruments. Was he thinking that another band were hidden backstage? Or might he have been someone who was taught in Famous Reporters School never to use their own eyes for evidence but always get a quote.
Peter could play several instruments and was part of the Greenwich Village folk scene. Mike played guitar and was a veteran of several bands. Mickey played guitar and was a veteran of several bands. In addition to his Broadway work, Davy issued two pre-Monkees albums, both named David Jones, just to screw with collectors’ heads. He may have just sung on those but every young male of the period picked up a guitar at some point.
Both Peter and Mike played at least a little bit on the first two albums, probably mostly on the few Mike-written songs that were allowed in. They made a huge point about playing every instrument on their third album, Headquarters. After that, they played and brought in friends. Mickey was friends with Paul Beaver, the pioneer of the moog synthesizer in rock and bought one himself. He played it on “Daily Nightly” and “Love Is Only Sleeping” on the fourth album, and Beaver played it on “Star Collector” on that same album. It was the first mainstream rock album to use a moog.
The Byrds famously put out the catchy Monkees attack song, “So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star,” while the show was still on the air. And famously, Roger McGuinn was the only Byrd who played on “Mr. Tambourine Man.” Studio musicians played the rest of the parts. Ditto for the b-side, “I Knew I’d Want You.” I love irony.
People ask what the great lost rock song of the 60s might be. The answer is Omaha off that first Moby Grape album. Get in front of a good stereo system and play it loud, Loud, LOUD!
Back in my Hollywood days I knew a guitar player (name was Wayne) who was a studio musician. I know he recorded some of the Monkees stuff but I don’t remember any details.
Some of what has already been written here is accurate.
Included with the Blu-Ray of the Monkee’s movie Head are their auditions for the show. Mike, Peter and Mickey were all guitar players. Mike is also wearing a harmonica during his interview. Peter talks a little bit about his band and Mickey appears with 2 of his bandmates. Davy was a singer/dancer/actor and talks about his performing experience.
I’m reminded of a comment by Lillian Roxon in her Rock Encyclopedia that by the time of their third album, putting down the Monkees was something that was not done. Pro musicians understood the forces and compromises that are part of the business, and the Monkees got a lot of respect for trying to become the group they were hired to be.
That must be Wayne Erwin. He’s all over the first Monkees album, and also contributed a bit to the second.
I have the DVDs. I seem to recall that in the commentary, Peter says that he thought that he could have learned to play the harp, but the schedule was so tight, that they didn’t give him time to. So in the show, he’s just miming to a studio musician’s harp playing.
Oh, well then there goes a neat story.
I’ve heard similar stuff about the Japanese girl-group “ZONE”. They started out as a teenage “song & dance” pop act, and then their management got the bright idea to give them instruments to pretend to play. At some point the girls themselves decided that, as long as they had the instruments, they might as well learn to actually play them. They certainly weren’t virtuosos (mainly a “time” issue - their career only lasted maybe four years and the oldest member of the band was only 18 when they disbanded), but they got “good enough” to actually play live. As a guitarist/bassist myself I could see the difference between their early videos, where they were clearly miming, and their “farewell concert”, where they were actually playing (though there were still some obvious places where they were playing along with recorded tracks to “augment” their sound). But the drummer and bassist played competently, and the lead guitarist was clearly playing her own solos.
After they disbanded the drummer went on to university, the bassist formed a new band, the “main” lead singer/lead guitarist quit playing guitar and went to singing dance-pop, and I think the rhythm guitarist switched to acoustic singer/songwriter type stuff.
Yeah, that’s him. He lived in my house in Malibu for a while. He also had a band that played the local clubs, the Corral in Topanga Canyon and the like.
Ah, the memories of those days. 
There was initial disrespect in the music community because the Monkees hadn’t ‘paid their dues’. But nothing beats success, which they had more of than many other bands at the time. The total time the Monkees were together was brief because they didn’t spend that time together working their way up the ladder. Though in the years to follow many more bands would be constructed for short stints. So in the end, their formation was only different in that a TV show was the basis for bringing them together.
Huh, I’d never heard that “So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star” was meant as a dig on the Monkees. I’ve always interpeted it more as a sarcastic rebuttal to any band’s detractors (which could even include the Monkees) – “You think this shit is so easy, *you *try it.”