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Yesterday the world lost Davy Jones of The Monkees. I get it, we don’t play them…they’re kinda dorky, wannabe Beatles…but they were a lot more instrumental in shaping music than maybe you would think. They were the band that gave Jimi Hendrix his first US shows back in 1967…he opened up for the in July of that year, but the teenage girls didn’t LIKE Jimi’s sound, so at one point he gave the crowd the finger and quit the tour. Gene Roddenberry was inspired to introduce the character of Chekov in Star Trek in response to the popularity of Davy Jones, complete with hairstyle and appearance mimicking that of Jones. Also, remember on the show they would put their music to funny clips of them riding bikes or running on the beach or just “monkeying around” (snicker)? You know…what we call a MUSIC VIDEO today? They were among the first to do that. Would we have music videos if we didn’t have The Monkees? In 1979, Michael Nesmith created a show called Pop Clips which would show early music videos on Nickelodean from The Stones and The Police and Thin Lizzy. The following year, Nesmith sold the rights to the show to Time Warner, who then turned Pop Clips into MTV. So, in essence, Micheal Nesmith of The Monkees created MTV. AND they had Frank Zappa on the show…which is pretty farking cool.
While we’re thinking of musicians who have left us too soon, a new list was released this week of the top musicians who died before their time. These artists are ranked not only by how great their music was at the time of their death, but what their future might have meant to the world of music. You won’t find Davy Jones on this list, but according to them, the most significant loss to the music industry was Jimi Hendrix, followed by John Lennon and Jim Morrison. Rounding out the top five are Janis Joplin and Kurt Cobain. The full list of “Rock Stars Whose Deaths Were The Most Untimely” may be viewed on Ranker.com.
I think it’s about time that Robert Plant decides that he should get back together with the remaining members of Led Zeppelin. He announced earlier this week that will debut his new band, the Sensational Space Shifters, in July at the UK’s Womad Festival , and the band will feature members of Plant’s pre-Band Of Joy group, Strange Sensation. Okay, fine. But THEN it was announced that, when Led Zeppelin got back together in 2007 for the Ertegun concert at the O2 Arena in London, that show raised almost $42 MILLION which was donated yesterday to Oxford University for scholarships, etc. Can you IMAGINE Led Zeppelin getting back together and, instead of KEEPING the money (because I’m pretty positive they don’t NEED it) they donated it to a charity in each city they played? Heck they could balance the books of those cities and maybe get a third world country out of debt!! Think about it, Robert.
Although nothing’s set in stone, it looks as though the proposed Buffalo Springfield reunion tour is permanently on ice. Last July, Neil Young decided to indefinitely postpone the 30-date fall 2011 tour with surviving members Stephen Stills and Richie Furray — which was to follow the band’s string of sold out dates on their first outing since 1968. At the time it was said that the band would instead be hitting the road sometime in 2012. Well, according to Furray, that probably won’t be happening. He says, “Y’know, Neil is just fickle and even though it boils down to all three of us making a decision . . . without the three of us, really there can’t be anything that would even resemble a Buffalo Springfield. I gotta say that we probably lost a little bit of our momentum; that isn’t to say it couldn’t be picked up again, but I certainly don’t see anything happening this year.”
And Zumba…have you heard of this? It’s a crazy-ass dance workout that can be pretty darn sexy…until you get the WWE legends “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan and “Rowdy” Roddy Piper and Jimmy “Mouth of the South” Hart doing it. TMZ tells the story of what the heck is going on…
Apparently the footage is for an upcoming reality show. The show still doesn’t have a home, but we’re told the WWE is hoping to run it on its upcoming network.
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