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PREFAB

                                             August 11, 2010

                                   Unless you count
   The Monkees got                 "Sixteen" and "Teen Beat".
   no respect.

   Their show was funny,
   the songs and music
   were actually pretty
   good 60s pop...

   But everyone was acutely aware they
   were a producer-manufactured band:       AUTHENTICITY
   they reeked of inauthenticity.

   There were constant rumors that
   they couldn't *really* play their
   instruments (and the Beatles could?).      The Monkees were often
                                              called "The Prefab Four".

        One of the things that
        was brilliant about
        the Monkees was the way     In one of the many (lip-synched)
        they decided to play up     music performance sequences,
        to their reputation.        Mike Nesmith is standing there
                                    pretending to be strumming a
                                    piece of wood.

                                              The central theme of the
                                              movie "Head" is their
                                              inauthenticity: the band
                                              is a great success, and
                                              now they're suffering the
                                              fate of Elvis, grinding
                                              out endless cheesy movies.
There are reasons
such things are
looked down on...
                            RUNAWAYS
  But they aren't always
  good reasons.  Must
  commerce always corrupt
  art?  Isn't there an
  art to using commerce
  to your own ends?


     There are cases where the
     manager of a band achieved
     something brilliant by the
     manipulation of the
     character of the band: the
     process of "fabrication"
     is not always opposed
     to the process of creation...

           "The Velvet Underground"
                                             FACTORY_DAYS
           "The Sex Pistols"
                               PISTOL_WHIPPED             "Despite all the
                                                           computations..."

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