Today I had the opportunity to sit in on a History of Rock class taught by Jim Simmons at Long Beach City College. It was a lot of fun and I learned a few things. For example, I didn't know that the Monkees were a 100% fabricated band. They were chosen during open casting call and judge's decisions were based more on acting skills and appearance than musical talent. This fabricated band was the brainchild of Don Kirshner. Once the Monkees fizzled out, Don Kirshner went on to produce a show called Don Kirshner's Rock Concert. I went on-line to see if I could find any video and I came across a site called Historic Films.com. I didn't find Don Kirshner's Rock Concert specifically but I did watch news footage of Einsten, John F. Kennedy's inauguration, 70's rock and anti-war/pro-peace rallies. It was a pretty fun way to spend a 1/2 hour and I'm hoping I can get a hold of some of those videos and post them here. In the meantime, here's a Monkees video I found on YouTube: Buy the Monkees on iTunes. Some of you younger folks may have heard this song for the first time in the movie Shrek performed by Smash Mouth. Buy Shrek on iTunes. In the 80's there was a whole mod thing going on and at that time the Monkees had a resurgence. I went to see them at the Pacific Amphitheater. I got my ticket signed by Rodney Bingenheimer (AKA Rodney on the ROQ) from KROQ it was pretty cool.