[04:10.17]Reading
[04:15.84]THE BAND THAT WASN'T
[04:19.50]Have you ever wanted to be a famous singer or musician?
[04:24.75]Have you ever dreamed of being in front of thousands of people at a concert,
[04:30.63]with everyone clapping and enjoying your singing?
[04:35.17]Do you sing karaoke and close your eyes and pretend you are Coco Li or Liu Huan?
[04:43.53]If we are honest with ourselves,most of us have dreamed of being famous.
[04:50.51]But just how do people get to form a band?
[04:55.16]Most musicians meet and form a band because they like to write and play music.
[05:02.63]Many times in America,
[05:06.18]bands are formed by high school students
[05:10.83]who practise their music in someone's home.
[05:15.19]They may play to passers-by in the street or subway
[05:20.47]so that they can earn some extra money.
[05:24.13]This also gives a group a chance to dream of becoming famous.
[05:29.59]However,there was one band that started in a different way.
[05:35.36]It began as a TV show.
[05:39.30]The musicians of whom the band was formed played jokes on each other
[05:45.26]as well as played music
[05:48.42]Their music and jokes were based loosely on the band called"The Beatles".
[05:54.98]The TV organizers had looked for four musicians who were lively
[06:01.53]and who could make good music.
[06:05.19]They put an advertisement in a newspaper looking for rock musicians,
[06:11.64]but they could only find one that was good enough.
[06:16.32]They had to use actors for the other members of the band.
[06:22.09]Actors may not be able to sing so at first other musicians
[06:29.54]sang the songs for the programme while the band pretended to sing them.
[06:35.60]Their attractive performances were copied by other groups
[06:41.55]and their fans supported them fiercely.
[06:45.81]Each week the group that was called
[06:50.07]"The Monkees"would play a song or two written them other musicians.
[06:56.84]However,after a year or so in which they became more serious about their work,
[07:04.49]"The M onkees"started to play their own instruments
[07:09.82]and write their own songs like a real band.
[07:14.57]Then they produced their own records and started touring
[07:21.23]and playing their own music.
[07:24.89]They became even more popular
[07:28.65]than"The Beatles"in the USA and sold even more records.
[07:35.21]However,the band broke up in about 1970,but reunited in the mid-1980s.
[07:45.19]They produced a new record in 1996,
[07:50.44]which was a celebration of their time as a real band |