With the passing of synthesized keyboard designer Robert Moog, numerous retrospectives have noted how music groups of the latter 1960s made use of his revolutionary compact Moog synthesizer. Virtually all these retrospectives note how The Beatles used the Moog synthesizer in 1969 and how it got substantial usage in the early-70s' progressive rock phase.
And I have yet to find a national retrospective that notes the group that introduced the Moog to pop records - The Monkees. In 1967 Micky Dolenz was among the first people to purchase a Moog synthesizer, and he integrated it into the making of the group's fourth long-player album, Pisces Aquarius Capricorn & Jones Ltd. Micky played the Moog for the album's cryptic exploration of 1967 rioting on Sunset Strip Daily Nightly while Moog retailer Paul Beaver handled the keyboards for the group's rip-roaring put-down of groupies Star Collector. The use of the Moog on the album was a mixed blessing; Micky's random Moog riffing on Daily Nightly is ultimately a distraction despite showing some cleverness, while Beaver's perfectly synched riffing on Star Collector (other than on the song's admittedly overblown and prolonged ending) adds enormously to the song's power.
It was the first time a Moog synthesizer found use on a mainstream pop album, and yet this fact goes unmentioned in media retrospectives. As Michael Nesmith once put it about media coverage of the Sunset Strip rioting, it is one of the goofball moments in press coverage.
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