The Monkees: Classic or Dud?

this is *AMAZING*
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/jarviscocker/2011/01/monkees-manufacturing.shtml

wow. RIP

Isn't Nesmith as rich as a czar?

heir to the whiteout fortune
smart investment moves too iir

this is *AMAZING*
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/jarviscocker/2011/01/monkees-manufacturing.shtml

― piscesx, Wednesday, February 29, 2012 6:01 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, that is good.

one of the weirdest things about the monkees is bert schneider (RIP) and bob rafelson. there's something both haunting and just really ebulliently (sp?) funny about these dudes creating the show/band and then going on to make art films and eventually produce a scatching documentary about the vietnam war. it's both completely of its time and kind of exceptional.

I have very good memories of watching the Monkees show reruns in the summer of '86 at the height of their comeback.

Then they released "That Was Then This is Now."

a little harsh but hey that was Spitting Image in the 80s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJUG8G00HQY

So many great Davy tracks on the classic albums - "When Love Comes Knocking at Your Door," "Hold on Girl," "Forget That Girl," "I Can't Get Her Off My Mind," "Early Morning Blues and Greens," "Hard to Believe."

I agree

Forgot about "Dream World" from The Birds, the Bees, and the Monkees. That's a nice tune.

how does this not get a brand new thread?

RIP

Love the way Mike drops his head like the Rock-afire Explosion at the end of some kid's quarter at the end of that "Cuddly Toy" clip.

Also originated the Axl Rose dance.

RIP Davy... Doesn't he deserve his own thread?

Abso-fucking-lutely. I love the Monkees and, even though he could be an irritating little bastard, Davy is a definitely a big part of that. He always seemed so youthful and full of beans/himself that it's odd that he's the first one to die. RIP Davy.

Morrissey is recording a tribute with that very title.

"Davy was
the first of the gang with a cane in his hand
and a top hat held high
the first of the monkees to die..."

(with full respect, and RIP obv)

Mike Nesmith on his Facebook page:

All the lovely people. Where do they all come from?

So many lovely and heartfelt messages of condolence and sympathy, I don’t know what to say, except my sincere thank you to all. I share and appreciate your feelings.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.

While it is jarring, and sometimes seems unjust, or strange, this transition we call dying and death is a constant in the mortal experience that we know almost nothing about. I am of the mind that it is a transition and I carry with me a certainty of the continuity of existence. While I don’t exactly know what happens in these times, there is an ongoing sense of life that reaches in my mind out far beyond the near horizons of mortality and into the reaches of infinity.

That David has stepped beyond my view causes me the sadness that it does many of you. I will miss him, but I won’t abandon him to mortality. I will think of him as existing within the animating life that insures existence. I will think of him and his family with that gentle regard in spite of all the contrary appearances on the mortal plane.

David’s spirit and soul live well in my heart, among all the lovely people, who remember with me the good times, and the healing times, that were created for so many, including us.

I have fond memories. I wish him safe travels.

"Daddy's Song", "Star Collector", "Here Comes Tomorrow", "Early Morning Blues & Greens", "Daydream Believer" all fabulous, plus his persona on the TV programme was remarkably non-sickening. Plus, how strange was it that he had an actual charting single a full year before the Monkees debut?

RIP Davy

http://open.spotify.com/track/0tnt3gxEkh3cK3zO95is7f

love this song so much

http://open.spotify.com/track/49EoBTPBSmPUeRmPTJsIBX

this one, too

Admittedly finding good Dayy songs is not easy, but they are there. See "You an I" upthread.

Always loved "Shades of Gray", unique combination of Davy + Peter's voices ... must admit Peter's vocals make me well up on that one (bit like Florian Schneider's on "Radioland")

There are a ton of good Davy songs!

There's a lot of bad ones too, his good/bad ratio is the lowest overall

Man, thought of another one i really love: "Someday Man"!

Man, thought of another one i really love: "Someday Man"!

well, with such a classic song tis to be expected.

then again i prefer the original paul williams version of that

Really, the most amazing thing about The Monkees to me is how completely distinctive their voices were, yet how well they blended and harmonized with each other.

The only 'famous' person to live in the village where I grew up. Well the only one where it seems kind of cool that he lived there too. Ben Elton not so much.

And he was in my favourite joke in a Monkees ep.
Man on horseback: Water my horse!
Davy Jones: I'm not a stable boy!
Man on horseback: I don't care about your mental health, water my horse!

http://open.spotify.com/user/djperry1973/playlist/1On2wqSUL6d5g3QVuBafYo

All of the Monkees singles according to Wikipedia

RIP. My favorite song atm is "Cuddly Toy".

I discovered the Monkees when I was first getting into the Beatles and my little brothers had gotten into them too but had moved on to other groups from the era. They had a few VHS tapes of the shows and my mom still had a bunch of old Monkees LPs. I got the "Head" movie because my idol Frank Zappa was in it.

Oh to live in the 60s, when even 'manufactured' pop acts rocked and were trippy.

^^^ lookit Jann Wenner!

listening to all of these songs just reminded me of how much I love "Porpoise Song"; Davy's doubling on the lead-in to the chorus and his harmony line always jumped out at me as a special detail of that song that elevated it

Didn't realize until recently that "Porpoise Song" was written by Carole King!

http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/01/opinion/browne-davy-jones/index.html

A mostly good article that has a spectacular implosion at the end.

"Davy Jones didn't die for our integrity sins, but the Monkees' reputation has suffered plenty for them."

say wha?

haha I kind of skipped over that sentence because of how clumsy it is

Finding out that I quite like Instant Replay and The Monkees Present. Lots of Boyce and Hart, lots of Nesmith, the Davy stuff with Bill Chadwick, Micky's "Little Girl" - nice records on the whole. I never listened to them before - I guess because I just looked at the covers and figured they were just product coming from a band on its way out. The covers didn't suggest anything to me beyond that. Now I see what they are, though. They're a band that treated albums as collections of whatever was around that would come out every six months or so with artwork that was more like commercial design (in a good way - both of those covers are quite attractive) than fine art or whatever most rock record covers were at the time. I really like this model - a band that's working and that you can really follow. They also toured in '69 and made TV appearances and stuff.

Yeah, I sort of forget how many Monkees records there were. Up through The Monkees Present is eight LPs between 1966 and 1969! Plus two seasons of a TV show, a feature film, and of course touring and all that. Pretty super intense version of music as a gigging job, without any of the street cred that comes with being a "proper rock band" etc. You can see why Tork bailed.

Their run on the Billboard album chart for '66-'67 is amazing. The Monkees hits #1 on Nov. 12/66, about two months after its release. It stays there for 13 weeks, until it's replaced by More of the Monkees for the next 18 weeks--31 straight weeks at #1. Herb Alpert takes over for a week, and then Headquarters becomes their third #1 album in seven months. It only stays there for a week, giving way to Sgt. Pepper's by a band many dub as "the new Monkees."

is there a good thorough monkees anthology i should pick up that doesn't have, like, EVERYTHING but hits most of the high spots, incl. album tracks? or should i just put that together myself?

I was talking to a few baby boomers about The Monkees and I'm pretty surprised that "I hate them cos they're fakes" is still something people hold against them. Are you really upset that Glen Campbell or Neil Young is playing guitar rather than Michael Nesmith? That a member of The Wrecking Crew is playing drums rather than Micky Dolenz? That they're singing songs by Harry Nilsson and Carol King?

which is why boomers are the fucking worst ppl in human history

awww

in the aggregate
I mean just scientifically

Didn't realize until recently that "Porpoise Song" was written by Carole King!

http://soundcloud.com/almostbetterthansilence/monkees-demos-porpoise-song

covers of the songs king wrote/co-wrote in the 66-69 period are my favorite thing ever

Wow that is awesome.

I was talking to a few baby boomers about The Monkees and I'm pretty surprised that "I hate them cos they're fakes" is still something people hold against them. Are you really upset that Glen Campbell or Neil Young is playing guitar rather than Michael Nesmith? That a member of The Wrecking Crew is playing drums rather than Micky Dolenz? That they're singing songs by Harry Nilsson and Carol King?

Wow, real vintage first-world problems these. Even some critics are still towing the old party line. For the longest time, the AMG Monkees bio was by Richie Unterberger, who was mildly condescending towards the band up until the section on the the revival, where he gets nastier. I remember in particular his swipes at Rhino for reissuing the catalog with something along the lines of "the sensitivity one associates with Charlie Parker outtakes". The bio has been replaced, but they still have his Missing Links reviews, all of which reach a "some nice stuff, but really who cares?" conclusion.

I also recall a review in one of the old AMG books of a Box Tops comp by another writer that had several Monkee disses thrown in.

holy crap, that King demo! that's great!

re: compilations - I came in through the double-LP "Then & Now" best-of from the 80s. It has basically all you need if you only want one Monkees thing in your collection, although of course I can quibble over alarming omissions, especially since it does favor the singles or would-be singles and thus leaves out things like "Your Auntie Grizelda" which were in there to sustain their wacky-antics vibe from the show but are also totally awesome in their own right. There might be better comps now...

This is my favorite Davy lead on a Monkees song, a B-side between Instant Replay and Presents:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-lyW33lddU

Friend and ilxor J0seph McC0mbs noted this was Paul Williams' first major songwriting credit.

(Sorry the bad quality and flanging.)