The Monkees: Classic or Dud?

Avoid the comments section, as per usual..

I think this should be the case for ANY article online, unless you really want to stoke any feelings of misanthropy.

It was a really nice story.

David came bouncing over to me and yelled above the volume, "WE'RE GONNA FORM A GROUP!"

Love this.

and this:

http://images.channeladvisor.com/Sell/SSProfiles/12000635/Images/113/081227982805.jpg

holy shit re: the Carole King demo

― Vaseline MEN AMAZING JOURNEY (DJP), Monday, March 5, 2012 11:56 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i have two CDs of king demos, they are ace.

I have not watched the sitcom in close to 40 years -- is it amusing? Less or more surreal than Green Acres?

also can we talk about great tunes from king's psychedelic period?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yodok8wBv0g

I have not watched the sitcom in close to 40 years -- is it amusing? Less or more surreal than Green Acres?

― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, March 7, 2012 2:30 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's...okay. People can overstate how anarchic and zany it is; it's definitely more Help! than A Hard Day's Night, but if you did say "what do I imagine a network TV weekly episodic version of Help! would have been like," it's slightly better than that. And the songs are good. I'm going to a Davy tribute night next week where they're showing Head and some selected episodes; I'll report back afterwards!

Nesmith talks to Rolling Stone

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/surviving-monkees-to-launch-first-tour-in-15-years-20120808

I had thought Tork was in bad health...? I'm glad he's well enough to do this. I thought the thread revive might be a Tork RIP or something about Nesmith's upcoming London shows.

maybe a year late, Nesmith?

DAVY JONES HOLOGRAM.

"This seems like a good time to do this – the right time" (now that Davy, who I hated, is dead)

yeah hard to miss that subtext there

Missed the quote marks on DL's post at first glance, and was thinking he said now is a good time to see a reunion, now that Davy's dead. He *was* my least favorite of the pre-fab four, though.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151752834879170&set=a.10151752768629170.1073741826.19721149169&type=1&theater

seeing them in one week's time

Set List from one of the first dates:

"Last Train To Clarksville"
"Papa Gene's Blues"
"Your Auntie Grizelda"
"The Kind Of Girl I Could Love"
"She"
"Sweet Young Thing"
"I'm a Believer"
"(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone"
"You Told Me"
"Sunny Girlfriend"
"You Just May Be the One"
"Mary, Mary"
"The Girl I Knew Somewhere"
"Early Morning Blues And Greens"
"Randy Scouse Git"
"For Pete's Sake"
"No Time"
"Words"
"Daily Nightly"
"Tapioca Tundra"
"Goin' Down"
"Porpoise Song"
"Can You Dig It? "
"Circle Sky"
"As We Go Along"
"Daddy's Song"
"Long Title: Do I Have to Do This All Over Again"
"Daydream Believer"
"What Am I Doing Hangin' 'Round?"

Encore:
"Listen To The Band"
"Peter Percival Patterson's Pet Pig Porky"
"Pleasant Valley Sunday"

my wife is going to the show in austin next week, she has never seen mike nesmith who is her favorite so she is stoked

That's actually a really cool setlist. Love the big sequence of "Head" tracks near the end. Also:

Encore: "Peter Percival Patterson's Pet Pig Porky"

HAHAHA classic!

yeah, that one made me double-take! Pretty great set-list really.

well here's today's Spotify listening decided

seeing them in one week's time

― Uncle Cyril O'Boogie (C. Grisso/McCain), Thursday, July 25, 2013 11:30 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And so I did. A nice night out. Sadly, they've dropped "Daily Nightly" & "Peter Percival Patterson's Pet Pig Porky" (I'm rather ticked about the former actually). The venue was an 'in the round' place with an overstuffed stationary stage (the 13th Floor Elevators cut an unreleased at the time live album there), and even though I had kind of a shitty seat over on the side, I was still about 20' from Nesmith. Tork's probably the MVP, he was running wireless and frequently played and sang--in surprisingly fine voice--to all areas of the house.

If you're going to any of the remaining shows, be sure to get there early as they are playing a nicely curated program of clips (commercials, stuff from the show, promo films of tracks they don't do live--RIP Davy) before the show starts.

http://popdose.com/5-reasons-why-this-monkees-tour-matters/

I don't think this has been posted previously? Diane Hildebrand's original "Early Morning Blues and Greens":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBIj9E38h2E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMa1yJdcEyU

This song is so fun! Early Beatles mode but the background vocals are super trippy.

I watched "Behind the Music" earlier and it's too bad they split w Kirshner they could have made some great proto-glam/proto-punk bubblegum singles.

Apart from their producers tho, they were a really good secret untrained drone rock band.

'headquarters' is my wife's fav monkees album

they did make at least one classic proto-glam/proto-punk bubblegum single- stepping stone! and yeah, they also had some great drone rock- see "sweet young thing". that said the split with kirshner definitely propelled them to new artistic heights; kirshner never would've let them get away with something like "writing wrongs".

I'm watching In the Heat of the Night, and I had no idea until I looked it up that the two guys who do "Foul Owl on the Prowl" (the song the creepy diner guy plays on the jukebox) were also responsible for this great Monkees imitation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0tPpu5OiPI

They are also responsible for "What Am I Doin' Hangin' 'Round" from PAC&JL.

Full Blu-Ray set early next year:

http://monkeesstore.warnermusic.com/music/the-monkees-complete-tv-series-blu-ray.html

Contains _Head_ and _33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee_ as well. Specs:

-10 Blu-ray discs
-58 episodes
-Newly remastered in stunning HD from the original negatives for the very first time, plus the 1969 TV Special "33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee"
-The 1968 Monkees film "HEAD" in HD with never-before-seen outtakes
-Also includes bonus material, commentaries from all four Monkees, original Kellogg's Monkees commercials and more
-This fan-only edition includes exclusive packaging and a 7" featuring two previously unreleased TV mixes
-Strictly limited to 10,000 individually numbered sets
-Shipping January 2016
-Only available at monkees.com

Ehhhh...I was recently thinking about buying the newish DVD sets because they're super-cheap compared to the old Rhino sets. I'm not sure the perks of this thing outweigh the expense for me. Sounds pretty sweet, though.

My plan to get my relatives to buy this for me as a gift is backfiring and now I think I'm going to end up with a rabid penguin ;_;

Just heard that Boomer Castleman, of co-leader with Michael Martin Murphey of Monkee labelmates and Nesmith friends The Lewis & Clarke Expedition (discussed in the last revive) died last week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roCAC4qFhQA

Restoration compare/contrast video up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq4CQr2Ld6k

Wha?

https://mobile.twitter.com/xtcfans/status/693070406757040128

I saw that -- he was posting about writing for other people earlier this month, so I guess that's the other.

Who constitutes the Monkees these days? In other words, is Mike involved?

wow, I'm sure this will be much better than XTC

Watched some Monkees on TV today. There was a cold open where Frank Zappa was dressed like Mike Nesmith and Mike Nesmith was dressed like Frank Zappa and they were riffing on each other's music. Then there was a montage set to "Mother People" where they played a car. I knew Zappa was in the movie but didn't realize he was on the show too!

^^In the final episodes, each Monkee got to pick a guest star: Nez picked Zappa; Dolenz picked Tim Buckley; Jones picked Charlie Smalls (the guy who had the original idea for adapting "The Wiz"; and I forget who Tork picked.

Who constitutes the Monkees these days? In other words, is Mike involved?

He toured with them in 2012, 2013 and 2014; didn't in 2015.

i bet if these dudes could get on the final ballot they could make the rrhof

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-monkees-plot-50th-anniversary-tour-new-lp-good-times-20160205

tl;dr edit: New album...only Tork & Dolenz involved...Nez busy writing a book...Adam Schlesinger producing...Rivers Cuomo, Noel Gallagher, Ben Gibbard, Andy Partridge contribute new songs...Nez, Neal Diamond, Carole King, Nilsson contribute vintage songs and even recordings to be overdubbed.

Nilsson writing from beyond the grave?

It's a '60s copyright they never recorded.

it's strange how many of these collaborations/songwriting gigs Andy seems to do given how few of them actually pan out. Fuzzy Warbles is littered with songs he wrote for someone or other that never got used.