The Monkees: Classic or Dud?

I was steering clear because I've had mixed results with non-60s Monkees material but at a bare minimum the song "Good Times" is worth the price of admission for me

In related Monkee news, Wounded Bird has just done an expanded reissue of The Lewis and Clark Expedition album, which iirc has never been officially released on CD before.

This album really is surprisingly (for me, a non-Monkees fan anyway) good. Maybe most surprising is that songs written by actual Monkees (Tork's Little Girl and Nesmith's I Know What I Know) are as good as any of the other (also good) songs by the ringer songwriters.

No surprise about Michael Nesmith, a fantastic songwriter.

The surprise there may be that he's using a good song on a Monkees album rather than saving it for one of his own. Still haven't heard it, except for the Cuomo one, which I may have liked more had I not read the lyrics while listening to it.

Looking at his discography over the last 20 years, he's the opposite of prolific, so he may have been grateful to have a Monkees album to place the one or two really good songs he had in the can.

http://www.rockcellarmagazine.com/2016/06/07/andy-partridge-interview-the-monkees-good-times-xtc-songwriting/#sthash.LtlqW0S1.ok6InECj.dpbs

Mike Nesmith's final Monkees concert is tonight. There's been some good footage on facebook of the last few nights.

Deep regret that thanks to accidental timing I missed both the Veldt playing SF -- which would have been the first time I'd ever get to see them at long last -- and the Monkees down in Monterey, where Nesmith joined them since he lives in Carmel Valley. Ah well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7rphYKTmI8

this song pretty much rules. love the part where he's not singing any words and they play w the echo on his voice. Nirvana would've done done an amazing cover of this.

i love that album

yes! me too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80dnoJZqYgE

Putting it on today for the first time in ages. Ehhh..... nice recordings, but maybe a little too much gentle twee dream-boy stuff for my taste (why the fuck is Davy going on and on about this stupid circus poster?), even if Nez's moves towards West Coast freakout stuff are much appreciated. "Daydream Believer" is obv a towering all-time classic, and "Valleri" rocks despite a pretty underwritten lyric, but the non-pro-written, non-Nesmith material is kinda generic. "P.O. Box 9847" has a decent enough hook. I miss the token Peter "Monkees antics" type song, too!

I always wondered if The Monkees were just doing their own circus poster song in homage to "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite."

"The business is changing, boys! If you want to make it with the kids in today's musical landscape, it's posters they want! Have you seen how the Beatles are selling? It's not all 'woo woo woo' and 'she loves me,' nosirree, they're selling big and what they're selling is circus posters!"

I think it's a transitional album where you've still got some of the old Monkees methodology and sound on the singles tracks and the re-recording of "I'll Be Back up on My Feet" and then the more singular directions emerging for Jones, Dolenz, and Nesmith.

There's a Tork track called "Lady's Baby" that didn't make the album but is widely available.

The business is changing, boys! If you want to make it with the kids in today's musical landscape, it's posters they want

lol what a crazy time the 60s were - made-for-TV cash grabs exploiting lite garage psych and victorian whismy.

there are definitely stronger Monkees albums and i agree w Dr. C's assessment on a little too much dreamy twee but i dig it. "Magnolia Simms" has them effortlessly drifting close to Tiny Tim's comedic old-timey orbit.

Instant Repay is even more of a hodgepodge. The Monkees Present gives more of a sense of where they were at that particular time. Shame that Tork was gone and the original plan of a double album didn't pan out.

There's a Tork track called "Lady's Baby" that didn't make the album but is widely available.

It's a bonus track on the 90s CD of the album. Tork also cut "Long Title...." at this time, but it was held back for Head. It's interesting that he was using Buffalo Springfield guys on those recordings--in their own way they are as much B.S. tracks as anything on Last Time Around.

I heartily recommend that Monkees Day-By-Day book Andrew Sandoval did awhile back--a surprisingly fascinating look at the L.A. Studio scene in that post-Spector/pre-Mellow Mafia era.

The story of Craig Smith has a relevance to that as well, since he was briefly championed by Nesmith while in the band Penny Arkade -- it gives a sense of what Nesmith's pull was for a time in terms of recording access, high quality demos etc. Links and more in the thread I started:

Craig Smith/Maitreya Kali

Yeah, I had that book from the library, it's great. xp

Monkees FB page just posted that "I'm a Believer" hit #1 50 years ago this week.

Looking at it now, I see they stuck a couple of 1966-era tracks on The Monkees Present, too. Still, that's probably the closest thing to a real Monkees record post-Head.

Obviously, there was too much of a tendency somewhere in their organization to treat albums as product. With some effort, maybe you can still track what each member was trying to do through those later albums.

i was just complaining a couple days ago about the relative lack of love this record gets! Nez is at his weird apex, and Micky is firing on all cylinders as well. The older re-recorded tunes sound out of place, it's a shame about the lack of Tork, and I don't ever have much nice to say about Davy, but what a great album. I love "Writing Wrongs" especially.

I made a Spotify playlist of late period Nesmith tracks that did not make the albums:

http://open.spotify.com/user/timellison/playlist/0V0njdsfqrfebPayjDCXgX

have we talked about the monkees doing "nine times blue" on the johnny cash show in '69? so good.

also, here is a swedish/finnish twee group doing a cover of "if i ever get to saginaw again". very nice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gJ67EC39J0

re-listening to TBTBATM again, i forgot how big a "Paperback Writer" ripoff "P.O. Box 9847" was. lol @ "I'm not liking what I'm typing."

Guys! Great recent one hour interview with The Nez: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PHdzAuyPLU0

I know, eleven months ago on a link above but..

david riverstone Reply

August 30, 2016 at 10:56 pm

Could I email Andy Partridge? I’d like to talk with him about the origins of his song Dear God. I love this song and lyrics.

Are intersting

i've been reading nesmith's new memoir called "infinite tuesday: an autobiographical riff" which gives you a pretty good idea of the tone/self-importance contained within

Glenn Tilbrook from Squeeze was on Iain Lee's radio show the other night where he said he's been asked to write a song for the next Monkees album

oh my god

i've been reading nesmith's new memoir called "infinite tuesday: an autobiographical riff" which gives you a pretty good idea of the tone/self-importance contained within

i don't know, i'm not gonna read that shit.
it's not as good as the recent mike love autobio. it's very light on actual stories, especially about the monkees. actually it's pretty bad overall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1KE2gEEYdI

this Instant Replay cut is bonkers, it sounds like Mickey Dolenz spent a lost weekend massively stoned listening to Piper at the Gates of Dawn on repeat. going back to the conversation we were having itt in january, i'd love to read a book about studio pros and bubblegum craftspersons in the late 60s/early 70s struggling to decide what to do with all this bizarre and dissonant nonsense. see also: Trippy Country-tinged Pop with AM radio hooks from the late sixties to mid-seventies

it sounds like Mickey Dolenz spent a lost weekend massively stoned listening to Piper at the Gates of Dawn on repeat.

It's very likely hed I'd exactly this

*he did

either way

With Sherman Hemsley?

"as we go along" is a treat

Head soundtrack one of the best rock albums of the 60s imo

Ah man, sad news that Peter Tork has passed on:

https://variety.com/2019/music/people-news/peter-tork-the-monkees-dies-dead-1203144914/

Oh no, RIP Pete ;_;

He was my favorite from the show, which I haven't seen since I was in elementary school, but still.

They were all my favourites, apart from Davy Jones.

Nez's thoughts...

https://www.facebook.com/michaelnesmith/posts/10157204684445116

And a short post from Mickey

https://www.facebook.com/poplustforlife/posts/149419906083129

well, this is depressing.

:( RIP

Ah, hell. And to think I was pleased to see this thread bumped. RIP, buddy.

Really need to finish writing my fake Pool It! 33 1/3 so at least one of them is still alive to sue me.

RIP