The Monkees: Classic or Dud?

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

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

rip big man

I didn't see the show much or at all as a child, but the Monkees have meant a great deal to me at least since I was about 16. There was never a very long period where they didn't factor into my life in significant ways. I'm very sorry to see Peter go.

I like the Peter Tork advice columns that I've seen - would be interested to see more:

Ask Peter Tork

In this Twitter thread, we celebrate The Monkees and talk about our favorite Monkees songs

— DJP (@djperry1973) January 16, 2020

pretty excellent selection there.

oddly, i've had both "you just may be the one" and "she hangs out" in my head on and off the last few days.

Listened to Pleasant Valley Sunday first thing this morning

Happy birthday to Davy Jones and Mike Nesmith! My basic list drawn from a CD-R I burned in the early '00s.

Has there ever been an Artists Poll on the Monkees? I'd definitely be up for that. Not sure how many other hardcore Monkees' fans there are on ILX these days though.

The participants list might just come down to a little bit me, a little bit you.

I guess I'm medium-core inasmuch as I know the OG four-piece albums (and, erm, Pool It!) like the back of my hand and have seen Head more times than I can count. Recently heard some decent singles from their trio/duo years which encouraged me to check out those albums.

I was shockingly old when I learned that Davy and Mike share a birthday.

actually, scrolling up, this thread has a lot of still-active names! idk maybe worth a go?

I could make a Top 10 easy (and I've voted in a number of polls where I submitted a list with less than 10 songs). Going back to DJP's original post, while I don't agree they surpassed the Beatles in any department, I do agree there was some kind of genius at work there (just in the songs? something more). And they even had their own imitators! (The Five Americans' "Western Union," the Move's "Wave the Flag and Stop the Train," the Lewis and Clarke Expedition's "Destination Unknown," no doubt others.) Found this cover on a country compilation I bought a couple of weeks ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11F2PW8lcEk

It's kind of amazing how solid all the albums are. They're much more than the sum of their considerable hits.

It was the Missing Links compilations that turned me into a Monkee Nut, the sheer amount of good material that was never released is really remarkable.

I'd certainly vote, mostly for album tracks.

I haven't heard the outtakes but would investigate any which received a lot of acclaim.

I assume this cover is common knowledge (unless it's not?) but I was just listening to Taj Mahal last night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHbZapq69xQ

I was looking at the list of records from Critic's Choice: Top 200 Albums, an early example of an all-time record poll published in 1978. Number 58 is Michael Nesmith - And The Hits Just Keep On Comin'. It's pretty difficult to imagine this on any individual's all-time list now, much less a collective one (although I bet someone will inform me that it's an all-time, must-hear classic).

It's very good!