Anyone else see the doc about the Monkees last night on Ch4. Were Davy Jones and Peter Tork reduced to the celebrity convention circuit? I am sure that one of the guys Tork was having a photo taken with was wearing a Star Trek uniform. A bit sad to see Davy Jones belting out Daydream Believer cabaret-style. Don Kirshner came across as a bit of a twat and Mike Nesmith had the good sense to distance himself from the whole thing.

Porpoise Song from Head is one of my all time favourite songs - love the film opening where Micky Dolenz dives off that bridge.

Andy

must admit, I never rated them...

"till the next time..."

next time warn us in advance so we can make sure NOT to turn on the tv . . .

Wow, I didn't even see any TV ad for that...
I liked those guys back in the day... they were a fun parody of their own era.
The Monkees had great song writers working for them too.

Was going to watch that but elected to watch the Bob Marley programme on the "Beeb" instead.
Wish I hadn't...it was very poor.

Mickey's voice is a 60's icon of a sort. Lots of hits there.

As mentioned - great songwriting and some nice guitar work from time to time (Clarksville, Valerie, Pleasant Valley, etc.). I like 'em.

"No Anchovies, Please"

.....I still have a shoebox full of Monkees bubble gum trading cards from when I was a kid.....I bet they're worth millions now.........................not

they had a few irridescent hits for sure...i didn't see the show last night, but would've tuned in if i had heard about it.

in retrospect i find only nesmith significant in a rock and roll history context, minus the spectacle and all...
he had 'different drum' for the stone poney's (linda ronstadt)...
contracted two of his own originals on each album from the very first one...
tall texan mike nesmith is a seminal original country rock guy...perhaps the first, before the burrito's, gram, byrds and others...to really create that entire genre...in a way...ya know?
check out his songs on even the first two monkee albums...nesmith had his own thing goin' on in the early going...under-rated historically because of a lot of things, and over-rated in another way because of a lot of things...
but aside from the cool fun of i'm a believer, and i'm not your stepping stone ('for your love chords') and a few others...(yeh that spacey song from 'head' soundtrack...) pleasant valley sunday...nesmith to me is the whole show here really, in historic context, as far as genuine rooted original musician with his own amalgamation and folk rock country vision...way ahead of the curve.

and nesmith was super smart and sweet; (and appropriately bitter) u can youtube that zappa appearance on the show, (he was also in 'head')....mike brought him to the show, dressed up like him, zappa in the double breasted buttoned monkee shirt and wool hat...the two of them just improving a lot of venom and smartass parody of the whole thing, interviewing each other about 'each other's music' etc...snotty crap and funny...and on kirscher's dime and nbc's time...i don't know what the special was about...but mike nesmith was a purty interesting cat when he was actively into writing and recording in his early days....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2007-06-05 02:34 by Beelyboy.

... 1.5 hours of donovan on pbs,, direct tv... s. calif .... now...

Well, I'm a Monkees fan and and an even bigger Nesmith fan.
There's a lot more to the Monkees than first meets the ear and eye.
Some of it was incredibly far ahead of its time, especially the second season TV series and movie Head.
Headquarters is a great garage-band record, and Pisces, Aquarius...
is a minor psychadelic masterpiece, as is the Head soundtrack.
And Nesmith certainly deserves the "country-rock pioneer" title
more than Gram Parsons does (and I'm a Parsons fan, so save your cards
and letters). Actually, Nesmith and Chris Hillman more than Parsons.
Parsons gets too much credit just because he hung around with Keith.
Check out Nesmith's Monkees' tunes and his Nashville sessions in mid-'68
for some great stuff. Unfortunatly, the Nashville session are spread over
three Monkees Missing Links CDs. He got James Burton, Glen Campbell, Doug Dillard, and Lloyd Green to play his tunes,
The First National Band albums are great records.
Check them out if you can.
Much better than Parsons' stuff (sorry Keith fans).
Also,some of Peter's Monkees' tunes have Steven Stills and Dewey Martin
from the Springfield playing. Also the songs As We Go Along and You & I
have Neil Young on guitar.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2007-06-05 09:08 by tomk.