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Joe Morris
Old Love
3492 Posts |
 Posted - 08/03/2012 : 23:15:50
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don't think it did too well sales wise, though the single (Joanne) did well (his best charting single at number 21 on the charts)
I hope he keeps recording and writing though I can't imagine hes as popular as in his heyday (ie, the Monkees). A recent album was limited to a 5,000 print I understand |
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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9876 Posts |
Posted - 08/03/2012 : 23:36:15
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quote:
Originally posted by Joe Morris
don't think it did too well sales wise, though the single (Joanne) did well (his best charting single at number 21 on the charts)
I hope he keeps recording and writing though I can't imagine hes as popular as in his heyday (ie, the Monkees). A recent album was limited to a 5,000 print I understand
With internet ventures and self publishing, Michael does alright. But Michael was one of the first indie artists too!
a great album ... "Tropical Campfires" 1992 (most underrated and best album that year)
Laugh Kills Lonesome live 1991...from Tropical Campfires. Hasn't lost a beat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7l5kIxJCEA
His most recent studio venture is instrumental..."RAYS" 2005
2010 "The Amazing Zigzag Concert-1974" 5 CD box set.
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We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers & discoverers-
-thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses.
Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams.
-Peter S. Beagle 1973
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Joe Morris
Old Love
3492 Posts |
Posted - 08/03/2012 : 23:37:48
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Matthew Sweet recently covered Different Drum with Susanna Hoffs
along with Left Banke, Bee Gees material
I guess hes always gonna do live shows
Whether with Micky, Peter and Micky is doubtful |
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LeeRob
Fifth Love
397 Posts |
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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9876 Posts |
Posted - 11/03/2012 : 18:35:08
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quote:
Originally posted by LeeRob
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/exclusive-michael-nesmith-remembers-davy-jones-20120308?link=mostpopular1
It's all the same day.
THANKS, for sharing. leerob!
Here it is in full for those who cannot link it...
Exclusive: Michael Nesmith Remembers Davy Jones
'For me David was The Monkees. They were his band. We were his side men.
'
By Andy Greene
March 8, 2012 11:40 AM ET
Michael Nesmith (best known as the Monkee in the green wool hat) has largely stayed out of the limelight since the group split over forty years ago, though he released a series of acclaimed country-rock albums in the early 1970s and helped lay the groundwork for MTV in the early 1980s. His mother invented Liquid Paper, and left him the bulk of her massive fortune – giving him little incentive to join the Monkees on their many reunion tours. In 1996, however, he shocked fans by reuniting with the band for the album Justus and a brief European tour the next year. That was the last time he spent any real time with Davy Jones, but the singer's death brought back a flood of memories and he agreed to speak with Rolling Stone through e-mail.
RS-What's your first memory of meeting Davy?
Nez-I think, not certainly, that I met him on the stage where we were doing the screen tests. He seemed confident and part of the proceedings, charming, outgoing.
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RS-It's clear the producers cast each of you for different reasons. Why do you think they selected Davy? What did he bring to the group that was unique?
NEZ-I think David was the first one selected and they built the show around him. English (all the rage), attractive, and a very accomplished singer and dancer, right off the Broadway stage from a hit musical. None of the other three of us had any of those chops.
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RS-Is there one anecdote that stands out in your mind that personifies Monkee-mania at its peak?
NEZIt was nonstop from the moment the show aired, so there was a constant hyper-interest in the group of us – the meter was maxxed and stayed that way for a couple of years. Once in Cleveland we strayed from our bodyguards into the plaza where a train station, or some public transport hub, was letting out thousands of fans for the concert we were on the way to give. They spotted David and the chase was on. We were like the rabbit – fleeing in blind panic. We saw a police car and jumped in the back seat, blip, blip, blip, blip, – squashed together shoulder to shoulder in our concert duds, and slammed the door just as the tsunami of pink arms closed over the car's windows. We were relieved. The cops were freaked out. They drove us to the station and our guys picked us up and we did the show. But it was like that when the four of us were together, Davy in front – pandemonium. One missed step and we were running.
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RS-Correct me if I'm wrong, but the story tends to go that you (and to a slightly lesser extent Peter) got frustrated pretty early on with your lack of control over the Monkees music. Davy had a Broadway background and was pretty used to following orders. Did he share your frustrations at first? If not, explain how his views evolved to the point that he was eager to join your battle against Kirshner and the label.
NEZ-You are not completely wrong, but "frustrated" is the wrong word. We were confused, especially me. But all of us shared the desire to play the songs we were singing. Everyone was accomplished – the notion I was the only musician is one of those rumors that got started and wont stop – but it was not true. Peter was a more accomplished player than I by an order of magnitude, Micky and Davy played and sang and danced and understood music. Micky had learned to play drums, and we were quite capable of playing the type of songs that were selected for the show. We were also kids with our own taste in music and were happier performing songs we liked – and/or wrote – than songs that were handed to us. It made for a better performance. It was more fun. That this became a bone of contention seemed strange to me, and I think to some extent to each of us – sort of "what's the big deal – why wont you let us play the songs we are singing?" This confusion of course betrayed an ignorance of the powers that were and the struggle that was going on for control between the show's producers in Hollywood and the New York-based publishing company owned by Screen Gems. The producers backed us and David went along. None of us could have fought the battles we did without the explicit support of the show's producers.
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RS-Some have described the movie Head as "career suicide." How did you feel about it at the time? Did you have concerns that it would alienate and confuse a huge segment of your audience? Looking back, was it a mistake?
Nez-Looking back it was inevitable. Don't forget that by the time Head came out the Monkees were a pariah. There was no confusion about this. We were on the cosine of the line of approbation, from acceptance to rejection – the cause for this is another discussion not for here – and it was basically over. Head was a swan song. We wrote it with Jack and Bob – another story not for here – and we liked it. It was an authentic representation of a phenomenon we were a part of that was winding down. It was very far from suicide – even though it may have looked like that. There were some people in power, and not a few critics, who thought there was another decision that could have been made. But I believe the movie was an inevitability – there was no other movie to be made that would not have been ghastly under the circumstances.
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RS-In your estimation, why did the Monkees burn out so quickly? The whole thing ended after little more than two years.
NEZ-That is a long discussion – and I can only offer one perspective of a complex pattern of events. The most I care to generalize at this point is to say there was a type of sibling suppression that was taking place unseen. The older sibling followed the Beatles and Stones and the sophistication of a burgeoning new world order – the younger siblings were still playing on the floor watching television. The older siblings sang and danced and shouted and pointed to a direction they assumed the Monkees were not part of and pushed the younger sibling into silence. The Monkees went into that closet. This is all retrospect, of course – important to focus on the premise that "no one thought the Monkees up." The Monkees happened – the effect of a cause still unseen, and dare I say it, still at work and still overlooked as it applies to present day.
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RS-Do you think Davy enjoyed the experience of being a Monkee more than you did? If so, why?
I can only speculate. For me David was The Monkees. They were his band. We were his side men. He was the focal point of the romance, the lovely boy, innocent and approachable. Micky was his Bob Hope. In those two – like Hope and Crosby – was the heartbeat of the show.
NEZ-The incident in which you punched a hole in a wall during a fight with Kirshner has been told so many times over the years it almost feels apocryphal. At the very least, the notion you were fighting about "Sugar Sugar" seems to have been debunked. What's your memory of that incident? Did Davy ever convey a feeling to you were rocking the boat too much after scenes like that?
David continually admonished me to calm down and do what I was told. From day one. His advice to me was to approach the show like a job, do my best, and shut up, take the money, and go home. Micky the same. I had no idea what they were talking about at the time, or why. The hole in the wall had nothing to do with "Sugar Sugar." It was the release of an angry reaction to a personal affront. The stories that circulate are as you say – apocryphal.
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RS-Do you have a favorite Davy Jones-sung Monkees song? If so, what makes it your favorite?
NEZ-"Daydream Believer." The sensibility of the song is [composer] John Stewart at his best, IMHO – it has a beautiful undercurrent of melancholy with a delightful frosting, no taste of bitterness. David's cheery vocal leads us all in a great refrain of living on love alone.
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RS-What's your fondest memory of your time with Davy?
NEZHe told great jokes. Very nicely developed sense of the absurd – Pythonesque – actually, Beyond the Fringe – but you get my point. We would rush to each other anytime we heard a new joke and tell it to each other and laugh like crazy. David had a wonderful laugh, infectious. He would double up, crouching over his knees, and laugh till he ran out of breath. Whether he told the joke or not. We both did.
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We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers & discoverers-
-thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses.
Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams.
-Peter S. Beagle 1973
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Joe Morris
Old Love
3492 Posts |
Posted - 15/03/2012 : 17:24:27
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Davy actually cut an album called Justme after the Monkees recorded Justus; remember him talking about it in Goldmine magazine
Don't think anyones heard it - probably saw release but is probably out of print at this point
Justus is not a good album, sadly, even with Nesmith returning to the fold. Not as bad as Changes (which is pretty lackluster, songwise) but not a good way to end it |
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Joe Morris
Old Love
3492 Posts |
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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9876 Posts |
Posted - 11/11/2012 : 16:50:16
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quote:
Originally posted by Joe Morris
The Monkees are just trying to be friendly, 40 years on
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/music/posts/la-et-ms-monkees-reunion-20121110,3,2277656,full.story
The Monkees haven't toured together in more than four decades, so it seemed only logical that at a rehearsal this week in North Hollywood, the band's three surviving members might not be in sync.
But two days ahead of a short reunion tour that began Thursday in Escondido, Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork communicated in a secret language as if it were still 1969.
In the middle of a long jam, Nesmith, 69, took his hands off his vintage-style Gretsch guitar and began addressing Dolenz in an elaborate sequence of arm and hand signals (think of ground crew guiding a plane in at LAX). Dolenz, 67, quickly answered in similar body language from behind his gold metal-flake drum kit. Tork smiled.
PHOTOS: The Monkees reunion tour
Nesmith, who hasn't taken part in a full-fledged U.S. tour with the other Monkees since 1969, then translated. "This means," he said haltingly as he continued gesturing, "chili … dog … with … cheese."
You can take the man out of the Monkees, but … well, you know where this is going.
Humor is a key element in the camaraderie among these men, who along with the late singer Davy Jones vaulted to fame in 1966 with their hit TV show "The Monkees" and the string of recordings they made for each week's episode. Even though they were originally hired to portray a zany famous rock band on TV, the songs made bona-fide pop stars out of the four amateur actors-musicians.
Following their first run-through of the whole set at a dress rehearsal Wednesday in Escondido, Nesmith exhibited genuine curiosity, and a little nervousness, when he asked a visitor how the show would come across: "Do you think Monkees' fans will like it?"
Davy Jones: Life in pictures
Nesmith has reason to question how they'll be received since the band will be touring without one of its lead singers, who was the British heartthrob of the band in the TV series. The reunion tour, which plays the Greek Theatre on Saturday, follows Jones' death this year of a heart attack. He'd toured periodically with Dolenz and Tork since the Monkees released their final album in 1970 and is being saluted in this round of shows through photos, film footage and recordings of some of his songs.
"Of course we miss Davy," Tork, 68, said, "and it's sad to be playing without him. But when Davy, Micky and I were touring, it was sad to play without Mike."
Over the years Nesmith skipped most of the Monkees reunions, citing commitments related to his solo career — including running the Pacific Arts music and video label he launched in the '70s, producing films (including "Repo Man") and writing two novels. (Nesmith trivia: He produced music videos for Lionel Richie's 1983 single "All Night Long (All Night)" and Michael Jackson's 1987 hit "The Way You Make Me Feel.")
Hollywood Star Walk: The Monkees
But behind the scenes, Jones made remarks during the '97 British tour that hinted at tension with Nesmith, and the 2011 Monkees tour ended prematurely because of reported disagreements Dolenz and Tork had with Jones regarding business facets of the tour.
That's all water under the bridge. "This show, it's not about a loss, it's not a memorial," Nesmith said. "It's acknowledging the gain and the contribution that David made. At this time of our lives, we don't have illusions about what this is: It's about the good work we did."
The Monkees' career lasted barely four years but yielded four No. 1 albums, half a dozen Top 10 singles, three of which reached No. 1, a TV series that's become a comedy classic that still airs around the world and the avant-garde 1968 film, "Head," which reflected the anarchic zeitgeist of the late-'60s while satirically relating the story of the Monkees' rise from creative puppets to masters of their own fate.
"There's no other story like it in entertainment," said music historian Andrew Sandoval, author of the 2005 career diary "The Monkees." "They released their first single in August 1966, the show premiered in September, and by January they'd won their fight for artistic control. It's as if the contestants on 'American Idol' came in one day and said, 'Fire the judges and the producers, we're taking over.' "
That refers to the famous showdown between the Monkees — with Nesmith leading the charge — and music world impresario Don Kirshner, who controlled the music the group recorded, largely from his bevy of esteemed Brill Building songwriters including Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, and Neil Diamond.
Kirshner also had an authoritarian hand over how the band's records were made and packaged. The contributions of ace Hollywood studio musicians who played most of the music on the group's first two albums, "The Monkees" and "More of the Monkees," went largely uncredited, creating the impression that all the music was played by Dolenz, Jones, Nesmith and Tork.
"When they handed me the second album and there were no musician credits on it, I started to smell a rat," Nesmith said. "My position was, 'If you don't need me for this. Replace me. Tell people, "Michael died. Here's the new guy, his name isn't Michael, it's Bubba." ' But the reaction was, 'No, you're right, there is something good here.' That's where the [1968 film] 'Head' came from.
"We thought it was a huge victory," he said. "It was hard fought and it was brutal but it was worth it.... We came up against a corporate monster and just said no — and not in the Reagan-era sense of the word. In that sense, people recognized we don't need to be making stuff up. If you look at what we're actually doing, it takes your breath away."
That bit of pop history will underscore this tour, a portion of which will be devoted to their third album, 1967's "Headquarters," the first after the battle the led to Kirshner's ousting.
"It's the first album we were the musicians on, the first which we had creative control over," said Tork, who performs and records with his own band, Shoe Suede Blues, when he's not occupied with Monkees business, while Dolenz has kept active in musical theater and recently released a new solo album, "Remember." "We were very pleased with ourselves — rightly or wrongly — with that album."
The reunion show also will include all the songs from "Head," the experimental film written by Jack Nicholson and Bob Rafelson.
Today the Monkees have no shortage of fans, and not all of them are boomers. The TV show went into syndication in the 1970s, then became a major hit with a new generation at the dawn of MTV, which ran episodes three times a day in the 1980s, leading to a major Monkees revival. Their original studio albums were reissued and returned the group to the Billboard charts two decades after it formed.
Nesmith, a pioneer of video music who received the first music video Grammy Award 20 years ago, recently set Monkees fans abuzz when he wrote on his Facebook page that Jimmy Fallon was begging to sing "Daydream Believer" in Jones' place on the upcoming tour, then subsequently teased that Kevin Spacey was lobbying for the job.
"I think I was just channeling Mike of the Monkees, reconnecting with his impish self," he said. "I started to see from the feedback of [fans] responding to the notion about who should sing 'Daydream Believer' where it fit into so many people's lives."
But of the fans who bemoan that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has never inducted the Monkees, group members aren't among them. "It's their museum [and] I don't feel the least bit slighted, or snubbed in any way," said Nesmith, the Texas-born musician famous for his green knit beanie and who was originally pigeonholed as "the smart Monkee."
"The Monkees will be wherever they belong — I have a lot of confidence in that because of where we have popped up, in the right places, over time," Nesmith said. "Put the Monkees in the Smithsonian if you want to do something worthwhile in terms of memorializing the band's place in the culture."
Back in the day the Monkees' legitimacy was often questioned by those out of grade school, but it was never an issue for the band they were partly modeled after, the Beatles.
"The Beatles always got the whole Monkee thing," Dolenz said, adopting a Liverpudlian accent to quote John Lennon: "It was John who was the first one to say, 'It's like the Marx Brothers.'"
"The Monkees were in the mix with most of the lions of rock 'n' roll," Nesmith said, "but we got there by special permission because of the TV show. None of us are fooling ourselves into thinking we are one of the great classic-rock bands. We are kind of an iconic garage band, sort of the inmates taking over the asylum, and we have a lot of fun."
randy.lewis@latimes.com
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Only after the last tree has been cut down,
Only after the last river has been poisoned,
Only after the last fish has been caught,
Only then will you find money cannot be eaten.
~ Cree Prophecy |
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Best Monkees album vs Worse
