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When the Monkees (and Jack Nicholson) gave us ‘Head’
06.02.2016
12:58 pm
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The Monkees’ feature film Head was written and produced by Bob Rafelson (co-creator of The Monkees) and Jack Nicholson, and directed by Rafelson. The film aimed to deconstruct the “manufactured” image that the Monkees wished to leave behind far behind them by 1968. The group wander through a number of surrealistic scenes, Hollywood sound stages and trippy pop art musical production numbers. Along the way, they encounter the likes of Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, Annette Funicello, Terri Garr, stripper Carol Doda, Frank Zappa, Toni Basil, fighter Sonny Liston, and weirdo character actor Timothy Carey. Victor Mature, an over-the-hill actor known for appearing in biblical epics and sword and sandals films, played a King Kong-sized version of himself (I’m not old enough to have much context for Victor Mature, but the way I take it is that he’s playing himself in a “human punch-line” kind of way, something that will no doubt be completely lost on future audiences for whom he’ll just appear to be some weird old giant guy who appears, apropos of nothing).
 

 
Head was initially released with a mysterious advertising campaign that never mentioned the Monkees and instead featured the head of a man apparently unconnected with the film (John Brockman, future literary super agent was in fact the film’s press agent and devised the campaign). It could have been about anything. The Monkees’ teenbopper fan base must have been mighty confused. These were still the Monkees they loved, but what was with all the lysergic Marshall McLuhan stuff, the Vietnam footage and the hookahs?
 

 
Head is an audio-visual mindfuck.
 

 
Head was a total flop when it came out.
 

 
Head’s reputation as a cult film grew during a couple of national CBS late night TV airings in the mid 1970s. A VHS was released in the mid-80s during the revival of interest in the group brought on by MTV screening The Monkees for a new generation. Today Head is properly considered a odd milestone in Hollywood history—it’s one of the highest budgeted rock films of the era and one of the first counter culture films to be produced by the studio system. And what a stylish time capsule of the era it is. In his liner notes to Criterion’s America Lost and Found box set, Chuck Stephens called Head, “the Ulysses of a hip New Hollywood about to be born.”

Get more ‘Head’ after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Richard Metzger
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06.02.2016
12:58 pm
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‘Here we come in high definition…’: See The Monkees as you have never seen them before
12.15.2015
08:19 pm
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Next month will see the release of The Monkees complete TV series—all 58 episodes plus the feature film Head and the “33 and a 1/3 Revolutions per Monkee” TV special—for the first time in HD video. The deluxe 10 disc Blu-ray box set will be available only via the official Monkees webstore and you can preorder it here. Just 10,000 copies of the set, each individually numbered, will be produced. (It would make the perfect Christmas present for that certain someone, but since it won’t be out until the end of January, it means that certain someone would be getting an “IOU” under the tree.)

Recently they’ve uploaded several videos to the Monkees’ YouTube channel showing the new HD versions of the show versus the “old” versions and the difference is pretty remarkable. I have both of the earlier DVD box set releases and they look, at best, merely okay. It seems like the sources they used were maybe 80s syndication masters (probably analog videotapes) and so this new release—transfered from the original film negatives for the very first time ever—is being eagerly awaited by Monkees fanatics like m’self.
 

The casting ad for ‘The Monkees’ that ran in The Hollywood Reporter on September 8, 1965

Not to sound like a hip tailor, but dig the quality here! It’s interesting to contemplate how much better this classic series will look in 2016—fifty years after The Monkees first premiered on American television in September 1966—than it did when it was first broadcast by NBC in primetime. That year marked the very first time that the three television networks debuted an all color Fall TV line-up. But even if you had the best color TV set money could buy—and not that many Americans did have color TVs at that time—it still wouldn’t have looked anywhere near as sharp and as crisp as what you see here below. Nowhere near as good.
 

 
Beyond that, it also means that this beloved pop culture treasure will live on for another generation of kids. When I was eight, I would happily sit in front of a shitty B&W TV set and watch a Marx Brothers movie on a flickery UHF channel. No normal kid would ever do that today, but The Monkees in HD could be the kind of thing that parents weary of incessant screenings of SpongeBob SquarePants cartoons might be able to convince their kids to get into. It’s probably worth a try.

After the jump, an exclusive clip of the Monkees in HD…

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Posted by Richard Metzger
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12.15.2015
08:19 pm
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Monkee see Monkee do: Micky Dolenz’s glam rock disaster
03.08.2015
07:30 pm
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It’s Monkee member (yes, that sounds funny) Micky Dolenz’s birthday today so I have a good enough reason to bring back one of my favorite posts from the Dangerous Minds’ archives for your viewing and listening pleasure.

In this video, Micky Dolenz of The Monkees goes glam on The Greatest Golden Hits of The Monkees TV special from 1977.

I’m guessing this was intended as a joke. On the other hand, Dolenz directed the show and maybe just maybe this was his idea of a hip career move or he was tired of The Beatles comparisons and wanted to move on to other things.

Micky, Marc Bolan wants his pants back.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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03.08.2015
07:30 pm
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Isolated tracks for ‘Zilch,’ the Monkees’ awesome vocal experiment
12.29.2014
01:12 pm
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I have to confess, I’m a little bit fascinated with the Monkees’ song—if you can call it that—”Zilch.” Buried on side B of their 1967 masterpiece Headquarters, “Zilch” has recently struck me as one of the keys to unscrambling the Monkees’ impressive legacy. Even allowing for the experimental 1960s in which everyone was trying everything, even allowing for the ever-present Beatles influence that constituted part of the Monkees’ damnable raison d’être, even allowing for the possibly amateurish execution, “Zilch” seems to fly in the face of the charge the Monkees were always trying to live down, that they were just a bunch of TV actors looking to cash in on a craze, a charge that was all the more troubling because there was a fair bit of truth to it. The Monkees’ bugaboo always was and always would be “authenticity,” more so than for any other band, and the Monkees’ quest to seize control over the means of production, which ultimately happened but didn’t necessarily lead to long-lasting artistic fruition, should warm the heart of any right-thinking Marxist.

Like almost everyone born after the release of Headquarters, I first encountered “Zilch” as a sample/inspiration for “Mistadobalina,” the 1991 song by Del Tha Funkee Homosapien, without the slightest clue where it had come from—at the time it seemed most likely that it was an inside joke among Del and his buddies or something of the kind. The catchy and slightly discombobulating phrase “Mista Dobalina, Mista Bob Dobalina” is such an ideal hook for a rap song, and I’m sure I share with many, many younger DM readers that “Well I’ll be hog-tied!” moment when you have Headquarters on and you realize that the irresistible hook was spoken by Peter fucking Tork! (I notice that even Richard, whom I regard as an unimpeachable expert on all pre-1983 rock music and would have supposed might have been aware of the phrase’s provenance all along, went through this same process as well.)

I’m sure I’m placing waaaay too much stock in “Zilch,” it might not be the secret key to anything. What I do know is that it’s great, and every time I have Headquarters on I raise the needle after “Zilch” is over and play it again.

We’ve all heard isolated tracks for songs by the Beatles, the Stones, the Carpenters, et al., and gaped at the impossible artistry. Here we have a slightly more mundane, and yet entirely pleasurable, version of the same thing—isolated vocal tracks for “Zilch.” They come off Rhino’s Headquarters Sessions 3-CD set, released in 2000, which today is a little hard to find, it sells on Amazon for just shy of $400. (The “Zilch” isolated tracks are not, however, on the sampler vinyl collection Selections from the Headquarters Sessions.)

Enjoy.

Here they are, in order of appearance on the track:
 
TORK: “Mister Dobalina, Mister Bob Dobalina”

 
More Monkees after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Martin Schneider
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12.29.2014
01:12 pm
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The Monkees want to wish you a Merry Christmas, 1967
12.25.2013
10:50 am
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The Monkees singing a beautiful a capella version of the traditional Spanish Christmas carol, “Ríu, Chíu,” from their TV Christmas special in 1967.

And no, that’s not a joint that Peter Tork is holding, it’s a stick of incense.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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12.25.2013
10:50 am
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Monkee Mike Nesmith is one of the great underrated musical geniuses of our time
12.04.2013
03:57 pm
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As longtime DM readers know, my Monkees fandom is not casual. It runs pretty deep. So it came as quite a surprise to me to find out that not only was there a box set of their 1969 Instant Replay album, it came out a long time ago. There’s even been a subsequent box set and I hadn’t heard of that one, either. I’m also friends with Andrew Sandoval, the ace producer behind all the amazing and lovingly compiled Monkees’ releases. How this slipped past me is a mystery, but thanks to Jason Elzy at Rhino, I have now been enlightened (which is to say fab Jason sent me one recently).

I could go on about what a great package the Instant Replay box is—it’s quite good as these things go with a clear plastic “window” overlay on the front of the box which is the same size as a 45rpm record (two are included in the set), three CDs with TONS of unreleased Monkees material and Andrew Sandoval’s always superb liner notes—but what I want to concentrate on is what a goddamned musical genius Michael Nesmith is!

It pains me, just pains me, to consider how little credit this guy gets as a musician and songwriter—I’m sure it doesn’t bother him that much, he’s an extremely wealthy man, accomplished in many fields, but I’m upset for Papa Nez, goddamnit!

If you know how the Monkees records were made, Headquarters aside, it usually wasn’t so much of a “group” effort as it was Micky or Davy singing on a track produced by the finest musical talents in Hollywood (usually the Wrecking Crew) and written by the likes of Boyce & Hart, Goffin and King, Neil Diamond, etc. or Mike Nesmith working on his own stuff (often with the very same musicians his fellow Monkees worked with—”Sweet Young Thing” was written by Nesmith, Gerry Goffin and Carole King—but he was much more hands-on with his recording sessions. Generally speaking, that’s what happened, and Nesmith’s more countryfied contribution to the Monkees’ overall gestalt, I’d argue, can stand alone, and be evaluated apart from the Monkees context.

In other words, what would an overall career box set retrospective of Nesmith’s work look like? It would be pretty amazing, I’d wager and would do a lot of the work towards establishing Nesmith’s rightful place in the 60/70s Laurel Canyon/country rock pantheon, something critically denied to him because, of course, he was on a kids show. MOJO readers would eat it up.

This Instant Replay box set is absolutely bursting at the seams with little-known or previously unheard gems, including the majority of Nesmith’s sessions recorded at RCA Studios in Nashville in 1968. As pointed out in the liner notes, Nesmith, the group’s most prolific member had quite a stack of incredible unused songs, but why they were never chosen for release at the time is baffling. In terms of the country rock hybrid sound, Nesmith—clearly—was a visionary of the form. He can be credited as much as ANYONE—including The Byrds, The Flying Burrito Brothers, even CSNY—with inventing the sound. Mike Nesmith was doing country rock dating to 1966’s “Papa Gene’s Blues” on the first Monkees album. Give the man a lil’ credit where some visionary credit is definitely due!

Here’s a sampling of the Nesmith songs heard on the Instant Replay box (might not necessarily be the exact version, everything isn’t on YouTube):

“St. Matthew”: This one kills me. My favorite song at the moment. I listened to this on repeat for most of last week:

“I Won’t Be The Same Without Her”:

“Some of Shelly’s Blues”:

“Propinquity (I’ve Just Begun to Care)”:

“The Crippled Lion”:

“If I Ever Get to Saginaw Again”:

“Carlisle Wheeling”:

“Hollywood”:

 
The gorgeous “Nine Times Blue” on The Johnny Cash Show in 1969:

Posted by Richard Metzger
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12.04.2013
03:57 pm
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When Neil Young met The Monkees and completely tore the roof off the sucker…
12.02.2013
02:46 pm
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Although the story about Stephen Stills auditioning for the Monkees is apparently at least somewhat apocryphal—Stills says that he only wanted to sell the group’s management some of his songs—he did play guitar on one Monkee’s song, the Head soundtrack’s “Long Title: Do I Have to Do This All Over Again?

Stills longtime musical partner Neil Young, however, was a Monkee himself—well, so to speak—for four numbers.

Young plays guitar on Head‘s gorgeous “As We Go Along” and he also played on a few tracks recorded by Davy Jones in a session produced just days after he left The Buffalo Springfield: The lovely, but slight “Smile”; a backing track for the never completed “That’s What It’s Like Loving You” and the simply incredible “You And I,” which appeared on the underrated Instant Replay album in 1969.

This features some of the best, most blistering Neil Young guitar work like… ever. Such a great pop song. Why was this not a massive, massive hit?
 

 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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12.02.2013
02:46 pm
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An elegy for Davy Jones: Carole King’s demo for ‘Porpoise Song’
03.01.2012
11:32 am
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In light of the unexpected passing of Monkee Davy Jones, here’s Carole King’s original demo for Head’s “Porpoise Song” (co-written by Gerry Goffin). The Gregorian chant thing she’s got going here (it’s the Mass of the Dead, remember this was the song playing during Micky Dolenz’s “suicidal” jump off the bridge in the beginning of the film) seems like a fitting thing to post in Jones’ honor.

Sound quality is what it is, but no matter, this is still pretty amazing. Listen LOUD!
 

 
Thank you Simon Wells!

Posted by Richard Metzger
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03.01.2012
11:32 am
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Monkee Davy Jones dead at 66 of heart attack
02.29.2012
01:11 pm
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Sad to hear that Monkee Davy Jones has passed away, as was just posted by TMZ:

An official from the medical examiner’s office for Martin County, Florida confirmed with TMZ they received a call from Martin Memorial Hospital informing them that Jones had passed away.

Jones is survived by his wife Jessica and 4 daughters from previous marriages. He was 66-years-old.

It’ll be a Monkees kinda day here at DM headquarters…

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Entire Monkees series re-released in two new DVD box sets
Head: The Monkees’ ‘Ulysses of a Hip New Hollywood’
The Monkees on ‘The Johnny Cash Show’
The Monkees’ FBI File
The First National Band: Michael Nesmith’s criminally overlooked post-Monkees country rock classics
After the Monkees gave us ‘Head,’ there was ‘33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee’

Below, Jones sings Nilsson’s “Daddy’s Song” in Head and dances with famed choreographer Toni Basil.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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02.29.2012
01:11 pm
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Entire Monkees series re-released in two new DVD box sets
09.28.2011
07:46 pm
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Since Dangerous Minds is a safe haven for Monkees fanatics—Monkees producer and historian Andrew Sandoval is the guest on the DM talkshow this week— I would be remiss in my duties if I did not inform you fine people that all 58 of the original Monkees episodes have been re-released this week on DVD by Eagle Rock Entertainment and Rhino. This is the first time in nearly a decade that the entire series has been available. The old Rhino box sets were selling for obnoxious amounts of money. 

These two new box sets are fairly no-frills affairs, but they’re priced pretty low, so no complaints there. Aside from every weekly episode of the series, there is the 16mm pilot episode, select audio commentaries, and the Monkees’ Saturday morning TV commercials for Kelloggs. The picture quality is pretty okay, but from time to time you’ll see a stray hair or dust. Audio-wise, the supposed 5.1 surround track is a complete waste of time and the stereo option isn’t all that much better (I recommend just making it mono). It’s really a shame that they didn’t go back and do new transfers and proper audio upgrades (the content here, menus and all, mirrors the old Rhino releases). Then again, if you’d like to own the entire series, now you can, and the price is right for these new tri-fold box sets (both with liner notes from Andrew Sandoval).

Of special interest for Monkees fans is the chance to see the ill-fated final Monkees TV special featuring all four original Monkees. 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee was Peter Tork’s final outing with the group until 1986. Musical guests on that show included Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger and the Trinity, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, Little Richard, and The Buddy Miles Express.

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Carole King’s ‘Porpoise Song’ demo
Head: The Monkees’ ‘Ulysses of a Hip New Hollywood’
The Monkees on ‘The Johnny Cash Show’
The Monkees’ FBI File
The First National Band: Michael Nesmith’s criminally overlooked post-Monkees country rock classics
After the Monkees gave us ‘Head,’ there was ‘33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee’

Below, the “Making the Monkees” documentary from the Smithsonian Channel:
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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09.28.2011
07:46 pm
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Monkee Business with Andrew Sandoval
09.20.2011
03:14 pm
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Record producer, historian, DJ, musician and sonic archaeologist Andrew Sandoval—who has worked with The Kinks, The Zombies, Elvis Costello, Love and many others, as well as producing the Grammy-nominated Where the Action Is! box set—discusses his work with the Monkees reissues, the amazing new Criterion version of Head and the future of the box set and the reissues market. Andrew’s radio show is “Come to the Sunshine” on Luxuria Music.
 

 

READ ON
Posted by Richard Metzger
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09.20.2011
03:14 pm
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Dangerous Minds Radio Hour Episode 18

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Another solo DJ excursion from Richard Metzger, spinning tunes from the Monkees, Lydia Lunch, Hawkwind, Mick Farren, Ru Paul, Liam Lynch, Big Daddy Kane, Del Tha Funkee Homosapien, Lene Lovich, Blur vs. The Pet Shop Boys, Eels, Jeff Beck, the Dandy Warhols, Super Furry Animals, obscure 70s glam rocker Brett Smiley and more.

01. Monkees: Tema Di Monkees
02. Monkees: PO Box 9847 (alt stereo mix)
03. Malvina Reynolds: Little Boxes
04. Lene Lovich: Lucky Number
05. Lydia Lunch: Carnival Fatman
06. Hawkwind: Silver Machine
07. Mick Farren: Aztec Calendar
08. The Tomorrow People: Delia Derbyshire, Dudley Simpson, Brian Hodgson & David Vorhaus
09. PJ Proby: You Can’t Come Home Again If You Leave Me Now
10. Blur vs Pet Shop Boys: Boys & Girls
11. Ru Paul: Ping Ting Ting
12. Liam Lynch: My United States of Whatever
13. Monkees: Zilch
14. Del Tha Funkee Homosapien: Mister Bobalina
15. Big Daddy Kane: Warm It Up Kane
16. Jeff Beck: Hi Ho Silver Lining
17. Brett Smiley: Va Va Va Voom
18. Eels: That’s Not Really Funny
19. The Dandy Warhols: Bohemian Like You
20. Super Furry Animals: The Man Don’t Give A Fuck
 

 
Download this week’s episode
 
Subscribe to the Dangerous Minds Radio Hour podcast at iTunes

Posted by Tara McGinley
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03.21.2011
06:20 pm
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