Ah, missed the “Dolenz sang” part originally. Yep, definitely “Randy Scouse Git”, which I mentioned upthread as one of their best. Definitely get that one from iTunes. “Goin’ Down”, as well.
Whatever their individual musical talents, they were responsible for one of my funniest tv moments in the episode where they are playing Spin The Bottle and Davy keeps getting all the kisses, so when Mickey sends him out of the room and spins it again, the bottle goes tearing out of the room looking for him. 
Last time I saw the Monkees (back in the '90’s, I think) Mickey was doing some bluesy jazz type stuff during the show. He was AWESOME!
Whatever he was singing really fit his voice and I was really impressed. Even more so then than when I was a little girl and had a mad crush on him! LOL
not what nit wit
Heh-I remember that episode! My cousin and I used to watch reruns all the time when we were little! (Even though this was in the 80s)
The Wikipedia page on Mike Nesmith page is also very interesting. Sounds like it caused him financial hardship to buy himself out of the Monkees.
I remember him with the First National Band. I loved the song Silver Moon.
Another Monkees fan here. I had “HEY HEY WE’RE THE MONKEES!” emblazoned on my binder in junior high, the band members represented by cavorting stick figures. Older kids–the ones that were into “real” rock ‘n’ roll–used to give me a hard time.
I saw them on the '86 tour. No Mike, but it was really a great show. The girls (of all ages) in the crowd screamed the entire time…Monkeemania was still very much alive. I really like the single they put out that year, “That Was Then, This Is Now”.
I know Tork is still out and about; a friend of mine send me a photo of Peter and him at the NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) show last month.
On one of the “but backstage, things were falling apart” documentaries (which completely treated the Monkees as a real band), it was mentioned that when they filmed/co-wrote (and Jack Nicholson produced) HEAD they were deliberately trying to get as far as possible away from the TV show. There’s even a scene where they jump off a bridge that was to symbolize suicide from the TV pop group.
There have been numerous attempts to re-create the sitcom/pop super success that they enjoyed (most disastrously with The New Monkees, a simply godawful syndicated show in the '80s with a new cast). So far none of the attempts to have a successful sitcom about a band/successful band have had anywhere near the success. (I remember one starred John Stamos back before Full House.)
It was the show’s totally unexpected success in syndication on MTV and in local markets in the 1980s that led to the tour. It became something of a cult fave, suddenly they were cool again, and when it was announced they were doing a reunion tour (sans Mike) nobody, least of all the Monkees, expected it to be a fraction as successful as it was. IIRC they outgrossed the Stones, McCartney, and most other “real” 60s bands who were touring that year and if they weren’t the single most successful tour they were on the very short list. It was enough that they had an immediate followup tour that moved them from “the Podunk County Fair” circuit to big stadiums and A list concert venues; it was incredible. Teenagers and their moms all flocked to see them.
Trivia about Hendrix: he was repeatedly booed off the stage by people who wanted the Monkees in general and Davy specifically to come out. IIRC he left the tour. (This is in the movie that was based on them- DAYDREAM BELIEVER I think it were- a pretty good movie in its own right- my connection’s slow or I’d imdb it.)
Anyway, Nesmith wanted to distance himself from the band as part of his past, and with the liquid paper money he could do that. (He was so broke for a time in the '70s [before he inherited] due to career setbacks, divorce, and an IRS problem that he had to sell a lot of his furniture just to pay his mortgage; I don’t know if his mom didn’t help him out or if he wouldn’t ask.) As mentioned he pioneered music videos, and had a great reputation in the biz, and was finally really starting to come into his own individual recognition, but he’s also first and foremost a businessman and when he saw just how unexpectedly bloody successful the reunion tour was he wasn’t so embarassed anymore and started occasionally showing up at their gigs. The other 3 weren’t so happy about it but they were also all veterans of a lot of lean years (Mickey not so much since he left before-the-camera show biz for directing and was especially successful as a TV commercial director in England) and were glad for the extra notoriety and revenue.
Apparently Nesmith was a major primadonna on the one tour he did join them on and they basically didn’t speak to him offstage. After several reunion tours they were back to “not cool”, and that’s when “backstage things were falling apart”. There was one tour that Nesmith agreed to join, played about a week’s worth of shows, then said “screw me, sue me, but I’m through” (and I think he did get sued- by that time he’d made another fortune after a lawsuit with PBS netted him millions [they’d basically screwed him out of a fortune in royalties on some shows he’d produced and distributed for them and had to pay him that back plus new royalties]) and basically Peter Tork said “I’m finished too” so it was just Dolenz and Jones for a while. (They’d actually toured together in the '70s with the songwriting/singing team of Boyce & Hart [familiar from '60s sitcoms] as ‘The New Monkees’- kinda flopped) and I think now even they have decided to go back to doing what they were doing before. Apparently they can do a lot more of whatever that was now as presumably their coffers are a lot fuller.
Peter Tork was the one hardest hit when the show was cancelled, incidentally. In spite of being the son of a Nobel nominated economist (John Thorkelson) Tork could not handle money plus he had a lot of hangers on and a big substance abuse habit. Descriptions of his house during the Monkees heyday are of a rambling mansion that was basically a hippie compound, and of course ala MC Hammer the price of both was pretty high, and when the Monkees folded he went in literally a matter of days from living in a mansion to living in a basement apartment in South Central. (There was also a divorce and child-support battle in there that helped bankrupt him.) Presumably he took better care of it this time around.
One thing that IS an urban legend but often repeated as trivia is that “Charles Manson auditioned”. Not only didn’t he, but he was still in prison at the time. There was however some overlap in Peter’s sponger-groupies (some of whom had sponged off whichever Wilson it was from the Beach Boys and other rockers) and the Manson family, though I don’t believe the REALLY notorious ones (Fromme/Atkins/Watson/etc.) were among them and Peter denies ever having met Manson himself.
Count me in as another Monkees fan! I got to see them on the 1986 revival tour, too, and they were indeed awesome! Peter Tork was my first big crush… I was 6.
Thanks Sampiro- how people know this stuff impresses me.
That would be Mickey Dolenz himself.
In a similar display of self-deprecating humor, Mickey used to describe the Monkees’ music as “R&B . . . Rhythm and Bubblegum”.
tork was also my favourite. yes, that really was him playing the harp in the series, harps big and small are used a lot in folk music.
he did take the biggest hit life and monetary wise after the end of the show. to me it seems he is too gentle and in a way, “needy” a guy to be aggressive enough to claw his way to the top. he seems to be the type that isn’t money or fame minded; just music minded. that is his priority.
he is a very good musician and songwriter, with a lot of natural talent. he just doesn’t have a hard edge and a “stop on you” bone in his body.
I’ve never seen the coinage of pre-fab four attributed to Dolenz. What’s your source on that?
And did it predate the Rutles?
Oh, the term was certainly used within 15 minutes of the Monkees show debuting in 1966. Probably long before the Monkees show debuted, since they were getting a massive publicity build up.
It can definitely be dated to 1967, according to Wiki:
I just find it impossible to believe it took a whole year to come up with that pun.
I’ve always been a Monkees fan too. I still have a 45-rpm Monkees record, bought with my own money when I was six. I thought Davy was dreamy, and that the tambourine must be a very important instrument. Many years later, some of their music holds up extremely well.
I ran into Davy back in the late 80’s. I was on a hellish plane trip with my toddler, waiting to board, and the staff made us let this little entourage cut in front of us to board first. I heard that voice of his, and then there he was, a kind of wrinkly homunculus with a mullet and a pissy expression.
My inner six year old did suffer.
In 1986 I read every Monkees related piece of literature I could get my hands on. In the subsequent 23 (my god!) years I’ve read bits more here and there. I know I’ve seen the quote attributed to Dolenz- though I can’t speak to whether the source was accurate or even credible. I’ve read it for sure but can’t say the info is GQ worthy.
Seems to me I first saw the attribution more recently than my “soak up Monkees info like a sponge” days twenty years ago. Maybe the DVD boxed sets or the Listen To The Band four CD boxed set from Rhino- both of which are at home (posting from work now).
I’ll try a bit of Googling, but I predict “Pre-fab Four” and “Mickey Dolenz” will result in countless results that don’t address the attribution of the quote one way or another. Maybe I’ll get lucky and find a good source, maybe I’ll just have to edit Wiki to reflect my uncitable memory.
Slightly off topic but Davy Jones came from my old home town and you could always see him in one of the local pubs.But it was a crap pub so I never bothered.