Hey, hey! Monkees friendly at Fox
Susan Whitall/ Detroit News Music Writer
In the late '60s, the Monkees were derided by some as a band put together by soulless TV executives for crassly commercial purposes. By today's less rigid parameters, the concept would be seen as what it was — a zany TV experiment, a proto-reality show featuring four talented, wisecracking actor/musicians thrown together to enact a Beatles-like pop group.
The line between fantasy and reality was happily muddy, because somewhere along the way, the Monkees became a performing band — to such an extent that 45 years later, they are performing a reunion show at the Fox Theatre on Thursday (Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork will appear; Mike Nesmith has again decided not to tour).
"It's just a misnomer. It's inaccurate," says Dolenz of the charges they were a "manufactured" band. The actor/singer is on the phone from a tour stop; the U.S. leg of the group's 45th anniversary tour started in early June and features all of the group's hits, including "Last Train to Clarksville," "I'm a Believer," "Pleasant Valley Sunday," "Steppin' Stone," "Daydream Believer" and "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You."
"The Monkees were not a band. It was a television show about an imaginary band that didn't exist, except on television," says Dolenz. "You know what? The most similar thing today would be 'Glee.' It's a television show about an imaginary glee club. But they can all sing, and dance and act, they can do it all. So is that a manufactured glee club? The Monkees were not a band, yet we did it all. Now that 'Glee' is on the road … are they a real glee club now, or not?"
Such existential queries are right in line with the Monkees' oeuvre. This was, after all, the band that gave the world the psychedelic 1968 movie "Head," one of director Quentin Tarentino's favorite films. Among the fans of their innovative NBC-TV show, which ran from 1966-68 and won two Emmys, was Frank Zappa, who appeared on one episode impersonating Mike Nesmith (as Nesmith impersonated him).
"Frank was a big fan," Dolenz affirms. "He did the show with Mike and also he was in the movie 'Head.' And also, at the end of that era, it might have been 1970 or so, he asked me to be the drummer for the Mothers of Invention, but my record company wouldn't let me out of the contract."
Indeed, it was a casual friendship with rocker Jimi Hendrix that led to the infamous pairing of the guitar great with the Monkees for a brief time on tour in the summer of 1967. The pairing isn't as odd as it may sound; Hendrix was still somewhat obscure and craved more mainstream fame.
His "Purple Haze" was being played on the same AM stations that played the Monkees, and the group loved his music.
"At the time, it sounded like a great idea mainly because his act was very theatrical, and the Monkees of course was a very theatrical act," says Dolenz, who suggested that Hendrix open for the group. "That's why I kind of thought it would work."
But Hendrix hopped onto the tour in the South, and the teenaged fans (and their parents) weren't quite ready for his molten, note-bending psychedelia.
When "Purple Haze" started to hit, Hendrix asked to be let off the tour, and the group agreed.
There was another dramatic happening that summer.
"If I'm not mistaken, we had to cancel the first Detroit date because of the (July) riots. We eventually did the gig, a bit later," Dolenz recalls. The group played Olympia Stadium on Aug. 13. One of Dolenz's schticks on that tour was a cape routine he borrowed from James Brown, in which he was led offstage by a roadie, only to throw the cape off and come running back to the microphone.
The tip of the hat to the Godfather of Soul flew over the heads of most of his teenaged audience, but no matter. "It was a takeoff on James Brown; I'm a big fan," he says.
The current tour, the Monkees' first in a decade, has gone well. The group's famous fans include actors Kevin Costner and Billy Bob Thornton (who shows up at numerous gigs), but Dolenz admits the travel can be arduous.
"I always tell people, they pay me to travel, I sing for free," he says. Dolenz sings so many of the leads — "Last Train to Clarksville," "I'm a Believer," "Pleasant Valley Sunday," "Steppin' Stone," etc., while Davy Jones leads on "Daydream Believer," "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You," etc. — that he knows what he's in for, and as a veteran of musical theatre, he trains vocally to keep his voice up.
For the three veterans, falling into their old comic interactions after months and years apart is "instantaneous," Dolenz says.
The show opens with vintage Monkees clips, which also run periodically through the show. Another extra feature: Clips from notable cover versions of their songs by other artists are played at the end of the show.
"We always do all of the hits, but we change up on the additional material like the album cuts," as the songs from "Head," Dolenz points out. "I jump around a lot so it's physically demanding, but for me that's the easy part."
As for Detroit, the Motor City has always been a favorite stop of Dolenz's because "being a southern California guy, I'm a car guy," he says. He reminisces lovingly about the cars he bought with his Monkees money; a Mustang 350 GT fastback, a Pontiac Grand Prix and most specially, a 1959, two-door white Impala coupe.
"The one with the fins that look like a spaceship," Dolenz says, sighing. "If I were ever to go buy a classic car to relive my youth, that would be the one."
An Evening with the MonkeesFeaturing Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz and
Peter Tork
8 p.m. June 23
Fox Theatre, 2211 Woodward Ave., Detroit
Tickets: $23-$103, available at the Fox box office, all Ticketmaster locations and Ticketmaster.com. Call (800) 745-3000 to charge by phone.
[email protected]
(313) 222-2156
From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110618/ENT04/106180307/Hey--hey--Monkees-friendly-at-Fox#ixzz1PeEkkI31
In the late '60s, the Monkees were derided by some as a band put together by soulless TV executives for crassly commercial purposes. By today's less rigid parameters, the concept would be seen as what it was — a zany TV experiment, a proto-reality show featuring four talented, wisecracking actor/musicians thrown together to enact a Beatles-like pop group.
The line between fantasy and reality was happily muddy, because somewhere along the way, the Monkees became a performing band — to such an extent that 45 years later, they are performing a reunion show at the Fox Theatre on Thursday (Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork will appear; Mike Nesmith has again decided not to tour).
"It's just a misnomer. It's inaccurate," says Dolenz of the charges they were a "manufactured" band. The actor/singer is on the phone from a tour stop; the U.S. leg of the group's 45th anniversary tour started in early June and features all of the group's hits, including "Last Train to Clarksville," "I'm a Believer," "Pleasant Valley Sunday," "Steppin' Stone," "Daydream Believer" and "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You."
"The Monkees were not a band. It was a television show about an imaginary band that didn't exist, except on television," says Dolenz. "You know what? The most similar thing today would be 'Glee.' It's a television show about an imaginary glee club. But they can all sing, and dance and act, they can do it all. So is that a manufactured glee club? The Monkees were not a band, yet we did it all. Now that 'Glee' is on the road … are they a real glee club now, or not?"
Such existential queries are right in line with the Monkees' oeuvre. This was, after all, the band that gave the world the psychedelic 1968 movie "Head," one of director Quentin Tarentino's favorite films. Among the fans of their innovative NBC-TV show, which ran from 1966-68 and won two Emmys, was Frank Zappa, who appeared on one episode impersonating Mike Nesmith (as Nesmith impersonated him).
"Frank was a big fan," Dolenz affirms. "He did the show with Mike and also he was in the movie 'Head.' And also, at the end of that era, it might have been 1970 or so, he asked me to be the drummer for the Mothers of Invention, but my record company wouldn't let me out of the contract."
Indeed, it was a casual friendship with rocker Jimi Hendrix that led to the infamous pairing of the guitar great with the Monkees for a brief time on tour in the summer of 1967. The pairing isn't as odd as it may sound; Hendrix was still somewhat obscure and craved more mainstream fame.
His "Purple Haze" was being played on the same AM stations that played the Monkees, and the group loved his music.
"At the time, it sounded like a great idea mainly because his act was very theatrical, and the Monkees of course was a very theatrical act," says Dolenz, who suggested that Hendrix open for the group. "That's why I kind of thought it would work."
But Hendrix hopped onto the tour in the South, and the teenaged fans (and their parents) weren't quite ready for his molten, note-bending psychedelia.
When "Purple Haze" started to hit, Hendrix asked to be let off the tour, and the group agreed.
There was another dramatic happening that summer.
"If I'm not mistaken, we had to cancel the first Detroit date because of the (July) riots. We eventually did the gig, a bit later," Dolenz recalls. The group played Olympia Stadium on Aug. 13. One of Dolenz's schticks on that tour was a cape routine he borrowed from James Brown, in which he was led offstage by a roadie, only to throw the cape off and come running back to the microphone.
The tip of the hat to the Godfather of Soul flew over the heads of most of his teenaged audience, but no matter. "It was a takeoff on James Brown; I'm a big fan," he says.
The current tour, the Monkees' first in a decade, has gone well. The group's famous fans include actors Kevin Costner and Billy Bob Thornton (who shows up at numerous gigs), but Dolenz admits the travel can be arduous.
"I always tell people, they pay me to travel, I sing for free," he says. Dolenz sings so many of the leads — "Last Train to Clarksville," "I'm a Believer," "Pleasant Valley Sunday," "Steppin' Stone," etc., while Davy Jones leads on "Daydream Believer," "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You," etc. — that he knows what he's in for, and as a veteran of musical theatre, he trains vocally to keep his voice up.
For the three veterans, falling into their old comic interactions after months and years apart is "instantaneous," Dolenz says.
The show opens with vintage Monkees clips, which also run periodically through the show. Another extra feature: Clips from notable cover versions of their songs by other artists are played at the end of the show.
"We always do all of the hits, but we change up on the additional material like the album cuts," as the songs from "Head," Dolenz points out. "I jump around a lot so it's physically demanding, but for me that's the easy part."
As for Detroit, the Motor City has always been a favorite stop of Dolenz's because "being a southern California guy, I'm a car guy," he says. He reminisces lovingly about the cars he bought with his Monkees money; a Mustang 350 GT fastback, a Pontiac Grand Prix and most specially, a 1959, two-door white Impala coupe.
"The one with the fins that look like a spaceship," Dolenz says, sighing. "If I were ever to go buy a classic car to relive my youth, that would be the one."
An Evening with the MonkeesFeaturing Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz and
Peter Tork
8 p.m. June 23
Fox Theatre, 2211 Woodward Ave., Detroit
Tickets: $23-$103, available at the Fox box office, all Ticketmaster locations and Ticketmaster.com. Call (800) 745-3000 to charge by phone.
[email protected]
(313) 222-2156
From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110618/ENT04/106180307/Hey--hey--Monkees-friendly-at-Fox#ixzz1PeEkkI31