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Fred Velez
April 5, 2013 by raj
Filed under Fred Velez
Fred Velez – Superfan
Fred Velez is an original Monkees fan and a long-time contributing writer for Maggie McManus’ ‘Monkee Business’ fanzine.
He co-wrote with Animation Historian Jerry Beck the article ‘Critic’s Choice: The Monkees’ for the April 1984 issue of Video Review magazine, one of the first serious articles on the group to appear in a major publication that reassessed the Monkees’ career.
Fred was the emcee for the East Coast Monkees Conventions from 1979 to 1986, and emceed other Monkees conventions from 1987 to 1989, including the Hollywood Walk of Fame Convention. Fred has contributed to the books ‘The Monkees: A Manufactured Image’ by Ed Reilly, Maggie McManus and Bill Chadwick, and ‘Mutant Monkees Meet The Masters Of The Multimedia Manipulation Machine’ by Davy Jones and Alan Green.
As an actor, Fred has performed in many Theatrical and Film productions, including ‘Oliver!’, and was a member of the Uncle Floyd Television, which featured appearances by many Music Performers, including Peter Tork and Davy Jones. Fred is currently working on a book project of a Fan’s Eye View of Monkees Fandom.
Great Job Fred!!!
Congrats on the new blog, Fred!! You were a terrific presence at the Convention!! Can you include/link to the “Critic’s Choice” article in a future post? Or re-visit it somehow?
I’d love to find some more of the (few) critical articles that take the band seriously!
Best to you!
I’m working on the first blog entry and may post the Critic’s Choice article at some point. Thanks for the good words!
Cheers!
congrats nice work, also how did you hear about the mike nesmith meet and greet? Thanks Tom
In mid-March, there was a message on Nez’s Facebook page regarding the meet & greets. You had to log on to his Video Ranch website store, purchase a free Nesmith song download, and you were put on a list of folks who would get a special email of when to purchase the meet & greet passes, which was at the time limited to 25 people. The day the email message went out, it was at 4 in the morning. The first people to see it and purchase the m&g’s were insomniacs, and I didn’t look at my emails till 8am, by that time they were mostly gone. The week of the show at Rahway, I ran into a friend at Beatlefest in NJ who put me wise that he contacted someone at the Video Ranch store to see if there were any m&g passes left, and was told there was a limited number and he was able to purchase one for Rahway. I started calling and emailing Video Ranch and got with touch with someone at the store about the m&g, and finally was able to purchase a pair for myself and my Lovely Linda for the Town Hall concert in NYC. It took a little persistence, but I made it, Folks! 🙂
Dear Fred.
Probably I met the right person to drop a line
I found out on my storage a stack of old 16/SPEC magazines from the mid sixties….Some in regular shape others in bad shape.It contains a lot of press around the Monkees as you might know.
I feel bad in throwing them away. Are you interested?
Please let me know.
Thanks.
Mauricio
Hi Mauricio,
I would suggest putting your 16 Magazines and Spec’s up on eBay, I think you’ll have a better chance of finding a fan who would like to have them.
Cheers,
Fred Velez