Long Title: Looking for the Good Times; Examining the Monkees’ Songs, One by One

Hey, hey die-hard Monkees fans, you will certainly want to check out the new book, Long Title: Looking For the Good Times: Examining The Monkees’ Songs, One by One by Michael A. Ventrella and Mark Arnold (BearManor Media).

This informative book as the title suggests explores in depth every song recorded by the Monkees in the past years, a detailed history which includes a list of all live performances, TV appearances and a complete list of all singles and albums that made the Billboard charts.

There’s more. As described by authors, secret information of their recordings, which of The Monkees played what instruments on each song, when it was recorded, how well that song did on the charts, whether there were any interesting cover versions of the song done, and finally when it first appeared on a record.

But wait, there’s still more! Long Title: Looking for the Good Times: Examining The Monkees’ Songs, One by One is profusely illustrated with album covers, single covers, live performance photos, candid photos and a complete Song and Album index.

Now that’s a wealth of material to cover all in one book! What more can a serious longtime fan ask for? We just had to ask co-author Mark Arnold a few of your most need to know questions about the making of this amazing Monkees book with the long title.

Why did you write this book about The Monkees?

Mark: I had already written a book about The Beatles called “Mark Arnold Picks On The Beatles”. I already knew Michael Ventrella from his magazine “Animato” and he had interviewed me for one of my other books. One day out of the blue, Michael emailed me and asked me if I wanted to collaborate on a book about The Monkees. I was initially hesitant, but after thinking about it, I realized it could be fun, and it was.

What was your approach to the book?

We realized that there had been quite a few Monkees books already, so we didn’t want to be exactly like them. There are dry histories of the group, there are books that have opinions about the songs, there are books about the TV show, there are books about the nitty-gritty recording details, there are books about fan memories of the group. We decided to take the route of using my pop culture historian background and Michael’s musical background and review each and every song recorded by The Monkees during their entire career.

How do your opinions differ from other similar books that offer opinions and reviews of their songs?

We feel that we are qualified due to our backgrounds as stated, plus we wanted to get an element of humor into the proceedings. I tend to be very, very thorough, which sometimes Michael doesn’t understand, but I feel that that is one of its selling points: how thorough it is. We also reviewed the songs in roughly chronological order by recording date. This was important as it shows how the group progressed from being sidemen overlaying vocals onto prerecorded tracks to writing and performing their own material and then watching it slowly deteriorate as Peter Tork and then Michael Nesmith left the group.

What else is in the book? 

A lot of people who haven’t read the book think that it’s just a fluff piece spouting our own opinions, but there’s much more than that. We feature short mini-interviews and comments by many Monkees peers and fans such as Peter Noone, Gene Cornish, Howard Kaylan, Stu Phillips, David Peel, Butch Patrick, Ron Dante and a few others. We also list every Monkees TV appearances and concert dates from 1966 to the present, plus their chart positions over the years. Most books cover 1966-1971. We cover all the reunions and then some.

So what’s next?

I am currently finishing up a biography on Harvey Comics artist Warren Kremer and a book about Alvin and the Chipmunks, plus a book about TTV, the company that made Underdog and Tennessee Tuxedo. This Monkees book has done so well so far that the publisher, BearManor Media, has asked us to do a sequel book. This one is about The Monkees’ solo careers, which has never been done. We’re covering as many of the activities the four Monkees have done separately over the years from TV cartoon voice-overs to solo albums to acting roles to directorial efforts to horseriding and more. Michael and I plan to be a little bit more serious and less opinionated in this book that covers the lesser known activities of these four men.

You can purchase this book on Amazon or directly from BearManor Media.

M.A. Cassata

Author of 20+ books

macassata.com

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