This is Now : Reuters Article 12/13/94

Hey! Hey! the Monkees get a 1990s makeover

By Dean Goodman

LOS ANGELES, Dec 14 (Reuter) – Adored by many for their
faux-Beatle charm, despised by others for the same reason
as well as for their musical shortcomings, the Monkees are
getting a makeover 1990s’ style.

Los Angeles-based Rhino Records is reissuing the band’s nine
original Colgems label albums with bonus tracks and exhaustive
liner notes; it also plans videocassette releases in 1995 of
all 58 episodes of their television show, their oddball movie
“Head” and their abortive “33-1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee”
television special.

Negotiations are under way for the band, which comprised Micky
Dolenz, Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork, to reunite
for a “Head” sequel and they may also hit the road in 1996
for a 30th anniversary concert tour.

This seems like a lot of hubbub for a prefabricated band of
entertainers who appeared in a television show that was cancelled
after two seasons, who didn’t play on their early albums and
whose hits were written by other people.

Yet they sold 70 million records worldwide and caused Monkee-
mania wherever they appeared. Their escapades provided welcome
relief in those Vietnam-era days when the Beatles had stopped
touring and the Rolling Stones were mired in drug problems.

Nostalgia is also big money: the members each receive royalties
approaching $1 million annually.

“People either get it or they don’t,” Nesmith says of
prevailing attitudes towards the Monkees, “and if they don’t
get it…I can’t explain it to them.

“If somebody comes up and says, ‘Well, the Monkees weren’t a
real rock’n’roll band’, it’s the same as telling me, ‘Roseanne’s
not really a Midwestern housewife’ or ‘Tim Allen doesn’t have a
‘Home Improvement’ show’. What do you say to people like that?
It’s nothing to defend yourself against.”

Roseanne and Allen are megatars on U.S. television.

Nesmith, the band’s guitarist, was once described by a critic as
being the one Monkee longer on talent than looks. But the
nerdiness of those days has been replaced by the respectability
that comes with a close-cropped haircut and trim beard speckled
with grey.

The 51-year-old Texas native has been busy since leaving the band
just before it dissolved in 1970. As a musician with country rock
leanings, he had modest hit singles in the 1970s with “Joanne,”
“Rio” and “Cruisin.”’

He invented the concept of MTV (but disclaims any connection with
the cable music channel in its current form), won the very first
Grammy Award for a video in 1981, and produced cult movies such
as “Repo Man” and “Tapeheads.”

Between occasional gigs, he runs a successful multimedia company
that he is preparing to take public, and he also oversees a trust
set up with the multimillion-dollar fortune of his mother who
invented Liquid Paper correction fluid.

The twice-divorced father of four lives on a 12-acre (five-hectare)
estate in New Mexico. Expensive cars used to be his weakness, now
it’s gardening.

Described in Dolenz’s 1993 autobiography “I’m A Believer” as
“dry (and) witty,” Nesmith gained notoriety in 1967 by revealing
that the band did not play their instruments on their first two
albums. He threatened to quit unless the backing musicians, who
included Glen Campbell, James Burton and Jim Gordon, were
credited, or the band was given more creative control.

The show’s producers gave in to his demands and allowed the band
to play their instruments and write songs on subsequent records.

Nesmith says there was no internal strife, although Dolenz’s book
says Nesmith and bassist Tork — the band’s only two trained
musicians — bickered constantly. Responds Nesmith, “Peter and I
got along fine. We were not uniform in our musical tastes, but
this was not the cause of battles.”

Rather, the capitalist Nesmith says he and avowed socialist Tork
used to pass time between takes arguing weighty issues such as
individualism defined by Ayn Rand versus individualism defined by
Thomas Aquinas.

These days, he lunches frequently with Dolenz, a film and
television director, occasionally gets together with part-time
musician Tork, but rarely sees Jones who is currently starring
in a stage version of “Grease.”

“I think he wanted to be more successful (with the Monkees) than
he was,” Nesmith says of Jones, “and I think he still doesn’t
understand why it wasn’t.”

Nesmith looks forward to a Monkees concert tour where the
foursome — with backing band in tow — would roll out the old
hits like “Daydream Believer” and “Last Train to Clarksville.”

“I don’t think I would like to go out and just the four of us
play. We were like a garage band: we were pretty earnest but at
the end of the day, it was clumsy.”

Transmitted: 94-12-13 22:08:12 EST

from: gene@panix.com

———————————————-

From: cmontague@aol.com (CMontague)
Newsgroups: alt.music.monkees
Subject: Re: AOL story: Not Ayn Rand!?!?!
Date: 15 Dec 1994 09:45:07 -0500

>the capitalist Nesmith says he and avowed socialist Tork used to pass
>time between takes arguing weighty issues such as individualism >defined
by Ayn Rand versus individualism defined by Thomas Aquinas.

(Wailing) Oh, nooooooooooo! Look, I`m prepared to learn all kinds of nasty
things about my pop culture heroes – boozing and getting thrown out of
bars, a penchant for women half their age, even that they don`t wash their
hands after using the lav. But if Nez is a Rand fan, *that* is shattering
news. I`m a capitalist, too – I frankly think it`s the only system that
accepts human nature for what it is, and tries to focus our basest
impulses into productive channels. But Ayn Rand? The woman was an
ideologue of the worst stripe: brokering no dissent; incapable of
entertaining ideas that might undermine the (essentially unstable)
foundation of her beliefs. Because of that basic instability, she
attempted to convince people, not through persuasion, but through
intimidation: `If you disagree with me, you`re an evil jerk.` Her vision
of utopia was grimmer than anything the socialists ever wrought: in the
World According to Ayn, there would *be* no pop culture – certainly no
Monkee-ing around. And it’s a shame that someone who worshiped at the
altar of Meritocracy was so hilariously untalented at her chosen line of
work (writing). (Unless I misunderstood, and _Atlas Shrugged_ was
*supposed* to be screamingly funny when it wasn`t painfully boring.)

On the other hand, it`s nice to know that the backstage chat on the
Monkees set didn`t consist of bitchy put-downs and vying for the most
on-camera time.

Newsgroups: alt.music.monkees
From: nez@netcom.com (michael nesmith)
Subject: Re: AOL story: Not Ayn Rand!?!?!
Date: Fri, 16 Dec 1994 00:30:25 GMT

CMontague (cmontague@aol.com) wrote:
: >the capitalist Nesmith says he and avowed socialist Tork used to pass
: >time between takes arguing weighty issues such as individualism >defined
: by Ayn Rand versus individualism defined by Thomas Aquinas.

: (Wailing) Oh, nooooooooooo! Look, I`m prepared to learn all kinds of nasty
: things about my pop culture heroes – boozing and getting thrown out of
: bars, a penchant for women half their age, even that they don`t wash their
: hands after using the lav. But if Nez is a Rand fan, *that* is shattering
: news. I`m a capitalist, too – I frankly think it`s the only system that
: accepts human nature for what it is, and tries to focus our basest
: impulses into productive channels. But Ayn Rand? The woman was an
: ideologue of the worst stripe: brokering no dissent; incapable of
: entertaining ideas that might undermine the (essentially unstable)
: foundation of her beliefs. Because of that basic instability, she
: attempted to convince people, not through persuasion, but through
: intimidation: `If you disagree with me, you`re an evil jerk.` Her vision
: of utopia was grimmer than anything the socialists ever wrought: in the
: World According to Ayn, there would *be* no pop culture – certainly no
: Monkee-ing around. And it’s a shame that someone who worshiped at the
: altar of Meritocracy was so hilariously untalented at her chosen line of
: work (writing). (Unless I misunderstood, and _Atlas Shrugged_ was
: *supposed* to be screamingly funny when it wasn`t painfully boring.)

: On the other hand, it`s nice to know that the backstage chat on the
: Monkees set didn`t consist of bitchy put-downs and vying for the most
: on-camera time.

I don’t know where this guy got this. I used the phrase as a simile not
an example. It was *as if* we were sitting around…etc. Anyway is it
Ion or Ann. We mostly talked about Davy’s height and Mickey’s hair. nez