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Great News For Monkees Fans And Nobody Else At All!

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It’s hard to believe … the Prefab Three (Davy, alas, unavailable) are making a new album! It’s called Good Times! Mike Nesmith, Peter Tork, and Mickey Dolenz are all on board, writin’ and playin’ a bunch of new songs for their now sexagenarian pre-teen fanbase! Hoboy! And there’ll be a tour! Oboy! Except Mike “call me Michael” won’t be doing the tour. Because Michael. But he’s on the album!

We’re the old generation, and we’ve got something to say!

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Comments

  2. HP, you’ve forgotten the big news: Andy Partidge is writing songs for the album. Andy Partidge! And Adam Schlesinger is producing! And Noel Gallagher’s involved too, apparently.

  4. Well, they are hardly reforming , there have been a few tours in the last few years. I saw them with Davy and without Nesmith in 2011. After he passed away there were a couple of tours with Nesmith and the upcoming one will feature only one of the main 3 original singers.

    I believe Nesmith’s involvement in the album is limited. Interesting that Andy Partridge has written a single thought.

  5. If the Beeb acquired the rights (can’t be that pricey, can it?) to the Monkees TV series, made a big fuss about it on the 50th Anniversary, and put them out every evening on BBC 2 at 7.00 p.m., they’d have a retro hit that would be more popular than Dad’s Army.

  10. I’m thinking Mike and Davey can be there via the “magic” of video. They’ve done it with Elvis and er, Nat King Cole. Big screen, VT synced with click track et voila, stay at home members (hur hur) and the deceased are part of the show.
    On another note, can The Banana Splits be the support? They were always on before The Monkees when I was a kid.

  13. I now think of the Monkees as the characters from the Big Bang Theory,

    Mike Nesmith – Sheldon (tall, brilliant, antisocial)
    Mickey Dolenz – Leonard (slightly whiney voice, squishy face)
    Davey Jones – Howard (short, bowl-cut, wears clothes from the 1960s)
    Peter Tork – Raj (….okay maybe this doesn’t work. We’ll have to substitute Penny. Because she’s a blonde babe)

    • You could rename the show “The Infinite Monkee Cage”
      Also: you can’t discuss TV shows about bands from Norn Iron without reffing Moondogs Matinee, the afternoon kids’ show starring the largely forgotten punks from Stroke City:

  15. I went to see Peter Tork at The Borderline about 15 years ago. Guess who was having a slash in the loo when I went in to strain the spuds? Yes. The great man himself. I didn’t sneak a peek as he was just finishing off. I held out my hand to shake his. (His hand) He refused to do so, looking rather disgusted at the thought, muttering something about having to wash his hands first. I wouldn’t have cared overmuch about the accumulated piss and herpes residue, but that was that.
    Very enjoyable gig, made all the more memorable by the numerous Euroteens, particularly the fräuleins, who queued to get their lovingly handmade scrapbooks signed at the interval. Apparently, the TV series was still being regularly shown in Deutschland.

  17. I love the Monkees, really love them but I don’t want nor need anything new. I can listen to “Randy scouse Git” on a loop and never need another Monkees song. “Headquarters” can’t be topped, leave in the 60’s where it belongs…….

    • Headquarters is a rush of happiness from beginning to end. But I’ve never been worried about who plays what on Monkees songs (or anybody’s songs). It’s the records that matter, and there are other Monkees albums I’d rate alongside this one.

      (Shades Of Gray playing right now)

    • First use of a Moog on a pop record.

      “Mickey Dolenz of The Monkees talks about using the Moog modular synthesizer on Daily Nightly, the first pop recording to use the synthesizer:
      “Ahh, my little Moog synthesizer,” said Dolenz. “It was actually a pretty difficult thing to use,” he said, recalling how those first-generation synthesizers had to be physically rewired for every different sound the musician might want to use. “I threw a party for John Lennon one night, and he sat there at the Moog for four hours making flying saucer sounds. It was great for flying saucer sounds.”

      The lad done good, too, avoiding dominating the track. Great song, groovy video:

  20. They batted a long way down.

    ‘Love Is Only Sleeping’, ‘Daily Nightly’, ‘As We Go Along’, ‘The Door Into Summer’, ‘The Girl I Knew Somewhere’, ‘You Just May Be The One’, ‘Forget That Girl’, ‘Words’, ‘Circle Sky’…..

    All would struggle to get on a ‘Hits’ album, all as good as 60s pop music (and, by definition, pop music) ever got.

  22. ***THREAD DRIFT ALERT***

    Q: What do you call the Monkees five years later? A: The Partridge Family. Yes, the faces were different, the show itself was unrelenting shite and the very concept of families doing things together was anathema in 1970 (well, unless their surname happened to be Staples), so their cool creds never had a hope in heckit.

    And yet … their first album is just a poplicious as the Monkees’ early efforts, Probably because it was in actualaddee performed by Messrs Tedesco, Knechtel, Blaine and Co.

    Park yo prejudices, close yo eyes, forget the girly bits (only there to give Shirley “Principal Boy” Jones something, at least ostensibly, to do), imagine that the vocal slapped on it is Mickey D or Davy J rather than David C and it is, withoudashaduvvadoud, the greatest Monkees single never made.

    ADDED BONUS! It also features the weirdassest, most diggable middle eight in chart-hit history (from 1:20). So weirdass, in fact, that it’s actually a middle twelve.

    • And with a proper singer on top of it (and almost certainly the same musicians yet again), the song is even better (even if the weirdass middle twelve is replaced by a more conventional, although bassoontastic, middle eight):

      It was written by Tony Romeo, who apart from having the most L.A. name evuh was responsible for 150 other recorded songs over a period of about eight years.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO_uIgXVqFQ

        • Turns out I was wrong about the L.A. bit. He was from Backeast, Italian-American, so it may well have been his real name. Or not. Right, Al Martino … or do I mean Jasper Cini?

          Hey, that’s a point. What if Dick Cheney’s real name was Riccardo Ceni?

          (See? I did warn you about thread drift.)

          • While you’re here, Arch – can you tell us how “guinea” (perj. “of Italian descent”) is pronounced, and perhaps shed some light on its derivation? I’m pretty sure I once heard it pronounced something like “gwee-noh” in a movie.

            • (Archie is currently having to run his donkey ride concession at the beach alone, as his intern, the dusky, doe-eyed Conchita, is attending a radicalisation course. He’ll be back when the tourist season is over.)

              • I think it’s pronounced like “guinea” in English, because I’ve seen it written “ginny” more than once. It’s not like “quinoa”, in other words. I’ve no idea where it comes from. “Guinea” as a neffnick slur, I mean. I know where quinoa comes from. The very bowels of Hell.

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