Surviving Monkees to Launch First Tour in 15 Years - Band set to play 12 dates across the U.S.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Surviving Monkees to Launch First Tour in 15 Years
Band set to play 12 dates across the U.S.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/surviving-monkees-to-launch-first-tour-in-15-years-20120808



By Rolling Stone
August 8, 2012 8:40 AM ET

The Monkees are set to return to the stage this November for a 12-date U.S. tour, marking the first time Michael Nesmith, Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork have played together since 1997. The tour kicks off at Escondido's California Center for the Arts on November 8th and finishes at the Beacon Theatre in New York City on December 2nd.

The trek is also Nesmith's first with the Monkees since a brief U.K. run in 1997; and of course, it's the group's first outing since singer Davy Jones passed away in February. "This seems like a good time to do this – the right time," says Nesmith. "Who knows when we will get another chance?"

The Monkees will perform a selection of their biggest hits and deeper cuts from their first five albums, as well as music from their film Head and their TV series. Accompanying the tunes will be a multimedia show filled with rare films and photographs.

Jones will be saluted "in the show's multimedia content," according to a statement.

Full tour dates below:

11/8 Escondido, CA - California Center for the Arts
11/9 Santa Barbara, CA - The Arlington Theatre
11/10 Los Angeles, CA - Greek Theatre
11/11 Cupertino, CA - Flint Center for the Performing Arts
11/15 Minneapolis, MN - State Theatre
11/16 Chicago, IL - The Chicago Theatre
11/17 Cleveland, OH - Lakewood Civic Auditorium
11/18 Buffalo, NY - The Center For The Arts
11/29 Philadelphia, PA - Keswick Theatre
11/30 New Brunswick, NJ - State Theatre Regional Arts Center
12/1 Huntington, NY - The Paramount
12/2 New York, NY - The Beacon Theatre

[hlthe2b]

1. Peter and Mickey? Without Davey?

That's ludicrous... Oh, I see that Mr. "WHite Out", Michael Nesmith is joining in. Still without Davey?

[Amerigo Vespucci]

2. I know, but...

...I figure if it's 12 dates, and if the spirit of the thing is to pay tribute, I'm OK with it. They toured for decades without Nesmith.

Then again, the Lynyrd Skynyrd "Tribute Tour" was supposed to be a way for the surviving members to say goodbye, and they didn't. Johnny Van Zandt closed the shows by saying "There's only one man that can sing this song" before the band played an instrumental version of "Free Bird." Now he sings it all the time so apparently there are only two men who can sign that song.



Hopefully this is Micky, Peter and Mike saying thanks and goodbye...to Davy, and to their audience.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

5. Micky and Peter actually were the only two to reunite at the start of the 1986 revival

They were the only ones credited on their last top 20 hit "That Was Then, This Was Now".

[Amerigo Vespucci]

8. I saw the "That Was Then" tour at Marine World when it was still in Belmont/Redwood City

It was Dolenz, Tork & Jones with pickup musicians.

Opening acts were "Herman's Hermits" (original guitarist "Lek" Leckenby with a bunch of other guys, none of them Peter Noone) and "The Grass Roots" (singer Rob Grill with the Monkees' backing band).

Big highlight of the show was Tork playing the "Valleri" guitar solo note-for-note. He nailed it, but also looked like he was gonna bust a blood vessel while playing it.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

10. Davy joined them just after they recorded and filmed the video for the song

If you watch the video which was filmed in concert, he's not in it.

I remember as an eleven year old begging to go to Foxboro Stadium to see them in '87. Mind you, they were playing NFL stadiums....parents wouldn't take me.

[KatyaR]

11. I saw that show in Oklahoma City--they were so great!

It was so much fun to see them live. It's a shame that Davy's gone.

[pinboy3niner]

3. Sounds like this will be the Last Train to Clarksville for the Monkees

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

4. I'd pay to see Nesmith solo doing his own stuff

Don't know if I'm interested in seeing him disinterestedly picking his guitar off to the side while running thru the Monkees hits.

[pipi_k]

6. Always loved...

[Amerigo Vespucci]

7. I made a mix CD of all of his Monkees stuff in chronological order

That includes the "official" releases and the outtakes that ended up on the box sets and the "Missing Links" compilations. It actually works out to just about one full 80 minute CD. He was a real bastard in those days, going his own way, using Monkees session money to record his own tracks with his own musicians, with an eye toward his solo career. His first "solo album"..."The Wichita Train Whistle Sings"...has a pretty interesting story behind it:

The Wichita Train Whistle Sings was the first solo album by Michael Nesmith and was recorded while he was still a member of the Monkees. It peaked at No. 144 on the Billboard Pop Albums charts.

The album comprises instrumentals performed by a full orchestra. All but one of the songs were recorded by the Monkees (a couple of them weren't released until the Missing Link albums).

The album was made over a two-day session on November 18–19, 1967 at the RCA studios in Hollywood, and featured the best musicians in Hollywood (including most of the key members of "The Wrecking Crew&quot , including ten trumpets, ten trombones, ten saxophones, 2 drummers, five percussionists, four pianos, eight basses, seven guitars. Because it was the weekend, all musicians were paid double time and the session was catered by Chasens, the finest restaurant in Hollywood, and Nesmith provided an open bar, with the predictable result that most of the normally highly-disciplined cadre of studios musician were drunk by the time the session finished. It all cost $50,000. Nesmith explained to Hal Blaine that he was about to pay a similar sum in tax and he would rather spend it on the sessions and write it off than give it to the IRS.

The recording is also notable for the famous incident that occurred at the end of the sessions - the lead sheet for the final track they recorded ("Don't Call On Me&quot included an instruction that called for the players to improvise a cacophony of sound; as the track concluded, to the astonishment of his colleagues, renowned guitarist Tommy Tedesco took off his Fender guitar (which was still plugged into the amplifier), threw it high into the air, and the instrument crashed to the floor and smashed to pieces. According to a 2000 interview with Hal Blaine, Tedesco's wife later collected the pieces and had them framed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wichita_Train_Whistle_Sings

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

9. Oh, trust me....I'm a Monkees archivist myself

I've even read the Sandoval book....which is quite a slog unless the minutia of who the engineer on "I'm Gonna Buy Me A Dog" was interests you.

Nesmith is one of the most unappreciated musicians of our time. But a total bastard at times as you said.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

12. I'd love to see this when they hit Chicago.

Loved the Monkees and especially/also Nesmith's work.

I have nothing much to go on with this but I always suspected there was some tension between Nesmith and Jones, like they represented opposite ends of what was happening with the Monkees. Nesmith was a creative type, Jones a stagey type.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

13. Nesmith had an agenda, which was to get HIS music recorded...

...which caused friction at times.

Four months after their debut single was released in September 1966, on January 16, 1967, the Monkees held their first recording session as a fully functioning, self-contained band, recording an early version of band member Nesmith's self-composed top 40 hit single "The Girl I Knew Somewhere", along with "All of Your Toys" and "She's So Far Out, She's In". 4 days later, on January 20, 1967, their debut self-titled album made its belated release in the U.K. (it was released in October '66 in the U.S.). This same month, Kirshner released their second album of songs that used session musicians, More of the Monkees, without the band's knowledge. Nesmith and Tork were particularly upset when they were on tour in January 1967 and discovered this second album. The Monkees were annoyed at not having even been told of the release in advance, at having their opinions on the track selection ignored, at Don Kirshner's self-congratulatory liner notes, and also because of the amateurish-looking cover art, which was merely a composite of pictures of the four taken for a J. C. Penney clothing advertisement. Indeed, the Monkees had not even been given a copy of the album; they had to buy it from a record store.

The climax of the rivalry between Kirshner and the band was an intense argument between Nesmith, Kirshner, and Colgems lawyer Herb Moelis, which took place at the Beverly Hills Hotel in January 1967. Kirshner had presented the group with royalty checks and gold records. Nesmith had responded with an ultimatum, demanding a change in the way the Monkees' music was chosen and recorded. Moelis reminded Nesmith that he was under contract. The confrontation ended with Nesmith punching a hole in a wall and saying, [font color="red"]"That could have been your face!"[/font] However, each of the members, including Nesmith, accepted the $250,000 royalty checks (equivalent to approximately $1,700,000 in today's funds).

Kirshner's dismissal came in early February 1967, when he violated an agreement between Colgems and the Monkees not to release material directly created by the group together with unrelated Kirshner-produced material. Kirshner violated this agreement when he released the "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You", composed and written by Neil Diamond, as a single with an early version of "She Hangs Out", a song recorded in New York with Davy Jones' vocals, as the B-side. This single would be withdrawn.

Kirshner was reported to have been incensed by the group's unexpected rebellion, especially when he felt they had "modicum talent" when compared to the superstars of the day like Lennon/McCartney. In the liner notes for Rhino's 2006 Deluxe Edition CD reissue of More of the Monkees, Kirshner stated, &quot I controlled the group) because I had a contract. I kicked them out of the studio because I had a TV show that I had to put songs in, and to me it was a business and I had to knock off the songs." This experience led directly to Kirshner's later venture, The Archies, which was an animated series – the "stars" existed only on animation cels, with music done by studio musicians, and obviously could not seize creative control over the records issued under their name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkees

[Gidney N Cloyd]

15. Nesmith once said it was Dolenz's voice that gave the band it's distinctive sound.

I always thought that was a shot across Jones' bow since he was, IIRC, brought in to be the main singer (and couldn't contribute much when they tried later on to play their own instruments on the recordings).
Not sure that indicated a personal dislike but as you say, Nesmith had an agenda and it seemed like Jones was superfluous to it.

(jezus effing christ we're deconstructing the Monkees... )

[Amerigo Vespucci]

16. I hear ya, but I can't resist a little more deconstruction...

It was Jones who got supremely pissed off at Nesmith for walking off the "Justus" tour following their 1997 UK shows. He just walked away, and the remaining three did the U.S. leg of the tour without him.

In interviews conducted after the UK tour, Davy Jones didn't hide his disdain for Mike's sudden absence, claiming the rest of the band had been left with no explanation. He often gave the impression that he was disgruntled with Nesmith, though Jones later said a lot of his quotes about him were taken out of context. "When The Monkees toured England in 1989, we got massive rave reviews for the three of us," Davy told Monkee Business Fanzine. "When we did it this time, the press just slammed us, because of his attitude, Mike Nesmith's attitude, when we did TV shows. 'Hey Hey We're The Grumpies,' one headline read."

http://www.monkeesconcerts.com/1997-north-american-tour.html

[djames59434]

14. wow's that's awesome.

[Kaleva]

17. I'm old enough to recall when they were mocked as the "Pre-Fab Four"

But they all got the last laugh.