The Smiley Smile Message Board

Can anyone explain the story behind this bizarre photo?  Is it a Nesmith? Is it a Zappa? Or some freaky hybrid???

(http://www.rhino.com/fun/henrydiltz/may02/7big_may.jpg)

That's definitely NOT Zappa.

Zappa is in the Monkees' Head, though, and I believe he was friendly with Nesmith.

(That may be common knowledge around here. I don't know.)

Zappa and Nesmith had mutual respect, or something like that. Considering Nesmith was the most talented musician in the Monkees, I'm not surprised.

Phrase of the day.

Yes, I'm not completely oblivious to the fact that the other three weren't exactly musical whizzes. But they did try their hardest. And besides, who cares how proficient they were on their instruments? The music itself stands up well enough on its own merits.

Ah! I have a video of this, where Zappa is pretending to be Nesmith, and vice versa. I'll post it if I can find it!

http://gp1138.digitaloutsider.org/zappamonkees.mpg

If it doesn't work, try again in twenty or so minutes from the time this was posted. I have to run out the door for a few minutes, so I can't wait and post this.

I like Monkees music, by the way. Just playing around.

Besides, what could be wrong with it? It was written and performed by a lot of great musicians!

Call me crazy, but the Monkees era I prefer is when they started doing it all themselves. The early stuff is fun and all, and impeccably performed, but stuff like Headquarters and PCAJ and The Birds, The Bees, and the Monkees are much preferred by me.

The link should work now.

You guys weren't aware of the Monkees episode where Mike and Frank play each other? Wow.

F u ckin' know-it-all...

(kidding, dear.)

Hilarious!  Thanks for posting that!

You guys may want to check out the Monkees TV series. It's really great. Available in 2 handy sets from Rhino:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00006ZZ05/ref=pd_lpo_k2a_1_txt/102-7220832-7995366?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=130

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000TAZW4/102-7220832-7995366?v=glance&n=130

I forgot how genius that clip is! The banal & insipid crack and the popular/dirty, gross & ugly musician jabs are hysterical!
I wonder how many little kids then forced their parents into buying a Mother's Of Invention record. They then hated every minute, of course!  ;D

What I love about that clip is how much it shows Zappa to be a phony and hypocritical idiot who can't take the snide jabs he so obviously relishes dealing out to others. Afterward, Zappa would never again make the mistake of being caught on camera in the company of someone who was clearly his intellectual and humorous superior.

I wondered about that Ian, when I first saw that years ago -- Zappa looked so cynical, so full of himself there while Mike looked to just be having a blast.  It certainly made Mike look comfy in the LA intelligentsia.

That was on the second to the last episode of the Monkees.  The very last episode had Tim Buckley as a guest.  Clearly the band upped the ante on their artistic merits.

I agree -- everyone who is interested enough to post to this board should sample the Monkees TV show.  I would personally bypass season 1 at first as that is far more conventional.  It is not bad, don't get me wrong, and my 3 year old thinks it is hysterical.  But for their most subversive best and best written stuff, with the best Monkees music, go straight to season 2.  It starts off similar to season 1 but soon becomes as psychedelic as straight network TV ever got in the 60's.

By the way, while Frank is playing the car, what is the music that is playing on top of it?  I don't recognize that.

One more comment then I promise I will quit -- what about the time he was guest host on SNL in the 70's?  Belushi introed him playing the network prez, saying that Frank Zappa was the most in-demand person according to viewer mail.  Best moment was when he dated the Conehead's daughter and was so oblivious to the weirdness of the family that he drank beer and ate cheese puffs just like the rest of them.  And yet I think he came off somewhat similar to the Monkees thing at times.

Pretty sure it's Mother People from MONEY: "...We are the other people
You're the other people too"

Not sure Mike has the superior talent but he picks up on Frank's knack for always acting smugly 'superior', that's for sure.

Part 2 of a series:

(http://www.fredunzel.com/videos/200motels/frank-ringo.jpg)

Was Zappa thining of the Mike Nesmith encounter when staging this one? Notice: no fake honker dropping off constantly needed on this occasion.

That looks like Ringo!

Just in case you aren't kidding -- that IS Ringo.

(http://rock.w3h.net/who/moon02.jpg)

Yes. And the final sound is the opening "note" of "The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny".

When and where was this shot? And where did it air? Was Mike still in the Monkees when they did this?

IT'S FROM THE MONKEES' TV SHOW!

You've got to be kidding!  :o

Was that clip an outtake? That was a scene from the show!

Was Zappa really famous in the sixties, did the average kid on the street know who he was, or was he mostly known among the LA music scene makers?

I think these details were in the thread already, but it was used as an opener for an episode in the 2nd season. All the Monkees had a chance to have a guest. Mike had Frank, Micky had Tim Buckley, Davy had Charlie Smalls, Peter did not have a guest. Watch the Monkees series, dude. You won't be disappointed.
 

?

(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y84/oldjoesplace/normanfrank.jpg)

http://www.freewebs.com/oldjoesplace/zappa.mov

:)

Silly me!  ;D

Episode # 57 3/11/68.

http://monkeestv3.tripod.com/season2/blowminds.html

http://monkeestv3.tripod.com/MonkeesInterviews/David_Micky_Michael_Guests/blowminds_FZ-MN.html

Man, I don't believe how few people here know the Monkees!  I thought that was sort of baseline standard pop!

When you're spoonfed "but they were just a bunch of phonies, and they didn't play their own instruments!" from an early age, it takes a lot of dedication to get past that stage. I'm just barely there, myself. I have a lot to look forward too!  :)

when i was a kid i watched the Monkees tv show religiously , but i don't remember that episode?. i loved the Monkee's as a kid late 60's /early 70's .My mom bought me  a model kit of their car , which i assembled and kept on my nightstand for years'.

Certainly interesting points, but like any other group in the 60's... they did & didn't play their own instruments. Take the Motown label, there was a group of guys that were the core musicians. The Los Angeles scene was primarily the same group of people that played on most of the music that was released from that part of the country.

Keep in mind that some of the same people that played on Monkees records were the same people that played on the Byrds, Carpenters, Righteous Brothers, Phil Spector productions, Jan & Dean, etc, etc!
Glen Campbell, Hal Blaine, James Burton, Al Casey, Carole Kaye, Ray Pohlman, Mike Deasy, Michael Rubini, & every other soul that was a session player or that was connected to the 'Wrecking Crew' played on Monkees recordings.
Neil Young, Buddy Miles, Ry Cooder, Clarence White, Stephen Stills, Andy Kim, can all be found in the grooves of Monkees records.

Don't write them off so quickly as there's a lot to be discovered there. Check out the soon to be mammoth Monkees LP The Monkees ain't no slouches! Come on boys.... back me up on this one!!  :)

Hey, we know this! It's the vast majority of the record buying public of today who don't know it. I know now that the Monkees rule, natch, but getting over the prejudice you're fed from an early age is more than you can ask of most people. I love the Monkees now because I have a pop music lover's dedication to finding great stuff I haven't heard before.

Sadly, the old Rolling Stone "intelligentsia" - the same that relegated the Beach Boys to the league of perpetual unhip-ness - still haven't caught up with reality. Just look at Richie Unterberger's pointless bio from allmusic.com:
Uh-huh.
How heartbreaking.
Even this "victory" is a defeat. The dreaded "session musician" re-enters. (Sigh.)

Every new fan of the Monkees will be hard-won, Kevin. Unless they get a Pet Sounds-like hype machine at their disposal. I hope they will.

I think to me they are just this kind of slightly offending rip-off of Beatles. Most of it, except for "I'm A Believer" or "Daydream Believer", sounds like pretty boring, bland popmusic to me. Maybe as a pop-art phenomenon they were interesting, or they probably also mean something, if you are very nostalgic about sixties LA pop. But compared to the other music that was around at that point, I don't think they were very good. Believe me I have tried, but I didn't hear anything particularly arresting. Don't know why they mean so much to some people on the board, but it's my loss I guess.

Søren

Thanks for proving Even's point.

 Frank Zappa was a guest near the end of the series in an episode called 'Monkees Blow Their Minds'

oh, I see Jeff beat me to it!

Ever listen to Birth of the Cool?

Even, great posts.  People would love the Monkees if they did their own stuff, easily.  It's like this James Frey nonsense with Oprah.  Oprah and Frey's audience want to revel in the writer's misery, then somehow call him an opportunist when he's faked it.  But they are the opportunists.

Does anyone around here insult the Knickerboxers for their Beatles ripoff "Lies"?  No.  Because they played their own stuff, or people assume they did.  But the Monkees had the misfortune of being smarter than their audience.  And when the audience knows that, it never goes over well.    I'd respect people who fault the Monkees for being fake if they only like the Beatles when they wore leather jackets.

Did I ever tell you you're my hero?

Wind beneath ur broken wingz, babiez.

You're welcome.

Søren

I was never a huge fan of the Monkees, but they are probably the band I respect the hell out of the most. I know they were never the best of musicians, but damn it, just like the Shaggs, they tried their damnedest on their instruments and made records that worked. I prefer their material from Headquarters onward, up to the early seventies, then my interest peaks.

They may have been manufactured, but they had some kind of talent about them that led to many great records. The Monkees paid every possible due and beat all the odds. You'd be crazy not to respect that.

"You can tell / I really love you."

Only somebody who has heard a grand total of five Monkees songs would make such an inaccurate, asinine, almost offensive comment.

"Rip off of the Beatles?" In what way, other than they both have four members? I can count the Beatle rips the band did on ONE HAND -- the rest of their music is so far removed from the smegging Beatles as to be inconsequential. The Monkees have more in common with sunshine pop, country-pop, LA-sunset-strip-pop and other going concerns that used to be dug around these parts than they have in common with the fegging Beatles.

I love the Beatles, but in many ways I *almost* love the Monkees more. ALMOST.

Burn on!


Amen.

I meant the concept, not so much the music. I don't think it's any secret, that the whole Monkees concept, with four zany guys jumping around, was copied from the Beatles' movies. Maybe I take it a little too seriously, but there's also something reactionary about reducing the youth movement at that point, into being something about monkees. But all that and the fact that they pretended to play their own instruments, even when they didn't, wouldn't matter if their songs were really great, but I just can't hear it, sorry I don't "get it".

Søren

There was never any pretending! They mimed just like any other band of buffoons on the tele, but all four of them could play AT LEAST guitar coming into the project... Yes, even Jones. Peter could play many, Mike several, and Micky was taught to play drums BEFORE the TV show was aired in Sept '66. And their songs WERE really great. (no insult here) Not 'getting it' is truly your loss. There is some magical music to be found if you check it out past the hits stage of the project. You may have needed to come into it like many of us did... as kids, then have a higher appreciation for it as an adult. Your life is a do over!  ;)

Who gives a merda foda about the "concept?" They aren't about the concept, they're about music. You can't pass judgement on whether the "concept" is faulty until you've heard the music, and if you're still decrying it you haven't HEARD the great songs, and there are MANY. MANY MANY. Namely the entire Headquarters, Pisces Aquarius, and Head albums plus most of the first album and chunks of the second one. I bet a dollar you've heard "Last Train" and maybe "Daydream Believer" and maybe MAYBE a couple others like Valleri or something.

Have you even heard Pleasant Valley Sunday? It is the THIRD BEST SONG OF ALL TIME.

Welcome to the Monkee House!

Ok this is a prime opportunity to repost the Monkeemobile!

Dude, calling the teenage fans a bunch of monkeys is fucking brilliant!  I'd like them for that even if the music sucked.  Assuming that's what you're saying, of course.  Are you saying posters here think the "youth movement" is about the Monkees, instead? 

Maybe I’m paranoid, but Monkees were modelled over the Beatles phenomenon, so in a way it’s like reducing Beatles and the youth culture, they helped to spawn, into to something monkey-like. Beatles were big enough for that, so it’s no big deal, but it seems a little reactionary.
BTW I have heard "Pleasant Valley Sunday" and some of the stuff from "Headqaurters" and "Pisces..", it just didn't strike me as being particularly great, but again that's my loss.

Søren

I know :)

If that's reactionary, what about all the people who picked up on the Beatles' style without commenting on it -- The Stones, Who, Kinks...

I don’t think Stones, Who or Kinks just picked up Beatles’ style, particular Stones were much more bluesy. As a matter of fact those groups probably tried to further, what Beatles had instigated, by monkeying around even more and being even more scandalous, longhaired and wild, which could be seen as a comment in itself.
And you can probably see Monkees as a progressive, postmodern, ironic comment on the Beatles and the popculture, but my feeling is, that it is giving their show too much credit. It was a family-friendly show directed at kiddies, and the whole ironic attitude was probably something made to calm the parent generation, who felt threatened by what was going on with the youth at that point.

Søren

When was this "ironic attitude" concocted to help "calm the parent generation", and by whom?  Explain, because that sounds somewhat "cut and dried".

Read some interviews with Bob Schneider and Bob Rafelson, man.

Yeah, okay maybe I should do that.

Søren