[Edited 8/8/12 15:47pm]

Uhhhhhhh, No.

Quick! Tell MickyDolenz!

So Davy was THE reason why Michael left?

Dead dogs don't bite

I'm surprised Mike is performing at all. He didn't seem to be interested in show business. I've heard he's had eyesight problems.

Ain't no Monkeys without Davie--ask Betty O.

purplethunder3121 said:

Ain't no Monkees without Davie--ask Betty O.

Most of their hits were sung by Micky though. Who is Betty O?

NBC Television Hulton Archive, Getty Images

With the sudden death of Davy Jones earlier this year, it seemed like all Monkee business would be put on put on hold, but now comes word that the remaining three members are “comin’ to your town” one more time.

Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork and, surprise of surprises, Mike Nesmith are coming together for a short US tour. In the past, Nesmith has always been hesitant to take part in any Monkees reunions, performing with the group only at a select few appearances in America, and one tour of the UK. It seems, perhaps, that Jones’ death has somehow lit a fire in Nesmith, who is also planning a solo tour.

The 12-date tour will be the first time Nesmith has taken part in any Monkee activity since 1997, and the first U.S. Monkees tour to feature him since 1969. According to a press release, the band promise “a selection of classic hits, deep cuts from their first five platinum albums — including some performed for the first time since the ’60s — and fan favorites from the soundtrack to their cult film classic ‘Head.’ The concerts will incorporate a full multimedia presentation including rare films and one-of-a-kind photographs. The show will also include a tribute to Jones.

Monkees Fall 2012 Tour Dates:

11/8 — Escondido, Calif.
11/9 – Santa Barbara, Calif.
11/10 — Los Angeles, Calif.
11/11– Cupertino, Calif.
11/15 — Minneapolis, Minn.
11/16 — Chicago, Ill.
11/17 — Cleveland, Ohio
11/18 — Buffalo, N.Y.
11/29 — Philadelphia, Pa.
11/30 — New Brunswick, N.J.
12/1– Huntington, N.Y.
12/2 — New York, N.Y.

Maybe they will do some xmas tunes? Was there A FUED WITH DAVY AND MIKE? You going Micky?

[Edited 8/15/12 14:59pm]

I don't know about any fued, but Mike & Davy have the same birthday. I've heard that Davy has had a diva attitude though. I've seen latter day interviews with Davy and he seemed to be somewhat cranky.

I don't think Mike has done a lot of performing in general over the last couple of decades. I know he was doing movie production in the 1980's, sort of like George Harrison. In recent times, he had some kind of think tank convention every year. Mike's been living off of that Liquid Paper money I guess.

It seems Micky is on tour right now on a package show.

Well he'll get 8.3% more money now. Maybe that was the issue. Whatever the reason was, I find it hard to not look at this in poor taste now that Davy has passed.

Cerebus said:

Well he'll get 8.3% more money now. Maybe that was the issue. Whatever the reason was, I find it hard to not look at this in poor taste now that Davy has passed.

It's doubtful Mike needs the money, since he inherited his mother's Liquid Paper fortune, and he also won a multi-million dollar lawsuit in the 1990's. As far as the other 2, Micky & Peter went on a tour with Davy last year. Mike had vision problems.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Michael Nesmith Talks Abo... the Light

Last October, Michael Nesmith played a show in Marfa, TX with brother and sister Sara and Sean Watkins (ex-Nickel Creek), a town that prides itself on its art. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to the world, Nesmith could barely see those works because his sight had slowly been ebbing away.

Nesmith took to Facebook on Thursday to tell the story of the path to blindness and the way back to the light.

When we mapped the Marfa metaphor for the concert there with the Watkins Family, as those of you who were in on it will recall, we came up with ”Light”. The Light of Art that illumines and enriches society, civilization and humanity.

That is why it was so ironic that when I arrived in Marfa to play the concert I was practically blind.
I had been slowly losing my sight since 2007, and then in 2010 it took a dramatic turn for the worse and by the time of the Marfa concert in October of 2011 my world was a Monet painting with pretty colors but no distinct identities. Thanksgiving and Christmas were cold and lonely and came and went in a steady deterioration of the remaining sight, and by the time January 2012 was here I was legally blind. I needed assistance for most all activities, which was lovingly and unselfishly provided by my friends and companions Jessica, Robin, Katrina, and Jeffrey ---sometimes much to their own discomfort and cost. I could not drive or cook or get around on my own. It got worse, but I will spare you all that. Suffice to say things were bad, but my friends were good – even saintly.

In this darkness I reached out to a lovely friend and fellow musician, Janni Littlepage, and asked if she knew someone who might help. She suggested Alexander Holmes, a surfing ophthalmologist here on the peninsula.

When I went to see him he said “Well, the bad news is that it is cataracts. The good news is that it is cataracts. I can fix those” He scheduled me for surgery late January and in a simple, painless, operation he replaced the cataracts with brilliant clear new intraocular lenses –inside the eye – and I can see clearly now, just like the song says. So, where I was blind, now I see. In fact, I see better now than I ever have in my life.
To those who have inquired, that is where I have been my dear friends, wandering in darkness. But it is no longer dark. And though am returning only slowly to things, still digesting the lesson in all this, grateful for every step, I can see the light of intelligence has informed every hand, guided every move, and provided every direction. The light of Marfa shines; the Light of Life expressing itself in each unselfish, generous and beautiful act.

It is an extraordinary, inspiring, and lovely thing we do: that we heal each other.

vintagevinylnews

MickyDolenz said:

Cerebus said:

Well he'll get 8.3% more money now. Maybe that was the issue. Whatever the reason was, I find it hard to not look at this in poor taste now that Davy has passed.

It's doubtful Mike needs the money, since he inherited his mother's Liquid Paper fortune, and he also won a multi-million dollar lawsuit in the 1990's. As far as the other 2, Micky & Peter went on a tour with Davy last year. Mike had vision problems.

It seems in bad taste to me no matter what reasons have been given. If he doesn't need the money (which I totally get), then why reunite now, after 15 years? The only difference is that Davy has recently died.

A day late and dollar short.

There's something about Mr. Nesmith return to 'The Monkiees' which appears hollow. He was asked to to join his bandmates for years and demurred all request. In fact, Mr. Nesmith appeared to want to distance himself from anything remotely to do with the band. He always seem like he had a bug up his butt, now after Mr. Jones' death he's changed his mind?

As far as his eyesight... damn did the guy ever go to the doctor / Ophthalmologist? Was Mr. Nesmith living in the backwoods, where eye doctors have limited knowledge or experience about his disease? Cataracts, ain't a rare occurrence. Sorry, I've digress.

Maybe Mr. Nesmith recent illness and death of Jones' put things in a different pespective.

Cerebus said:

MickyDolenz said:

It's doubtful Mike needs the money, since he inherited his mother's Liquid Paper fortune, and he also won a multi-million dollar lawsuit in the 1990's. As far as the other 2, Micky & Peter went on a tour with Davy last year. Mike had vision problems.

It seems in bad taste to me no matter what reasons have been given. If he doesn't need the money (which I totally get), then why reunite now, after 15 years? The only difference is that Davy has recently died.

Maybe he had always planned to work with them again someday and Davy's death scared him into action

TD3 said:

A day late and dollar short.

There's something about Mr. Nesmith return to 'The Monkiees' which appears hollow. He was asked to to join his bandmates for years and demurred all request. In fact, Mr. Nesmith appeared to want to distance himself from anything remotely to do with the band. He always seem like he had a bug up his butt, now after Mr. Jones' death he's changed his mind?

As far as his eyesight... damn did the guy ever go to the doctor / Ophthalmologist? Was Mr. Nesmith living in the backwoods, where eye doctors have limited knowledge or experience about his disease? Cataracts, ain't a rare occurrence. Sorry, I've digress.

Maybe Mr. Nesmith recent illness and death of Jones' put things in a different pespective.

Mike did participate on the Justus album released in 1997 and the TV special to promote it. Before that, he did a couple of performances in the 1980's reunion tour after MTV aired the show, but declined on doing a whole tour. Mike did the European portion of the Justus tour, but quit when it was about to go to the states. Various theories have been given, like Mike's guitar chops were down and Peter was playing his parts. Another was that Mike was disturbed by negative reviews about his performance. Then it was said that it was because of his then court case.

I don't know if he still is one, but in the 1960's, Mike was a Christian Scientist, and they're not supposed to go to doctors or something like that. I don't really know what their doctrine is.

Not sure I'd pay to see them again. I'm just happy I got to see them twice. Got to see them last year, so I'm so happy I went. Best comedy/music show ever!

JoeBala said:

Best comedy/music show ever!

I liked Hee Haw when I was little, but that's more of a variety show.

MickyDolenz said:

JoeBala said:

Best comedy/music show ever!

I liked Hee Haw when I was little, but that's more of a variety show.

Old folks and little kids both liked Hee Haw...

purplethunder3121 said:

MickyDolenz said:

I liked Hee Haw when I was little, but that's more of a variety show.

Old folks and little kids both liked Hee Haw...

Micky Dolenz on the Monkees’ Reunion With Michael Nesmith

Earlier this month, Monkees fans got the shocking news that reclusive guitarist Michael Nesmith will hit the road with the surviving members of the band for a fall tour. “It’s shocking to us, too,” says Monkee drummer-singer Micky Dolenz. “It just caught us all by surprise. It wasn’t this massive plan that people had been concocting for years or months or anything. It sort of happened organically.”

The band had barely communicated with Nesmith since he walked off a U.K. reunion tour in 1997 after just a handful of dates. “I think he moved back up to Carmel after that,” says Dolenz. “There wasn’t any strained relations as far as I was concerned. Look, it’s impossible to go through something like that and get totally disconnected. It’s like a brother. We may not see each other for literally years, and as soon as we get back together we’re immediately back into the same dynamic.”

Sadly, it took the death of Davy Jones to get the three surviving members of the Monkees back into the same room. “We started talking about doing some sort of memorial show,” says Dolenz. “It just sort of escalated from there. It was, ‘Well, where do you do the memorial? If you do it on the East coast, the fans on the West coast are disappointed. So, what then? Do we do two memorials?’”

They ultimately decided that a short tour made the most sense. “As soon as the three of us expressed even the slightest bit of interest there was a lot of interest from others,” says Dolenz. “The ball started rolling, and the train left the station. Rhino Records also got very excited and helped us support it.”

Details of the show are still coming together, but they plan on using the evening to trace the group’s entire history. “We’re going to use our music, and also videos and still images from the time,” says Dolenz. “We’ll start out with the early Boyce and Hart songs, the ‘Last Train to Clarksville’ stuff, and then morph into Headquarters, which we plan on playing a significant amount of material from. Then we’ll do material from the movie Head. I’m really looking forward to that. There are great Mike songs on that. ‘Circle Sky’ is one of my favorites. I’ll be on drums for some of the evening, popping back to the front for some songs. We’ll be more stripped down for the Head material, and then fleshed out with a bigger band for some other other material.”

The show will also feature a tribute to Davy Jones, and his trademark numbers like “Daydream Believer” will be performed. “It’s one of Davy’s signature tunes,” says Dolenz. “I don’t know the specific setlist yet. We’re having a pre-production meeting soon. Sometimes records sound great on the radio, but then you try and play them live and something just doesn’t work out.”

The Monkees recording career was incredibly brief, but in that time they produced an astounding amount of material. “It was brutal,” says Dolenz. “They needed so much material to service that television show. They were running at least two songs a week. I remember frequently finishing a taping at 7 p.m. and I had to go to RCA at sunset and record until midnight. I would often do two or three lead vocal takes in a night. This was only four-track recording. No pro-tools. No editing. No nothing. People often ask if I remember recording ‘I’m a Believer’ or ‘Last Train to Clarksville.’ I say, ‘No way!’ I was recording two or three vocals a night. Every night.”

As of now, only 12 Monkees dates are booked. Might they hit Europe or other markets next year? “Haven’t thought that far ahead,” says Dolenz. “There certainly is a fanbase in Europe, and the far east, Australia, South America. It’s going to depend on a lot of things and it’s way too early to speculate.”

Nesmith released a series of acclaimed country-rock albums after the Monkees split in the early 1970s. His mother invented Liquid Paper and left him her fortune, leaving him with very little financial incentive to join the Monkees on most of their reunion tours. His low profile over the past few decades has turned him into somewhat of a mystery man. “Sometimes he enjoys people thinking that,” says Dolenz. “He’s just a very private person. He’s very, very smart. Also so very talented with his lyrics, and his poetry and books. I know what people mean about him being mysterious, but that’s probably one of the qualities that the original producers saw in him. He has that dry Will Rogers sense of humor. That’s probably one of the reasons they cast him.”

As he begins to prep for the tour, Dolenz is also focusing on his new solo album Remember, in stores on September 25th. “I’ve been working on this for three or four years,” says Dolenz. “It features a lot of music that was important in my life. It starts with a cover of ‘Good Morning Good Morning’ by the Beatles because I was at that session. I do a version of ‘Johnny B. Goode’ because that was my audition song for the Monkees.” The disc also contains re-recordings of Monkees classics “I’m a Believer” and “Randy Scouse Git.”

Monkees.net