Former Monkee Michael Nesmith isn’t known for making many live appearances these days, preferring to do virtual shows through his Videoranch3d website. But he’ll make one at 9 p.m. Aug. 19 in Los Angeles.

The remaining dates of the Monkees 45th anniversary tour of the U.S. were canceled Monday. No official reason was given, but informed sources said the rest of the dates were not run by the group.

Reports had starting circulating earlier in the day that some or all of the dates had been cancelled.  A posting on Davy Jones’ Facebook page was the first official word to confirm it. It read, in part, “After having contacted a representative of Davy Jones, it has been determined that the remainder of The Monkees 2011 tour HAS BEEN CANCELLED. No reason has been given at this time. When more information becomes available, it will be posted.”

No further information was available on what triggered the sudden cancellation.

Upcoming shows were listed on Ticketmaster for New York State, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, New Jersey and Ohio. The tour started in England in May and hit the U.S. in June. – Examiner

No word so far if these will be combined into a “complete series” set, or what we’ll see in terms of extras. Our retailer contacts inform us, though, that these will possibly be getting released through Shout! Factory, so usually we can count on some sort of bonus material for a show of this magnitude. No promises, though, since the studio (whether it’s Shout! or anybody else) hasn’t formally announced the title to the press.

 Amazon already has place holders up!

‘Hey, hey we’re the Monkees’ – it ruined my acting career, basically. All right? But that’s up to me to change that…maybe there was a phone call a couple days ago to go on ‘Dancing with the Stars,’ you know? If they would have called me three years ago I would have said ‘yes,’ you know? What am I dancing against – a boxer and a baseball player? Do you know what I mean? I’m a song and dance man, you know?

 

The first music video shown on MTV was The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star”. 30 years later, what ‘killed’ MTV?

24 hours a day, seven days a week, you could turn the channel on and see music videos. Hosted by VJs or not, Music Television had music.  There was music news on the top of every hour, and music specials.

Today? A peak at the program schedule shows a lack of videos being played during peak viewing hours. 3am to 9am is videos, the rest of the day is reality TV and series programing.

If only we could call Mike up and ask him “Hey, what do you think of what’s become of this piece of music culture you helped create?”

TV critics were filled with fear and loathing when they saw that PBS’s weekend press tour schedule included a little something called “60s Pop Rock: My Music” hosted by The Monkees’ Davy Jones. They protested to Kerger:

“I know my affiliate would testify to the fundraising power of an instrument like the ‘60s nostalgia music show that you’re presenting here this time,” said one critic, speaking for many.

 

“But does its presence here, and the spotlight you’re giving it, say anything about your fundraising situation, including the recent public fundraising crisis? For a long time, it was sort of an unspoken thing that these were important programs to the affiliate and the network, but it really wasn’t a topic of discussion at an event like this.”

And then, to their surprise, Kerger told them in no uncertain terms, that PBS is done apologizing to them at Press Tour for its fundraising programming. – By Lisa de Moraes, Washington Post

 

A few hours later, Davy Jones was brought out on stage to face the critics.

It was His Moment.

He started talking – and never looked back:

“Hey, hello. Actually I’m Davy’s dad. Davy will be out here in a minute.”

“I work with Peter [Noone] all the time…now he’s singing “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Walker.” You know what I’m saying?

“]Women] used to throw knickers and now they’re throwing Depends. What can I say?”

“]This show] is a breakthrough too. It is the first time that PBS has released a [fundraising] program that’s going national…usually it’s regional. People willy-nilly do it whenever they want. Hopefully the president [of PBS] is not here — I don’t mean to say ‘willy-nilly in front of her.”

“I got into my car and I drove across the country to my house, to my farm in Pennsylvania where I keep and train racehorses…this is my 50th year in show business.”

“I wouldn’t let my kids watch some of the [TV] programs, or my grandkids. I do watch them myself, like “SpongeBob” or a few “Scooby-Doo Meets Davy Jones,” you know? What’s next for me? Shakespeare? Who knows?

“ ‘Hey, hey we’re the Monkees’ – it ruined my acting career, basically. All right? But that’s up to me to change that…maybe there was a phone call a couple days ago to go on ‘Dancing with the Stars,’ you know? If they would have called me three years ago I would have said ‘yes,’ you know? What am I dancing against – a boxer and a baseball player? Do you know what I mean? I’m a song and dance man, you know?

“Can I ask this quickly?” one critic asked. She was one of few critics to get a word in edgewise for the next forty minutes.

MERRILLVILLE | Not long before ‘The Monkees’ took center stage for their 45th Anniversary Tour at Star Plaza Theatre on June 30, Micky Dolenz took the time to give pointers to the two leads of Star Productions regional theater production of ‘Hairspray.’

This was perfect timing for Gina Guarino (who plays Tracy Turnblad) and Frank Hattula (who plays Edna Turnblad) due to Micky actually finishing a run of ‘Hairspray’ on London’s West End, just prior to his going on tour with ‘The Monkees.’

Micky portrayed Wilbur Turnblad, the role Charlie Blum will bring to life in the Star Productions presentation. – Merrillville Community

In the past, you said, “Never, ever, ever again” to a reunion. It’s almost like athletes who say they’re going to retire but can’t keep away.

I said I wouldn’t go out without Mike Nesmith. And then I looked at a picture of Mike Nesmith, and he looks like a German banker. And I thought, “There’s no way that guy’s gonna stand on a stage and be Mike Nesmith of the Monkees.” And then a management company came to me and said, “We’d like to take the Monkees out. What do you think?” And I said, “I don’t think so — my schedule’s busy.” This was last year.

Then, they said, “Can’t you please?” I said, “I’ve got [solo] dates.” Then I said, “If you come up with something and Micky and Peter say yes, I’ll consider it.” Well, Micky was over in England doing ‘Hairspray’ and I went to see him after he’d done press for the show, and we got along real good. Then we talked and laughed and discussed stuff we’d done.

Early on, you had a major appearance on ‘Ed Sullivan,’ which happened to be the same episode the Beatles were on. What was the pressure like for that appearance, knowing the Beatles were on and so many people would be watching?

No pressure whatsoever. I did what I did. I came out the stage door every night, and when I performed as the Artful Dodger and came out for my bow, there was still a great applause. And I thought the 10 kids outside the stage door looking for my autograph after the show was the bee’s knees. Then I saw the barricades outside the Ed Sullivan Theater and I’m thinking, “Wow, man.”

Afterward, they sent me out to Hollywood many, many times [for auditions]. You know, ‘The Wackiest Ship in the Army,’ ‘Hogan’s Heroes,’ ‘F Troop,’ ‘Batman’ and all that stuff. But just as all that was happening, along came the idea for ‘The Monkees,’ and the producer, Burt Schneider, his father was the head of Columbia Pictures, so obviously I had a foot in the door there — I was already signed to Columbia Pictures. We just had to find three other boys, which we did. And we clicked, and we did 56 episodes, and it went to 36 countries around the world, and they’re still playing the music, and we’re still on tour.

The Beatles would go on to say they were fans of the Monkees. How important was their approval?

It means something that anybody likes us. Paul McCartney called me up in the ’60s and asked me to send some stuff to his daughter, who was a fan of the Monkees. And Micky has tapes and videos of George Harrison and Ringo Starr at his house, in the Canyon, in the late ’60s, down in his little studio, playing. Those tapes must be great to listen to.

It’s great the Beatles loved us.

How did the Monkees get along in the early days?

We’d get on the set, we’d improvise and we’d be laughing so much, the producer would say, “If you don’t stop laughing and get on with it, we’re closing the set down.”

Micky and I and my wife and our children always used to get together on a Sunday when we were doing the Monkees show, either at his pool or my pool. We’d have a barbecue and the kids would swim. We’d all go to a park in the San Fernando Valley, and we’d be playing with Alice Cooper‘s Vampires. He had a baseball team, and we used to play different teams, local and otherwise. Peter Tork was a great third baseman, Micky Dolenz a great first baseman. I played second base. I don’t know where Alice was, but he organized the whole thing.

Even though ‘Last Train to Clarksville’ was secretly about Vietnam, the Monkees strayed from controversy. Why?

The world was changing, and they were trying to hide the fact that it was. We were told never to talk about politics, never to talk about the war and never to talk about the marches. If I’ve got any regret whatsoever, it’s that I didn’t march to Washington with everybody when they did have the civil rights march.

Critics would talk about you guys not meeting organically, but it’s really kind of brilliant how a great band was created, playing great songs written by great songwriters.

Don Kirshner supplied the Monkees with tunes from all these great songwriters. But just because he provided the tunes, he can’t claim the success of the Monkees. Even some of the songwriters were like, “I wish I had done that song.” But they wouldn’t have done anything with it, had they done that song. We had a TV show supporting us. DJs were taking the records off the TV that week and playing them on the radio.

When the Monkees made their bid for more control, you guys were really still new. It was kind of a bold move for you guys to say, “We want more control.” Was there ever a feeling like “Maybe we shouldn’t mess with a good thing?”

It wasn’t spoiling a good thing. It would have become tiresome.

It was mostly Peter and Mike. But Mike had ulterior motives. Mike had the B-side of every single we did. Therefore, he’s driving an El Dorado, and I’m driving a Volkswagen. I’m not aware of any of this — I’m an actor, employed by a studio. I’m not doing any of that. He knew all about that. If he had spent more time on his acting, that would have been better, but he didn’t show up half the time. He wouldn’t come in for a show or whatever. And then we find that he’s got albums and he’s got deals and all that other stuff going on. So Mike never really put his 100 percent into the marriage. He only was on the surface of the marriage. He signed the paper not with us, but with other people. And that’s the way he is whenever he’s come back. In 1998-1999, we made an album and we went to England, we sold out everywhere. We arranged to meet in January for a week’s rehearsal, and he just didn’t show up.

You went from being an establishment-created band to anti-establishment in that you rebelled against it. Is that what gave you cred among rock fans?

I don’t think we ever really rebelled against it. We asked for things that they hadn’t considered. We never considered that Micky Dolenz and I would be driving down the street to a rented house after we made the pilot, and all of the sudden ‘Last Train to Clarksville’ comes on the radio. We had never thought about it going on the radio. It came on before the TV show, so we were like, “What’s this?”

I didn’t say at that time, “Let me renegotiate my contract.” I just went on and took the $400 a week they were giving me. Break it down to hours, and it was probably 25 cents an hour, given the time we spent on it.

But you don’t all of the sudden work for GM or Ford or whoever it might be on the line and after two years turn around and say, “I want to own the company.” You own the company if you buy the company or if you invest in the company. Micky and I were just interested in performing and working. We were actors, playing the parts of rock ‘n’ roll singers.

- Spinner

What’s easy to forget is, in the middle of ’67, Hendrix wasn’t yet a rock star in America. Earlier in the year, he’d begun to accumulate a following (especially among rock’s elite) and he’d set his guitar (and the music world) on fire during his appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival. But, the Experience hadn’t scored a mainstream hit in the U.S. yet and they were looking to expand their audience.

Being part of the musical community, the guys in The Monkees were already fans of Hendrix’s music and performances. Micky Dolenz recalled seeing him in New York, while Mike Nesmith was introduced to him through a Beatle.

“I was in London visiting John Lennon, and I was having dinner with him, [Paul] McCartney and [Eric] Clapton,” Nesmith remembered. “And John was late. When he came in he said, ‘I’m sorry I’m late but I’ve got something I want to play you guys.’ He had a handheld tape recorder and he played ‘Hey Joe.’ Everybody’s mouth just dropped open. He said, ‘Isn’t this wonderful?’ So I made a mental note of Jimi Hendrix because Lennon had introduced me to his playing.”

Dolenz and Peter Tork met Hendrix at Monterey Pop, where the seeds were planted for a tour together. Dolenz later said that he viewed both acts as theatrical and that they could be “a perfect union.” The Monkees proposed that the tour promoters contact Hendrix about opening for the band’s summer tour.

Although Hendrix had publicly insulted The Monkees a few months earlier (calling them “dishwater”), he accepted the offer from promoter Dick Clark, presumably because of the huge exposure he would get from the tour. Hendrix and the Experience joined The Monkees on tour on this day in Jacksonville, Florida. While The Monkees were thrilled to have the band on the bill (with members showing up early just to catch Hendrix’s set), Monkees fans were another story.

“Nobody thought, ‘This is screaming, scaring-the-balls-off-your-daddy music compared with The Monkees,’ you know?” Tork said. “It didn’t cross anybody’s mind that it wasn’t gonna fly. And there’s poor Jimi, and the kids go, ‘We want The Monkees, We want The Monkees.’”

Dolenz and Nesmith also recall being embarrassed by their young fans, who would drown out the Experience’s set with cries of “Davy!” (for Monkee heartthrob Davy Jones). Hendrix would stick with the tour for seven dates, before the situation got to him. During a performance at New York’s Forest Hills Stadium, he flipped the crowd his middle finger and walked off stage.

By that point, Hendrix was starting to get traction in America, with “Purple Haze” earning more airplay and making noise on the charts. Wanting to play for people who actually wanted to see and hear him, he asked to be let out of the tour contract – and the Experience and The Monkees parted company amicably. Within the year, Hendrix was one of the biggest rock stars on the planet.

Of course, there is an urban legend that Hendrix didn’t ask to leave the tour; he was kicked out. That rumor (according to Snopes.com) began with music critic Lillian Roxon, who was traveling with the tour. She and a friend came up with a silly press release that claimed the Daughters of the American Revolution had demanded Hendrix’s firing, because his act was “corrupting the morals of America’s youth.” The release was mistaken for the truth, and was reported as fact in many publications, in turn becoming rock and roll legend.

- Source

For the most part, the Doors was all about loud rock n’ roll. But on the new release by guitarists James Lee Stanley and Cliff Eberhardt, All Wood and Doors, twelve Doors classics are reworked for acoustic guitar. And the duo has enlisted former Doors members Robby Krieger (guitar) and John Densmore (drums) to lend a hand, as well as Peter Tork (Monkees) and Timothy B Schmit (Eagles), among others.

As evidenced by their renditions of such ditties as “Break On Through,” “Love Me Two Times,” and “People Are Strange,” the tunes include all-new musical bits that Stanley and Eberhardt have added to their renditions, before leading into the song’s familiar parts.

All Wood and Doors will be released on July 12^th via the MVD Entertainment Group, while samples of each song is available by clicking here.

In a press release, Mr. Densmore had the following to say about All Wood and Doors. “James Lee Stanley and Cliff Eberhardt are excellent pickers and what they did to our songs is unique and refreshing. It was a pleasure to be part of the project.”   – Source

All Wood and Doors Tracklist

• Break On Through
• Love Me Two Times
• Take It As It Comes
• Strange Days
• Light My Fire
• Touch Me
• Crystal Ship
• Soul Kitchen
• People Are Strange
• Moonlight Drive
• Riders On The Storm
• The End