@Rocketdog2000 - very nice review of MOTM!! I think Mary Mary is the standout here and I dearly LOVE both of the Neil Diamond songs, Look Out and When Love Comes.

I talked to a buddy of mine who is also a big Monkee fan and he believes they got rapped so hard for having the Wrecking Crew play on their albums was that the Monkees were so damm popular. They oursold both the Beatles and Rolling Stones in 66/67!!

FYI, The Byrds, Hermans Hermits, Gary Lewis etc etc. all used musicians on their albums.

Thing is, before The Beatles, and even after, using studio musicians on recordings was just how it was done. (For the most part). It wasn't until groups like them, The Rolling Stones and others who wrote and played most of their own music, that perceptions changed, and in a very short period of time. Suddenly, everyone wanted to be seen as a "real" artist, doing everything on their own - even though that was not always the case.

One of the reasons that they got so savaged, was because up until a certain point, "the powers that be" controlling The Monkees thought there should be a certain mystique surrounding the band. They also didn't want them saying anything about drugs, the war in Vietnam, or anything else that could have a damaging effect on advertising and corporate sponsors - anything that might put the show in jeopardy of being cancelled. As such, they did almost no interviews with any actual press, and the press can be very vindictive about such things. They figure if you won't play ball and be nice with them, don't expect them to do the same for you. Couple that with the hype and success the band was having in such a relatively short period - within three months time they had two #1 singles and a #1 album - and that made the press question things even more.

When the group were finally able to do proper interviews, It was Nesmith, himself who let slip that the material released so far had very little contributions from The Monkees, themselves. Once the press got wind of that, they took it that info and ran with it - for better or worse. It provided the naysayers with an angle they could use against them. It didn't matter that other musicians like, The Beach Boys, had and were still doing the same thing, or that it was pretty much standard operating procedure. This was an opportunity to tear down false idols - and there are few things the press enjoys doing more.

Thanks!

I'm sure using the Wrecking Crew did cost them a small fortune. However, with the sales the were having, and the amount of money they were making in return, it was looked on as a wise investment. And when I say they, I primarily mean TPTB, and in particular, Don Kirshner. In his mind, everything had to be perfect - which was another reason he balked at The Monkees wanting to contribute anything more than singing to the proceedings. To him, he felt they lacked the musical talent, and were hired for their acting ability more than anything else.

The Monkees, themselves, initially did have a crappy deal. They were making the least amount of anyone out of the proceedings. Each member got only $450 a week for their work on the show - hardly anything compared to the money their success was bringing in to their backers. They also had only a 1.25% royalty rate on their music sales, while conversely, Don Kirshner was earning a whopping 15%. When you consider they they each received a $250,000 royalty check for the sales of their debut album when it first went gold, you can only imagine how much everyone else involved was making off of them.

I think I read somewhere that The Monkees had to run to the store and buy the album just to get a look at it when they discovered it was released. How messed up is that?
I'm sure that more than anything, they wanted to destroy the record when they saw that "The Day We Fall In Love" was on it ("I'll Be True To You" doesn't sound so bad by comparison).
Kirshner must have wanted that there to match the placement of 'I Wanna Be Free" on the first album, and I think he thought of it for hit potential at some point.

Other than that monstrosity, it IS a fairly decent album for virtually all of the rest of its selections.
I think "Sometime In The Morning" is my favorite of the non-Nesmith songs on the LP.

I always dug the relentless drumming in "The Kind of Girl I Could Love".

Sounds like a cowbell...



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Another strong showing, chock full of classics. I too love BOTH Neil Diamond contributions, and especially like the darker sound of both She and Your Auntie Grizelda. Stepping Stone is, musically, the standout for me, with The Monkees version somehow sounding more true to punk than even the famous Sex Pistols cover.

It's also thanks to this album that there exists one of my favorite '80s cover songs:

^ Nice! I've actually never heard that cover before. Thanks for that.

^ Yeah, The Colourfield was one of my favorite 80's groups, but sadly I barely heard them then because I believe their stuff was imported only (Really loved "Thinking of You"), so, I never heard this cover either, it's pretty good!

got to be in the minority and say I always liked Paul Revere and the Raider's version of steppin' stone more.

Yeah the cowbell is definitely mixed way up in the mono version, but in the stereo mix you can hear the drummer beating the shit out of the toms a lot more clearly.

Awesome write-up Rocketdog!

I spotified this album and find it is just as great as their first one. And just an fyi...they have the 30 track special edition that you can listen to which is beyond excellent!

Mary Mary, Steppin' Stone and Believer are all obvious classics but there are several gems on here. For some reason, I love the whiny chorus of Hold On Girl. No idea why but you just want to holler along with it. She, Look Out, The Kind Of Girl I Could Love, and Sometime In The Morning are all minor classics.

The Kind Of Girl I Could Love is probably my favorite track on the whole album. Once again, Nesmith rules!

Laugh is a goofy song but it is okay.

The two songs I could easily toss off this album is The Day We Fall In Love and Your Auntie Grizelda. The breathy talk of Day We Fall In Love is terrible and I fucking hate Your Auntie Grizelda. I didn't realize Peter sang the song until I read the write-up but I always thought it sounded like Micky just goofing off. I hate the vocals, I hate the lyrics, I hate the music...I despise the damn song. Ugh.

Anyway...some great cuts on the special edition that do not need to be overlooked. Apples Peaches Bananas & Pears just gets into my head. Never heard it before. It looks like they have several songs that appears on other albums but they are different versions and the like. Very enjoyable.

My rating of the album: **** out of *****.

By the way...fuck Your Auntie Grizelda.

Knowing the album's history, it's real easy to be cynical about More Of The Monkees, but no matter how you slice it the album is just as solid as the previous one, a great piece of 60s pop. From the keyboard driven stomp of "She", the cacophonous madness of "Your Auntie Grizelda", the catchy, soulful drive of "Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)", to the tried-n-true oldies classics of "Steppin' Stone" and "I'm A Believer", this is a quality album.

The spoken word idiocy of "The Day We Fall In Love" is putrid. Let's pretend it doesn't exist.

I also really like "Hold On Girl", with its harpsichord-driven beat and lounge-lizard chorus. "The Kind Of Girl I Could Love" is sort oddly enjoyable, a mix of Motown and Mike's awesome cornpone vocals. "Sometime in the Morning" has a sweet beauty to it, rich vocals mixed with jangling 60s guitars. "Laugh" I don't particularly care for -- it's kind of bad, actually -- but compared to "The Day We Fall In Love" it's practically The Porpoise Song.

The Deluxe Edition is a must-have for fans, if only for the outtake track "Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow) (with Peters Narration)". Peter's narration is HILARIOUS, and even without it I like this version of the song better than the album track (there's no whispering of "Mary... I love you... Sondra... I love you...") Plus first recorded versions of the awesome "Mr. Webster", "Valleri", and "Words", and of course the entire mono mix of the album to go along with the standard stereo listing.

The Diamond stuff shines on this album. Shame they didn't do more of his stuff as it was a good mix and they did it better than him. For me, he could never do a decent version of I'm a Believer.

I believe that after this album, the split with Kirshner may have had something to do with them not using (or being able to use) Neil Diamond's material anymore. I could be wrong, but I think ""A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You" was the last song of his they recorded/released. I'll have to double check on that, though. But again, the Monkees version is vastly superior to any version I've ever heard him do of it.

They have, as you'll come to find, a considerable wealth of material that was either only released as singles, or that went unreleased (for one reason or another), as well as tons of alternate versions and takes of songs. There were initially three albums - The Missing Links series - worth of these tracks that Rhino put out, and then they just started adding them to the '94, Deluxe and Handmade edition versions, with even more unreleased material. Some of the alternate versions are better, while some are not, but they are usually always worth hearing.

I've noticed that the newest single disc versions of the first four albums that Rhino has out, no longer have any of the bonus tracks that were on the '94 versions. However, the ones that Friday Music has re-released (Present and Changes), do still have them.

We'll touch upon some of them as we do the albums that were released around the same time, and get to the rest at the end, or whenever someone feels like bringing one up. For instance the next album sessions produced one of my favorite ever non-album singles, as well as a "great lost Monkees hit that could have been". More on those later.

One last thing. This was interesting, if not unexpected.....

Monkees' Albums Sales Gain 1,265% After Davy Jones' Death

http://www.billboard.com/#/news/monk...06405152.story

Whitney's not the only one who gets to enjoy the flash in sales.

Anyway, moving on to greener pastures...

I was in 6th grade when they started. Watching the videos I remember wearing my belt like Peter, with the buckle off to the left. They were the reason I stopped listening to Mitch Miller singing Col. Bogies March and Yellow Rose of Texas and went to rock and roll.

We should give a shout out to 'A Little Bit Of Me A Little Bit Of You' that was huge hit the summmer of 67 (of Love!!). It has Davy on vocal and was never on a album during this time, that came later on the compilations. This song was a great transition from the first 2 lps to Headquarters, which is up next.

Anyways, what a great single! I was in 7th grade and played the 45 to death along with the flip side that had the most excellent "The Girl I Knew Somewhere".

Ok, I am ready for Headquarters!

^ Me too!

Yes, there's that single, which is great for both of its sides, but there's also the single that the band recorded that was never released as a single in its day-"All of Your Toys" b/w "The Girl I Knew Somewhere" (sung by Nesmith). Originally I had read that the reason this wasn't released at the time was because "All of Your Toys" had an outside copyright, and it could not be released under the Screen Gems banner, but I'm sure it was more than that, or perhaps that story is somewhat inaccurate.

But I actually always liked the remake of "Girl I Knew Somewhere" with Dolenz on vocals better than Mike's version from the single session.

You're absolutely right, JANK, those are both some of my favorite Monkees tunes, particularly, the B-side - "The Girl That I Knew Somewhere". I gave some of the story behind the single, in the way it was originally released, in the review of the last record. However, here's the rest.

As previously mentioned, Don Kirshner was fired from being The Monkees Musical Supervisor over his releasing the single in it's original form (with an early version of "She Hangs Out" on the b-side). In his own defense, Kirshner had made previous promises to other songwriters over who would get the next single - in this case Neil Diamond and Jeff Barry. Since he had made those deals before getting the edict that The Monkees, themselves would get the next single, he felt he was justified in releasing it anyway. It was partially that, and also a bit of him still trying to keep control, as he figured if he produced another hit, it would keep him in the game. So, he flew Davy Jones, the one Monkee who had been most open and appreciative to him, out to New York to have him add vocals to six songs he had waiting in the wings. These were the two previously mentioned tracks, plus "99 Pounds", "You Can't Tie A Mustang Down", 'If I Learned To Play The Violin" and "Love To Love" - a few of which would end up later getting re-worked and released by The Monkees further down the road. Had Kirshner remained in control, some, if not all, of these would most likely have made it on to the next album as far as he was concerned. But, that was not to be the case.

As for "The Girl That I Knew Somewhere" - the Nesmith penned song originally started out with him as the lead vocalist (and this version can be heard as a bonus track on the '94 and Deluxe Edition releases of the album), but ultimately it was decided his vocal was a bit lacking. As would usually happen in this case, the song was then given to Mickey to sing, and he truly brings it to life. Regardless of Mike not singing it, it's still one of my favorite Nesmith songs, and I do prefer Dolenz's vocals. Another personal highlight of the song for me, is Peter Tork's harpsichord work. His solo on it is not only one of my favorite things on any piece of Monkees music, it's also one of my favorite things in all recorded music, period. Other than that, it's also worth mentioning that this was the first song The Monkees recorded as an actual band. Aside from the bass, which was played by Mike Nesmith's friend John London, the rest of the musicians are only The Monkees, themselves.

Nope, that's pretty much correct. I was planning on going into the story as part of the Headquarters review, but might as well just get it over with now. The track was written by Bill Martin, friend and housemate of album producer Chip Douglas, and one of two songs Douglas brought to the group. It was recorded at the same session that produced the original take of "The Girl I Knew Somewhere", and as such, features the same group of musicians (including John London on bass) playing pretty much the same instruments.

As I also alluded to in one of my other posts, I believe "All Off Your Toys" to be "the great lost Monkees hit that never was". At the time they recorded it, producer Douglas was unaware there was a strict Screen Gems bylaw that forbade The Monkees from releasing songs that were not controlled by the publishing company. Since "All Of Your Toys" had been published by Tickson music, and they could not resolve the matter, this classic track was shelved and not to be heard again until it was released in 1987 as part of Rhino's first Missing Links compilation. And what a shame, too, as it's such a great song! I think this one truly could have been a monster hit, given the chance, and would have gone a long way in proving the boys were correct in wanting to be more in control of their own musical destiny. (Not to mention considerably changing the fortunes of Bill Martin.) However, since they couldn't put it out as intended, and Mike's original vocal track on "The Girl I Knew Somewhere" wasn't considered strong enough to be an A-side, they came up with plan B. That being, have Mickey re-record the lead vocal, and re-issue the single with "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You" as the flip - which is what they ultimately ended up doing.

Headquarters tonight.

^ thanks Rocketdog, I'm sorry to spoil the momentum for the Headquarters review. These are all great reviews, btw!

Do you mean that this was the first song they all recorded that was released?

I was lucky to catch The Monkees 45th Anniversary Tour last June. The 2nd leg of tour was cancelled because of "business reasons", and with Davy's death any live Monkees dream is gone with him.

But just check out this setlist. HOLY COW this was a dream for any Monkees fan who is sick of just the hits:

1. I'm A Believer
2. Mary, Mary
3. The Girl I Knew Somewhere
4. When Love Comes Knocking At Your Door
5. Randy Scouse Git
6. Your Auntie Grizelda
7. Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)
8. Papa Gene's Blues
9. Valleri
10. I Don't Think You Know Me
11. Words
12. It's Nice To Be With You
13. Listen To The Band
14. That Was Then, This Is Now
15. All of Your Toys
16. What Am I Doin' Hangin' Round?
17. Someday Man
18. Sometime in the Morning
19. No Time
20. Circle Sky
21. Can You Dig It?
22. As We Go Along
23. Do I Have to do this All Over Again?
24. Porpoise Song
25. Daddy's Song
26. For Pete's Sake
27. A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You
28. She
29. Cuddly Toy
30. Goin' Down
31. Shades of Gray
32. Last Train To Clarksville
33. I Wanna Be Free
34. Saturday's Child
35. She Hangs Out
36. (I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone
37. Daydream Believer
38. Pleasant Valley Sunday
39. I'm A Believer (reprise)