Mind monkeys band biography

Also, a lot of the elements, including certain guitar parts and solos, were not pre decided, as we wanted to allow this authentic feel be part of the album. Definitely social media are very important nowadays in promoting music, but I think live performances are still the most important element of promotion, something we have missed die to the current situation.

Who or what have been the most important influences on your musical life and career? We cannot say that there is one artist or one music style that has been the most important influence, as, when you listen to the album, you will realize that our music is pretty much a blend of many different styles. Artists like Metallica, Anathema, Linkin Park, Foo Fighters, Tool and many other can be said to have equally influenced us, although some of them are very different between them.

Our main goal is to continue to enjoy doing what we are doing, and continue do it authentically. Of course we would like to be in a position where we will be able to do more gigs, especially abroad, and reach as many people as possible, both physically and digitally. Audiobooks [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. San Antonio Express-News.

Retrieved July 23, Nesmith was a musician of multiple dimensions: a thoughtful songwriter too funny to be embraced by hippies and a progressive country music artist too full of angular edges to be embraced by Nashville. His genius was in his totality, which defied easy description. April 30, Infobase Publishing. Retrieved April 3, The Oklahoman.

Retrieved August 9, Retrieved December 16, ISBN Retrieved December 11, Rolling Stone. Retrieved March 22, Retrieved July 22, — via YouTube. The Monkees Live Almanac. November 10, Retrieved April 11, ABC News. May 27, May 3, Retrieved August 8, Retrieved May 14, Retrieved October 14, July 19, Retrieved August 21, September 29, Retrieved April 22, Retrieved January 24, The America gene.

Sand City, Calif. OCLC The New York Times. ISSN Retrieved October 27, Retrieved December 3, Retrieved December 15, Los Angeles Times. April 7, Retrieved December 30, Retrieved July 14, Excerpts available at Google Books. Starts at March 16, Americana UK. Retrieved June 30, Retrieved October 12, Retrieved December 10, The Guardian.

December 10, Further reading [ edit ]. External links [ edit ]. This is a fresh take on the band members previous efforts. That is the best way in which I could describe Monkey Mind. Their self-titled debut is a fun and wild ride. The quick and fun "Mr Wright" opens the album with quick chord changes that will make you fasten your seat belt for a wild ride.

The chorus of "She kicked me in the teeth" will be in your head for days. An effective key change is present in the bridge to break up any monotony in the song. There is a catchy guitar and vocal lead that start this track off. Olga's moving bassline and Wright's metallic guitar leads are fully present in the mix. Vocal harmonies previously heard by pop punk giants Green Day cut through as well.

Lyrically, this track contains the humor for which the Toy Dolls are known. In the Rhino Deluxe Edition re-issue of their second album, More of the Monkees , Nesmith stated that he was angered by the release of the first album because it portrayed the band as an actual rock-and-roll band and gave no credit to the other musicians involved in the project.

In conjunction with the first broadcast of the television show on September 12, , on the NBC television network, NBC and Columbia had a major hit on their hands. Twenty years later, during their reunion, it spent another 24 weeks on the Billboard charts. In assigning instruments for purposes of the television show, a dilemma arose as to which of the four would portray the drummer.

Both Nesmith a skilled guitarist and bassist and Tork who could play several stringed and keyboard instruments were peripherally familiar with the instrument, but both declined to give the drum set a try. Jones knew how to play the drums and tested well enough on the instrument; however, the producers believed that he would be virtually hidden from view behind a drum set due to his short stature.

Thus, Dolenz who knew only how to play the guitar was assigned to become the drummer. Tork taught Dolenz his first few beats on the drums, enough for him to fake his way through filming the pilot. He was soon taught how to play properly. Tork was a more experienced guitar player than Nesmith, while Nesmith had trained on the bass. Also, while Jones had a strong lead voice and did sing lead on several Monkees recordings, Dolenz's voice is regarded, particularly by Nesmith, as distinctive and a hallmark of the Monkees' sound.

Unlike most television shows of the time, The Monkees episodes were written with many setups, requiring frequent breaks to prepare the set and cameras for short bursts of filming. Some of the "bursts" are considered proto-music videos, inasmuch as they were produced to sell the records. Pleased with their initial efforts, Columbia over Kirshner's objections planned to send the Monkees out to play live concerts.

The massive success of the series—and its spin-off records—created intense pressure to mount a touring version of the group. Against the initial wishes of the producers, the band went out on the road and made their debut live performance in December in Hawaii. The results of these live performances were far better than expected. Wherever they went, the group was greeted by scenes of fan adulation reminiscent of Beatlemania.

This gave the singers increased confidence in their fight for control over the musical material chosen for the series. In early , controversy concerning the Monkees' studio abilities arose. Dolenz told a reporter that the Wrecking Crew provided the backing tracks for the first two Monkees albums, and that his position as drummer was simply because a Monkee had to learn to play the drums, and he only knew the guitar.

The band members were displeased that the music publishing company would not allow them to play their own instruments on their records or to use more of their own material. These complaints intensified when Kirshner moved track recording from California to New York, leaving the band out of the musical process entirely until they were called upon to add their vocals to the completed tracks.

Nesmith, when asked about the situation by Rolling Stone magazine, said, "The [TV show's] producers [in Hollywood] backed us and David went along. None of us could have fought the battles we did [with the music publishers] without the explicit support of the show's producers". On January 16, , the Monkees held their first recording session as a fully functioning, self-contained band.

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 Kirshner's self-congratulatory liner notes and also because of the cover photo, which was a composite of photographs taken for a J. 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 among Nesmith, Kirshner and Colgems lawyer Herb Moelis, which took place at the Beverly Hills Hotel in January 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, "That could have been your face! Soon after, Colgems and the Monkees reached an agreement not to release material directly created by the group together with unrelated Kirshner-produced material. This single was only released in Canada and was withdrawn after a couple of weeks.

The album spent 70 weeks on the Billboard charts, staying No. The Monkees' recording of the single hit the number-one spot on the U. Billboard Hot chart for the week ending December 31, , remaining there for seven weeks. The Monkees' musical opportunities were open beyond their ability to capitalize. Screen Gems held the publishing rights to a wealth of material, with the Monkees being offered the first choice of many new songs.

Due to the abundance of material numerous tracks were recorded, but dozens were left unreleased until Rhino Records started releasing them through the Missing Links series of albums starting in the late s. The Monkees' UK tour in received a chilly reception; the front pages of several UK and international music papers proclaimed that the group members did not always play their own instruments or sing the backing vocals in the studio.

They were derisively dubbed the " Pre-Fab Four" and the Sunday Mirror called them a "disgrace to the pop world. At that time, he reportedly asked John Lennon, "Do you think we're a cheap imitation of the Beatles, your movies and your records? I've never missed one of your programs". Douglas handled music direction, engineered recordings, and played bass on most tracks.

The A-side peaked at No. Released in May , Headquarters contained no U. With a country-folk-rock sound, the album reflected a departure from the pop style of their earlier works under Kirshner. According to Andrew Sandoval, the album topped the charts on May 24, , but was displaced by the Beatles' Sgt. The track "Randy Scouse Git", written and sung by Dolenz, was released internationally as "Alternate Title" owing to the controversial nature of its original title and became a hit, reaching No.

Tork's "For Pete's Sake" was used as the closing theme for the Monkees' television show. Nesmith contributed songs like "Sunny Girlfriend", incorporating pedal steel guitar, and "You Told Me", with a banjo intro by Tork that parodied the Beatles' " Taxman ". The band wrote six of the album's 12 tracks, along with two experimental pieces, "Band 6" and "Zilch".

Headquarters has more interesting songs and a better quality level [than previous albums] None of the tracks is a throwaway The improvement trend is laudable. The collaborative approach on Headquarters was short-lived. We were under siege; wherever we went there was such resentment for us. We were constantly mocked and humiliated by the press.

We were really gettin' beat up pretty good. We all knew what was going on inside. Kirshner had been purged. We'd gone to try to make Headquarters and found out that it was only marginally okay and that our better move was to just go back to the original songwriting and song-making strategy of the first albums except with a clear indication of how [the music] came to be The rabid element and the hatred that was engendered is almost impossible to describe.

It lingers to this day among people my own age. Technically it was much better, but I think it suffers for that reason. Producer Chip Douglas noted Dolenz's drumming required extensive editing, calling it "shaky". By late , the band members pursued divergent musical directions. Nesmith gravitated toward country-rock, while Jones leaned into Broadway-style performances.

Despite this, the Monkees retained creative control over song selection and production. Pisces was their fourth consecutive No. I wanted to move the Monkees more into that because It had a lot of un-country things in it: a familiar change from a I major to a VI minor—those kinds of things. So it was a little kind of a new wave country song.

It didn't sound like the country songs of the time, which was Buck Owens. Their next single, "Daydream Believer", with a piano intro by Tork, reached No. The Monkees simultaneously held No. No longer desiring to work as a group, the Monkees dropped Chip Douglas as a producer, and starting in November , they largely produced their own sessions.

The album cover—a quaint collage of items in a knickknack shelf—was chosen over the Monkees' objections. It was the last Monkees' album to be released in separate, dedicated mono and stereo mixes. As the second season of the television series was being produced, the Monkees tired of the sitcom format and refused to participate in a third season without a major overhaul.

NBC was uninterested in making any changes, and so the series was cancelled in February That same month, the Monkees began filming their feature film, Head. With Bob Rafelson as director and Bert Schneider as executive producer, the project was co-written and co-produced by Rafelson with a then-relatively unknown Jack Nicholson. The film was the antithesis of The Monkees television show.

A sparse advertising campaign with no mention of the Monkees hurt any chances of the film doing well, and it played briefly in half-filled theaters. In the DVD commentary, Nesmith said that everyone associated with the Monkees "had gone crazy" by this time.

Mind monkeys band biography

They were each using the platform of the Monkees to push their own disparate career goals, to the detriment of the Monkees project. Nesmith added that Head was Rafelson and Nicholson's intentional effort to "kill" the Monkees, so that they would no longer be bothered with the matter. A poor audience response at an August screening in Los Angeles forced the producers to edit the picture from its original minute length.

It was not a commercial success. This was in part because Head comprehensively demolished the group's carefully groomed public image while the counterculture audience they had been reaching for rejected the Monkees' efforts out of hand. Receiving mixed critical reviews and virtually non-existent box office receipts, the film succeeded in alienating the band's teenage fanbase while failing to attract a more adult audience.

At the time, Rafelson told the press, "I grooved on those four in very special ways while at the same time thinking they had absolutely no talent. Released in October , the single from the album, "The Porpoise Song", is a psychedelic pop song written by Goffin and King , with lead vocals from Micky Dolenz and backing vocals from Davy Jones, and it reached No.

The film's soundtrack album reached No. The six plus "Ditty Diego" Monkees songs on the album range from psychedelic pop to straightforward rockers to Broadway rock to eastern-influenced pop to a folk-rock ballad. Although the Monkees performed "Circle Sky" live in the film, the studio version was chosen for the album. The live version was later released on various compilations, including Rhino's Missing Links series of Monkees albums.

The album also includes a song from the film's composer, Ken Thorne. The album had a mylar cover, to give it a mirror-like appearance, so that the person looking at the cover would see his own head, a play on the album title Head. Peter Tork said, "That was something special He made it different from the movie. There's a line in the movie where [Frank] Zappa says, 'That's pretty white.

It was a different artistic experience. Over the intervening years Head has developed a cult following for its innovative style and anarchic humor. Members of the Monkees, Nesmith in particular, cite the soundtrack album as one of the crowning achievements of the band. Tensions within the group were increasing. In the DVD commentary for the television special, Dolenz noted that after filming was complete, Nesmith gave Tork a gold watch as a going-away present, engraved "From the guys down at work.

Since each of the Monkees at this point were producing their own songs with very little of the other band members' involvement, they planned a future double album eventually to be reduced to The Monkees Present on which each Monkee would separately produce one side of a disc. Billboard chart, No. Nesmith continued in his country-rock vein after offering straight ahead rock and experimental songs on the two prior albums.

Dolenz contributed the biggest and longest Monkees' production, "Shorty Blackwell", a song celebrating his cat. Both Jones and Dolenz continued their role of singing on the pop songs. Lyrically, it has a theme of being one of the Monkees' most melancholy albums. The Monkees also had a contractual obligation to appear in several television commercials with Bugs Bunny for Kool-Aid drink mix as well as Post cereal box singles.

The final album with Michael Nesmith from the Monkees' original incarnation was their eighth album, The Monkees Present , released in October , which peaked at No. Jones collaborated with Bill Chadwick on some slower ballads, along with releasing a couple of older upbeat songs from In the summer of , the three remaining Monkees embarked on a tour with the backing of the soul band Sam and the Goodtimers.

Concerts for this tour were longer sets than their earlier performances tours, with many shows running over two hours. Toward the end of the tour, some dates were canceled due to poor ticket sales. The tour failed to re-establish the band commercially, with no single entering the Top 40 in Dolenz remarked that the tour "was like kicking a dead horse.

The phenomenon had peaked". Nesmith's departure left Dolenz and Jones to record the bubblegum pop album Changes as the ninth and final album by the Monkees released during its original incarnation. By this time, Colgems was hardly putting any effort into the project, and they sent Dolenz and Jones to New York for the Changes sessions, to be produced by Jeff Barry.

In comments for the liner notes of the re-release of Changes , Jones said that he felt they had been tricked into recording an " Andy Kim album" under the Monkees name. Except for the two singers' vocal performances, Changes is the only album that fails to win any significant praise from critics looking back 40 years to the Monkees' recording output.

Dolenz contributed one of his own compositions, "Midnight Train", which was used in the re-runs of the Monkees TV series. September 22, marked the final recording session by the Monkees before the band broke up. The single was not credited to the Monkees in the U. Both Jones and Dolenz released multiple singles as solo artists in the years following the original breakup of the Monkees.