The Monkees: "Head"

Anyone else a fan of this classic motion picture/soundtrack?

x(

Xanadu, in both 1999 and 2008 DVD releases, is anamorphic. The 2008 release being digitally remastered with enhanced sound, of course...

especially Head.

the vacuum cleaner scene was the funny.

fantastic...

Heard of it, but never saw it.

"The film featured Victor Mature as "The Big Victor" and other cameo appearances by Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, Teri Garr, Carol Doda, Annette Funicello, Frank Zappa, Sonny Liston and Ray Nitschke."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_(film)

Edit: The link gets messed up...it should look like this:

"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_ (film)"

It's worth seeing!

For some reason I've always been intrigued by all things Monkee. I think the idea that they were a manufactured concept that got away from their creators.

They were a manufactured group, but then they walked out on their manager, renamed themselves, and became hugely famous.

Gotta love stories like that!

I remember seeing it as a kid in the early 1970s, quite possibly on a Friday night CBS "Late Movie."

http://www.monkees.net/default.htm


of funniest commedy video albums of all times (I originally owned it on LaserVision)..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DW41gpTGmA




http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000009OV2/flexquartemonkee

So yeah, "Head" has "Porpoise Song" and "Circle Sky" (Tork and Nesmith fought over the version that ended up on the album...Nesmith wanted the studio version, Tork wanted the concert version that had all four of them actually playing it live, Nesmith won the argument). But it was definitely the beginning of the end. "Head"...the movie and the soundtrack...was their "let's smoke a barn full of weed and do whatever we want" project, which yielded a few gems, with the emphasis on "few."

By the next album, Tork was gone. Two albums later, Nesmith was gone. The final Monkees album, "Changes," consisted of Dolenz and Jones and led one critic to write "Their next album will probably be called "The Monkee."

:toast:

we're lucky that any of it at all is fun and memorable :toast:

These days, members of boy bands pay for their own Vaseline as mandated by their contract owners...

..."Rock & Roll Animal" made him a rock star, so he promptly proceeded to bite the hand that fed him and lash out at everyone who made it happen, from the record company to the fans to all points in between.

In Reed's case, it made for a fascinating turn of events. In other cases, performers have tried the same and promptly got sucked into the "Where Are They Now" black hole.

The Monkees were unique in that they auditioned to become members of a boy band and in very short order started yelling to anyone who would listen "STOP TREATING US LIKE A BOY BAND!"

:rofl:

The Sex Pistols are another who've gotten away with it.

...the "authorized" biography, "Shakey," is a real eye-opener. I put "authorized" in quotes because Jimmy McDounough was a Young insider, granted full access to everyone in the inner circle, and the book STOPS on a DIME. This is explained in the book...Young read a first draft, the truth hurt, he made a few phone calls, and now McDonough was on the outside looking in.

Young's pretty much always done exactly what he wanted to do, whether the fans or the record companies appreciate it or not, and he's always collected a paycheck. In "Shakey," there is a detailed recounting of the "Tonight's The Night" tour. The album was recorded under a regimen that included weed, buckets of tequila, shooting pool, and late-night recording sessions that went until dawn.

On the tour, Young (according to McDonogh and all of the "insiders" he interviewed) took particular pleasure in the fact that night after night after night, fans yelled out for old Neil Young & Crazy Horse favorites, and he stuck to the "Tonight's The Night" album. He did a lot of drunken stand-up between songs...much like Lou Reed did on the "Take No Prisoners" album...and put in more than a few sloppy performances.

Neil is somewhat of a hero on DU, and I do love his music...I own every note of it...but in real life, he's every bit as much of an asshole as Reed.

:D

I recall, toward 1970, people were asking why he stopped making hits like that one, "Cherry Cherry", and others - his response was that he outgrew pop music. His later works are definitely more unique and often good in the right mood, but I'll never be able to listen to "Girl, You'll be a Woman Soon" without thinking some thoughts that the nightly news covers on a near-regular basis these days (school teachers getting caught turning girls into women or boys into men...)

:blush:

"I'm a Believer" was one of his. Also "Look Out, Here Comes Tomorrow" and "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You". Those are the ones I remember anyway.

Too many examples to cite, but in his Doctor Who story "The Parting of the Ways" (2005), he has the lead character saying half the planet is too fat, the other half too thin, how people addicted to their (televisions) are "brainless sheep". Given how sophomoric the story was, very few figured it out at the time how Uncle Russ was insulting the very people watching his scribbled soap opera tripe, not to mention being incapable of seeing the sheer irony of it all...

In later stories, he doesn't shroud his personal opinions and attacks so neatly. And the people still love it all. :rofl:

It's really no different than musicians who make songs and release them on vinyl or CD and the songs are about how bad capitalism and materialism are, even if they do have a point somewhere. (Whoops! Irony alert!! Double-irony, actually... or an irony on top of an irony... it depends on your point of view...)

Davy Jones never "auditioned"...he did a fake audition to go through the motions but he was under contract to Columbia. They signed him first. Nesmith had a folk career as "Michael Blessing" and did it to further his own ambitions. Columbia knew that Dolenz could act from his days as a child star on "Circus Boy" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldVHgWuxCY8). Tork was a stoner folkie whose friend, Stephen Stills, was knocked out of the running because of his bad teeth, but suggested that Tork go to the interviews instead.

In later years, of course, the "corporate boy band" requirements were relaxed to the point where potential applicants needed only to meet two simple criteria:

1). They must have a penis, and

2). They must be able to follow orders.

Ironically, if you look at the screening process for our 43rd president, George W. Bush, is is remarkably similar.

:rofl:

:rofl:

He's a Chimp.

The label's contract demanded another album so out comes Metal Machine Music. Another good example of the Contractual Obligation Album is Beach Boys Party where they went into a studio, got good and fucked up and recorded whatever came out.

it is indeed a schlocky and jivey collection of boilerplate sleaze, but it also demonstrates Reed's facility. He was able (along with Katz) to just crank those songs out. The title song's line "And wore Kenneth Jay Lane...it's trash" never fails to crack me up. That Lou is a clever one.

Also, "Ride Sally Ride" possesses one of his most gorgeous melodies. It is a lovely song.

In its own way, "Sally Can't Dance" is as much a fuck you statement as "Metal Machine Music" :)

in Washington, DC in 1984 or so, same place I saw "Pull My Daisy" and "Towers Open Fire." Absolutely great film.

I'm so happy Barack Obama's daughters will be attending Sidwell Friends.

I have them both on DVD.

Love that movie, the group and the soundtrack. Micky Dolenz rulz!

Loved the concert scenes, Michael Nesmith singing Circle Sky was awesome! I have been in love with Peter Tork most of my life :)

Back in the late 1980s they showed this movie on Thanksgiving at a theater in the Delmar Loop in St Louis. I was living with two roommates in Jefferson County MO (approx 25 miles south of St Louis City). They were troopers and watched it with me but they didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I did.

I have the DVD and it would be cool for a 40th anniversary edition with extras aplenty.

That is one of my favorite movies of all time. I could spend hours talking about it.

:hi:

i kissed Mr. Dolenz on the cheek when i was 15. LOVED them.

Keep vowing to pick up the soundtrack, but never do x(.

"In 1956, Bette Nesmith Graham started the Mistake Out Company (later renamed Liquid Paper) from her North Dallas home. She turned her kitchen into a laboratory, mixing up an improved product with her electric mixer. Graham’s son, Michael Nesmith (later of The Monkees fame), and his friends filled bottles for her customers. "

but I heard that the Monkees and others who made Head talked about a sequal...they thought it would be hilarious to say in the intro:

"From the folks that gave you Head..."

It made perfect sense. :hippie: