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Features Disc of the day
The Monkees
Present
(RCA, 1969)
You want a truly weird 60s album? Here's one.
It is now an accepted fact of rock lore that The Monkees' early 1967 album Headquarters is a masterpiece of 60s pop. Given the minor critical regard accorded the Monkees throughout the 70s, 80s and much of the 90s, any clawing back of respect is surely a good thing. However, 'masterpieces' can be a problem for any band, tending to imply that all their other albums are, well, a bit shoddy by comparison. Few bands have been immune to this. Was it just round my way in the 1970s that families chucked out all their Beatles vinyl apart from Sgt Pepper because, you know, that was "the good one". As a result, of this 'masterpiece effect' genuinely startling albums - like the Monkees' other 1967 belter Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd - cab get overlooked while fascinating collections of damaged weirdness - like The Monkees Present - are dismissed as outright rubbish.
OK, it's certainly a mess. Peter Tork had already left, buying out his contract in early 1969. The first post-Tork release, Instant Replay had been a grab-bag of old and new tracks, yet still peppered with magic, particularly Mike Nesmith's Byrdsian While I Cry and his cover of Goffin & King's I Won't Be The Same Without Her (also covered by The Twilights). Present was, in fact, the rag-end of a project that had begun when Tork was still in the band - two records, one side per Monkee. With Tork gone Monkees bosses, Colgems, picked through Mickey, Davey and Mike's submissions and presented their own version of the threesome's songwriting identities. Like The Walker Brothers Niteflights, this approach tended to favour certain members over others. Davey Jones' sub-Nilsson selections make the least impression, exhausted vaudeville syrup-cups that sound like the kind of oily music-box lullabies Frank Spencer sang to baby Jessica in Some Mothers Do Ave Em, while Mike Nesmith's tracks are all country pop-rock delights, the sounds of freedom, of a singer preparing to fly the coop.
Weirdest of all, however, are Mickey Dolenz's offers, Bye Bye Baby Bye Bye, Little Girl and Mommy And Daddy. Like some disturbing cross between the grim solicitations of Harry Nilsson, the Child Catcher and the darker fantasies of the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, Dolenz's cuts are sinister, whispered nursery rhymes, where The Monkees squeaky clean TV image gets pulled through the dirt, and images of childhood innocence are pushed into nightmare: "Ask your mommy if she really gets off on all her pills/Ask your Daddy..."Would it matter if the bullet went through my head?/If it was my blood spilling on the kitchen floor/Scream it to your mommy and daddy/They're living in a lie." Included as part of a conceptual side-long suite, Dolenz's tracks might have made a kind of 'theatrical' sense. Floating free alongside Jones and Nesmith's pop and country they genuinely creep you out.
After this, the fab three Monkees had a few more things to do, contractually, before Nesmith too flew the coop ("A Nerf's e-Nerf!"). And then there were two. If you're looking for the point the Monkees went truly rubbish, check out Jones and Dolenz's 1970 truly forgettable Changes. But not Present, an album far too weird and strange to be dismissed as merely bad.
Andrew Male
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 10/01/2011
Further Listening
The Monkees – Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd (RCA, 1967)
Michael Nesmith & The First National Band – Magnetic South (RCA, 1970)
The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band – Volume III A Child’s Guide To Good And Evil (Reprise, 1968)
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Underrated album by far. Nesmith's cuts are great country rock!
Posted by Buzz at 6:45 PM GMT 10/01/2011 Report Abuse
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Underrated album by far. Nesmith's cuts are great country rock!
Posted by Buzz at 6:45 PM GMT 10/01/2011 Report Abuse
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Underrated album by far. Nesmith's cuts are great country rock!
Posted by Buzz at 6:47 PM GMT 10/01/2011 Report Abuse
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I love Dolenz' tracks on this -- far an away the standouts. "Shorty Blackwell" just sounds like someone on he verge of a psychotic break
Posted by Rudy at 9:26 PM GMT 10/01/2011 Report Abuse
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Often referred to as The Monkees' 'White album' it is a real hotch potch. Ladies Aid Society and Looking For The Good Times are 3 year old Boyce and Hart songs that would have been more at home on the first 2 Monkees' albums which they were recorded for.
Nesmith's country songs are great and point the way towards his red, white and blue trio of First National Band albums. Except I am not too keen on Never Tell A Woman Yes. It's too wordy IMO.
Dolenz has become the weirdo Monkee at this point and Mommy and Daddy is savage. There is another version with even more pointed lyrics but Colgems made him tone it down a little. By the way, Shorty Blackwell is on Instant Replay and not Present. And it's a song about Dolenz's cat, in case you did not know.
The 2 Bill Chadwick songs that are sung by Jones are really good. If I Knew and French Song portray a more mature Jones and a full album of Chadwick penned songs would have been really interesting IMO.
Posted by Anonymous at 10:07 PM GMT 10/01/2011 Report Abuse
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Often referred to as The Monkees' 'White album' it is a real hotch potch. Ladies Aid Society and Looking For The Good Times are 3 year old Boyce and Hart songs that would have been more at home on the first 2 Monkees' albums which they were recorded for.
Nesmith's country songs are great and point the way towards his red, white and blue trio of First National Band albums. Except I am not too keen on Never Tell A Woman Yes. It's too wordy IMO.
Dolenz has become the weirdo Monkee at this point and Mommy and Daddy is savage. There is another version with even more pointed lyrics but Colgems made him tone it down a little. By the way, Shorty Blackwell is on Instant Replay and not Present. And it's a song about Dolenz's cat, in case you did not know.
The 2 Bill Chadwick songs that are sung by Jones are really good. If I Knew and French Song portray a more mature Jones and a full album of Chadwick penned songs would have been really interesting IMO.
Posted by Gus at 10:07 PM GMT 10/01/2011 Report Abuse
Reply to this post
Comment on this post