Saturday, December 12, 2015

The Monkees - The Monkees Present 2LP

The Monkees – The Monkees Present 
Micky, Peter, Michael and Davy

(soniclovenoize reconstruction)


Micky Side:
1.  Through The Looking Glass
2.  Mommy and Daddy
3.  Rosemarie
4.  Just a Game
5.  Shake ‘Em Up and Let ‘Em Roll
6.  Shorty Blackwell

Peter Side:
7.  (I Prithee) Do Not Ask For Love
8.  Lady’s Baby
9.  Seeger’s Theme
10.  Tear The Top Right Off My Head
11.  Merry Go Round
12.  Come On In

Michael Side:
13.  Listen To The Band
14.  The Crippled Lion
15.  Nine Times Blue
16.  St. Mathew
17.  Carlisle Wheeling and The Effervescent Popsicle
18.  Hollywood

Davy Side:
19.  My Share of The Sidewalk
20.  Me Without You
21.  Laurel and Hardy
22.  Smile
23.  You and I
24.  The Girl I Left Behind Me


Happy holidays!  This reconstruction is a little ‘present’ for you…  Four presents actually!  This is a reconstruction of the unfinished 1969 Monkees double album entitled The Monkees Present Micky, Peter, Michael and DavidIntended as a four-part solo album in which each Monkee wrote and produced their own side of the double album, the project was scrapped after Peter Tork quit the group at the conclusion of 1968.  The completed tracks were all either shelved or trickled out on subsequent Monkees releases, with the title itself reappropriated for an unrelated album.  This reconstruction attempts to gather the best of the material intended for the project and present the double album The Monkees could have released, had Tork not left.  Attempts were made to use vintage mixes as well as the best masters when available, and unique mixes and edits were created to present the album as a complete, cohesive whole, true to what it would have sounded like in 1968. 

The battle for creative control—and respect—had been the undertone of The Monkees chaotic existence; it was also their own undoing.  Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith and Davy Jones were initially cast as a band of characters (or rather, characters who were in a band) but Colgems producer and Monkees creator Bob Rafelson didn’t care that of those four young men who could sing and act, one was already a locally-known Greenwich Village guitarist and the other a promising Los Angeles singer/songwriter himself.  Rafelson and Screen Gems musical director Don Kirchner insisted chose not only to use their own slew of Brill Building professional songwriters (including Neil Sedaka, Neil Diamond, Carol King and the pair who wrote many of The Monkee’s classics, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart) but session musicians to actually play on the recordings (often The Wrecking Crew), leaving the four Monkees to act in the show and to drift into the recording studio to add lead vocals to already finished backing tracks.  

Dismayed they were not even allowed to perform on albums credited to themselves, Tork and Nesmith spent the early years of The Monkees attempting to gain some sort of musical control over their career, even if the remaining Monkees Jones and Dolenz were simply actors who could sing, mostly ambivalent to the quest for musical independence.  Rafelson and Kirshner eventually acquiesced and allowed The Monkees to tour as a live band.  The tour proved financially successful (and musically adequate) and the producers allowed The Monkees to write and record as an actual band, albeit under the supervision of The Turtles’ Chip Douglas as acting producer.  The results were a pair of 1967 albums—the charming Headquarters and the ambitious Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd—and the chart-topping singles “Daydream Believer” and “Pleasant Valley Sunday.” 

The celebration was short lived, as this musical independence took its toll on The Monkees.  While it was relished by Tork, Dolenz and Jones learned that being in a real band was hard work and it was easier to operate with session musicians; Nesmith learned that it was just easier to do it all himself!  By February 1968, The Monkees television show was cancelled; this was not a big problem for Rafelson and Kirshner, as The Monkees made more money from record sales anyways, and their solution was to give the band unlimited studio time to continue making product: this time records instead of television programs.  The result was a staggering amount of material recorded by all four members acting as essentially four solo artists with their own set of backing session musicians, although still under The Monkees’ unified banner.  By April 1968, Kirshner handpicked twelve out of the sea of over 40 songs recorded since November 1967 to constitute their fifth album The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees. All of Tork's tracks were passed over (aside from a short spoken word piece), being mostly unfinished and obviously in need of help from his bandmates. 

If never-ending recording sessions for each individual Monkee was not enough, they also commenced a larger project in February 1968 that overlapped with the recording sessions: a full-length motion picture co-written by Jack Nicholson, intended to not only destroy the mythos of The Monkees, but end their career as they knew it.  Meandering, nonsensical and decidingly psychedelic, HEAD made zero sense to their teeny-bopper audience and Screen Gems failed to market it properly to the counter-culture scene who might have understood it.  While the movie was a complete bomb, the soundtrack album has recently been reevaluated as a psychedelic masterpiece, including Frank Zappa-esque dialog collages assembled by Jack Nicholson, interspersed between seven of the remaining 30-or-so songs recorded during The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees sessions, as well as a few months beyond.

Even after eating up the riches of The Monkees’ 1968 recording sessions on both The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees and HEAD, there was still an abundance of quality music remaining.  That summer during the press junkets for HEAD, The Monkees hinted at their next project: a double album consisting of 24 tracks, with each Monkee writing, producing and featured on 6 of the songs.  That November, in the final group interview with all four Monkees, Micky confirmed the plan for a double album with each Monkee given their own side of the LP and further elaborating that each side would have its own unique sound due to each Monkee’s own musical interest (noting that Michael’s side would by Country/Western, Davy’s as Broadway-Rock and Micky describing his own side as, oddly enough, weird and electronic).  This comment was all but verified by Nesmith’s move to record nine of his own compositions in Nashville that May (with the studio musicians who would eventually be called Area Code 615), effectively completing his side of the intended 2LP ahead of schedule.

Unfortunately Nesmith’s side—which predated Bob Dylan’s attempts at Nashville country-rock by a year—would be the only Monkees Present side completed.  November 1968 saw The Monkees returning in-front of a camera, filming 33 1/3 Revolutions per Monkee, a television-special equivalent of HEAD that would further cement the band’s demise.  During the first day of filming, Tork announced he was quitting The Monkees, and the 2LP Monkees Present project was effectively shelved indefinitely.  1969 saw attempts to commercially revive the Monkees, now a trio, at first with an updated sound courtesy of newly-drafted The Association and The 5th Dimension producer Bones Howe (who oversaw musical production on 33 1/13 Revolutions per Monkee).  The decision was also made to resurrect some unused  Monkees songs from 1966 in order to exploit the initial Monkeemania.  Both accrued dismal results, with Instant Replay released in February (featuring only 8 of The Monkees Present 2LP songs) and the official incarnation of The Monkees Present Micky, David, Michael released in October (featuring only three of the original 1968 Monkees Present 2LP songs).  Nesmith officially quit the group in early 1970, choosing to focus on his own music with his newly-formed First National Band.  By this point The Monkees had completely devolved from their spur of creativity in 1968... but is there a way to find their 2LP missing link?

For my reconstruction of The Monkees Present we will assume that any song recorded between November 1967 (the start of The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees sessions) to November 1968 (when Tork quit The Monkees) which hadn’t already been released on either The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees or HEAD is fair game.  That amounts to 44 possible songs throughout twelve months (8 Micky songs, 7 Peter songs, 13 Michael songs and 16 Davy songs) to choose from for this 24-song album, allowing each Monkee their best six, for optimal quality.  We will also attempt to exclusively use mixes prepared in 1968 (when possible), rather than later mixes that could feature new overdubs and revisionism.  This reconstruction is also all in stereo since this was the time period that mono was beginning to be phased out, since The Monkees Present would have been release in early 1969.   

Micky’s side is quite easy to assemble; dropping the weakest track (“Don’t Say Nothin’ Bad”) and excluding the single "D. W. Washburn" released in June, we are left with six strong songs from the voice that defined the band, creating a side that is quite the psychedelic-fueled Sunshine Pop--an excellent successor to HEAD.  We open Micky’s Side with the original 1968 mix of “Through The Looking Glass” from the The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees Delux 3CD.  This is followed  by his own composition, the politically charged “Mommy and Daddy” to which Colgems highly objected, using a vintage 1969 mix with its uncensored lyrics but the intro taken from the album version, both found on the Monkees Presents remaster.  Next is a 1968 mix of Dolenz’s own funky “Rosemarie” taken from TBTBTM 3CD, followed by the rollicking Leiber/Stoller-penned “Shake ‘Em Up and Let ‘Em Roll”, an alternate mix also from TBTBTM 3CD.  Dolenz’s own stream-of-conscious track “Just A Game” is taken from Instant Replay, and his side ends with his truly bizarre but wonderful psychedelic-pop of “Shorty Blackwell”, this being it’s original 1968 stereo mix found on the Instant Replay Delux 3CD. 

Peter seemed to be the only Monkee who had problems finishing a side of an album; by the time he left The Monkees in late 1968, he only had a handful of finished songs and a laundry list of unrealized ideas.  He infamously spent a lot of work on “Lady’s Baby”, recording four different versions, each with multiple revisions.  Unfortunately for this reconstruction, the most final versions of the seven songs he cut only total twelve and a half minutes, so we must essentially use all of it just to complete Peter’s side of the album!  In effect Peter’s side seems a bit minimal, meandering and frankly unfinished, but appropriately reflects his folky roots.  Beginning with the fantastic “(I Prithee) Do Not Ask For Love”, presented here as an exclusive stereo mix created when the mono vocal acetate mix is synced with the stereo backing track, both found on the Instant Replay 3CD.  Following is one of many versions of his own “Lady’s Baby” he cut throughout 1968, this being the overdubbed acoustic Second Version from TBTBTM 3CD.  Following with Peter’s standard spoken-word interlude of “Alvin”, uncredited here but taken from TBTBTM 3CD, flowing directly into the Third Version of “Seeger’s Theme” from TBTBTM 3CD.  Next is “Tear The Top Right Off My Head”, the acetate mono mix from Missing Links Vol 2 is speed-corrected, with stereo spectrum processing by my friend Skyfinity.  Following is the admittedly unrealized Version Two of “Merry Go Round” from TBTBTM 3CD and Pete’s scant side concludes with “Come On In”, taken from Music Box and speed-corrected. 

Michael’s side becomes a bit more tricky, since we have a wealth of material to choose from: “Propinquity”, “Some of Shelly’s Blues”, “Don’t Wait For Me”, “The Crippled Lion”, “Hollywood”, “How Insensitive”, “Good Clean Fun”, “Listen To The Band” and “St. Mathew” were all recorded in late in Nashville specifically for the album, not to mention Michael had the TBTBTM outtakes “While I Cry” from January and “If I Ever Get To Saginaw Again” from March, and the HEAD outtakes “Carlisle Wheeling” and “Nine Times Blue” from April already in the can.  Here we will pick the cream of the crop and open with his own tribute to The Monkees, “Listen To The Band”, using the original 1968 mix found on The Monkees Present remaster.  Following are the vintage 1968 mixes of “The Crippled Lion” and “Nine Times Blue”, both found on the Instant Replay 3CD.   The alternate 1968 mixes of the psychedelic-country rocker “St. Mathew” and the Dylanesque “Carlisle Wheeling” from Instant Replay 3CD follows, with the side ending with a ride out in the sunset of “Hollywood” from the Instant Replay 3CD, but with the channels swapped in order to match the rest of the songs. 

Davy’s side is even trickier, as he recorded a vast amount of songs in 1968: TBTBTM outtakes "The Girl I Left Behind Me", "Ceiling In My Room", "Me Without You", "Laurel and Hardy", "Don't Listen To Linda" and "My Share of the Sidewalk" (note we are excluding the "It's Nice To Be With You", which appeared as the b-side to "D.W. Washburn" in June); HEAD outtakes "Changes", "War Games", "Look Down", "Smile", "You and I", "I'm Gonna Try" and "The Party"; and the Bones Howe-produced "A Man Without a Dream" and "Someday Man" from November 1968.  Just as the previous LP side, we will take the six best songs from these 15 to make the strongest album possible (or at least the least obnoxious; I will admit a significant amount of bias against this batch of songs!).  The side opens with “My Share of The Sidewalk” found on TBTBTM 3CD, followed by the cream of Davy’s crop, the vintage 1968 mix of “Me Without You” from the Instant Replay 3CD.  Although a bit cheesy, “Laurel and Hardy” from the TBTBTM 3CD is next, purely because of the sitar and my own nostalgic love of the comedy duo!  Of all the original compositions Jones offered during this time period, the least terrible would be the sappy “Smile” and followed by the relentless rocker “You and I” featuring a Neil Young guitar solo, both taken from the Instant Replay 3CD.  The Monkees Present 2LP concludes with the Second Version of “The Girl I Left Behind Me”, the very first song recorded during these sessions.  This version is sourced from the Music Box set, but includes a reprise of the unfinished tag of “A Girl Named Love” sourced from TBTBTM 3CD and remixed to match the panning of the Music Box mix. 


Sources used:
The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees (3CD Delux Edition, 2010 Rhino Records)
Instant Replay (3CD Delux Edition, 2011 Rhino Records)
Missing Links Vol 2 (1990 Rhino Records)
The Monkees Present (1994 remaster Rhino Records)
Music Box (2001 Rhino Records)



flac --> wav --> editing in SONAR and Goldwave --> flac encoding via TLH lv8

* md5 files, track notes and artwork included

79 comments:

  1. Yay! Thanks soniclovenoize, this looks like it'll be fun. I was starting to worry that maybe you had given up posting, as it has been almost 2 months since the last one. I'm really looking forward to giving this a listen.

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  2. I wuz gettin the delerium tremens

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  3. Thanks for this. It looks interesting.

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  4. All the above, and thanks for the great Christmas gift. seasonal wishes to you

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  5. It's always a great day when SLN graces us with another exercise in forensic music geekery. Can't wait to dive into this one!

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  6. This one gits me right in the childhoods.

    Bop bop hallelujia, thanks and happy holydais!

    -Xtm

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  7. Another 60s pop group that has an album that never was is the Hollies. They recorded a number of tracks after their album Butterfly continuing the psychedelic sound of that album, but many of the band members were opposed to things coming from Nash, since he was the only one on drugs at the time. They shelved his songs and decided, instead, to record Dylan covers. After recording a single track (a horrible Sinatra-esque version of "Blowing in the Wind"), Nash left the band. The songs they recorded post-Butterfly can be paired with "King Midas in Reverse"/"Everything Is Sunshine" (since neither were on the UK album) and a few B-sides from the Evolution period to form a final album from that lineup.

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  9. Been following this blog for the last year. Great stuff! I have modified some for my own tastes (The drone from the Zombies' "Imagine the Swan" now continues into the beginning of "If It Don't Work Out", and Introducing The Who has had the songs that appear on My Generation replaced with the five songs recorded before the acetate.)
    I hear you're revising Lifehouse. While most of my adjustments to that were just improving the flow of the album, there were two edits you might find helpful: dropping the fadeout from "Teenage Wasteland" and having the drum fill that transitions to the next section instead act as a segue, along with the first crash hit from "Going Mobile", and a similar edit to segue "Put the Money Down" into "Pure and Easy", as there's a drum fill or two in the former that's identical to the opening drum fill for the latter.
    This is just in case you haven't already done this yourself.

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    1. Yep, you are certainly free to make any alterations you want!

      The track order of the upgraded Lifehouse will be different -- "Going Mobile" no longer follows "Teenage Wasteland", and "Pure and Easy" no longer follows "Put The Money Down".

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    2. Ooo... that's an option I had not considered. Now I'm quite curious to see what you come up with.

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    3. The one thing that's kept me from coming up with my own Lifehouse, silly as it sounds, is the absence of a stereo version of "Time is Passing" (as Odds & Sods used a mono master). I could substitute in one of Pete's versions, but the band version works better, if not for the damn mono. Would be cool if someone with your skills could come up with a faked stereo (as some have posted on YouTube in the past).

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  10. Love it, great work. Though just wanted to bring up it seems like there's a low volume issue on track 2. If no one else hears it maybe it's just corrupted via my download.

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  11. Superb blog for which huge thanks. Is there any possibility that you could put chrome dreams back up for download? Many thanks.

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  12. You, Sir, are a gentleman and a scholar! I've also been following you for the past year and LOVE what you do hear (here). Happy Holidays, and long may you rock!

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  13. Fantastic! Downloading now! Happy Holidays to you and yours! Can't wait to give this a listen! As for Brian talking about the Hollies album, most of those tracks were released on a boxset, but I'm sure more are in better quality on other releases as well! The Yardbirds were also working on something, but in my opinion - it just wasn't strong as Zeppelin...

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  14. Also, there are MANY Donovan unreleased projects that would be cool to hear, I'm currently reading about them now! http://donovan-unofficial.com/miscellanea/articles/donovans_lost_albums.html

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  15. You absolutely made me smile with this one. I'd only recently read about the aborted double album from the Monkees, and wondered what 24 songs would have been included as so many were recorded. Love your selections, though I may have to not listen much to side 4 (no fault of yours.) At least you included my all-time favorite Monkees song, Shorty Blackwell. Makes me wish Mickey's was the last side, just so it could have ended things the way it did for the Instant Replay lp. Thank you so much!

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  16. Oh, and another vote for any shelved Donovan projects if possible. Thanks!

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  17. Nice choices. The one suggestion I'd make is replacing Laurel and Hardy with Someday Man. Not only is Someday Man (IMO) the best Davy-vocal track from that period, but Laurel & Hardy was definitely *not* intended for a Monkees project -- that one was Davy helping out Jan Berry for the "Jan & Dean" album Carnival of Sound.

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    1. Ah thanks for the tip about Laurel and Hardy. That would explain why I wasn't able to find documentation on it!

      I still stand by my choice though, I feel it's a stronger song.

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    2. I actually chose to substitute it with The Party. Not sure how historically accurate the selection is but it's a good track. There's a very early Bowie-ish feel.

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    3. Agreed. "Someday Man" might be Davy's best song (Better than even "Daydream Believer"? Maybe!).

      That song had "1969 hit single" written all over it... Sad that it was only a B-side of a single (The equally great "Listen to the Band" was the A-side). Not sure if it would've changed The Monkees dwindling fortunes at that point, but maybe.

      At any rate, should've been on one of the original albums. Far better than most of the songs chosen for Davy to sing.

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    4. I know it's a long time since this post, but no way is L&H a stronger song than Someday Man. It's one of Davy's best songs in the entire Monkees catalog.

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  18. What a wonderful gift. It was worth the wait. Let me add my vote for any Donovan project you may work on.

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  19. Digging your Blog! Thanks (from a fellow Minneapolitan).

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  20. Sorry, I'd rather listen to More of The Monkees. Stepping' Stone, I'm A Believer, Mary, Mary, She, Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow), Sometime In The Morning, I'll Be Back Up On My Feet (TV Version) and Hold On Girl I can play over and over and never ever get tired of. That is the Monkees sound that made them endeared in the millions not these "artistic" songs. I don't mind a few of them as side tracks but lets face it, the songs I just mentioned are undeniably catchy! ....and...Pisces is their BEST album.

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  21. Seems that you've beat Andrew Sandoval and the gang at Rhino with how to package an interesting Monkees release !!! ... you never fail to surprise me ...thanks for the Christmas present.

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  22. Robert Hunter (Grateful Dead Lyricist) & Comfort - "Alligator Moon".
    A RECORDED, but UNRELEASED album from the early- mid 70s featuring his backing band Comfort, in which he recorded the album,but it wasn't released.
    3 tracks - "Promontory Rider", "Hooker's Ball", and "Drunkard's Carol" released on "Promontory Rider - A Retrospective" in 1984 from those "Alligator Moon Sessions"

    The rest,the studio version of the "Alligator Moon" suite of songs were recently uploaded in FLAC on lossless legs.

    As there isn't a studio version of Jesse James, i subbed it for a live SBD from the archive (from 76), and sadly there isn't any version to date of "She Gives Me Love", but if they ever surface, you should definitely do that "unreleased" album ;)

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  23. Thanks for the Monkees. I'm looking forward to your revision of Lifehouse.

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  24. Very cool list! Thanks for sharing. Alternate sequences for Monkees albums are something of an obsession of mine. :)

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    1. I will admit, I much prefer the original alternate tracklistings of Headquarters, Pisces Aquarius and Birds & The Bees!

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    2. What's the alternate tracklisting for Headquarters? I've seen the one for PAC&J, but never that one

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    3. Alternate Headquarters tracklisting
      Side A
      1. For Pete's Sake
      2. I'll Spend My Life With You
      3. Forget That Girl
      4. You Just may be The One
      5. Shades of Gray
      6. Band 6
      7. Sunny Girlfriend
      Side B
      8. Mr Webster
      9. You Told Me
      10. Zilch
      11. Early Morning Blues and Greens
      12. Randy Scouse Git
      13. I Can't Get her Off of My Mind
      14. No Time

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  25. Here's my version of "ALLIGATOR MOON" the UNRELEASED album by ROBERT HUNTER (Grateful Dead Lyricist) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJPQLn2XBsk listen here :)

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  26. So I check in here every month or so, and you never cease to surprise me. This is awesome. While I've got all the deluxe editions and most of the Missing Links collections, it's still cool to hear the tracks organized as once envisioned by the band.

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  27. Is Love's "Gethsemane" a doable project (using Foursail,MacClean's solo album, bonus tracks, etc.)?
    Thanks for everything

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  28. Is Love's "Gethsemane" a doable project (using Foursail,MacClean's solo album, bonus tracks, etc.)?
    Thanks for everything

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    1. According to one interview, Gethsemane was intended to be the "second-half of Forever Changes." With the same Forever Changes line-up, but never actually recorded. So to be historically accurate, sadly, I don't think it doable.

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  30. Would you ever consider constructing a "finished" version of U2's Pop? Something in line with what Scott Aukerman proposed on U Talkin' U2 To Me?

    For reference:

    1. Pop Muzik (crossfaded into Mofo, like the PopMart tour intro)
    2. Mofo
    3. Do You Feel Loved
    4. Discotheque (Mike Hedges Mix)
    5. Last Night on Earth (Single Version)
    6. North and South of the River
    7. Staring at the Sun (Mike Hedges Mix)
    8. Gone (Mike Hedges Mix)
    9. Please (Single Version)
    10. If You Wear That Velvet Dress
    11. If God Will Send His Angels (Single Mix)
    12. Wake Up Dead Man

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  31. I wasn't Kirshner - he was gone in March of 1967. After Pisces, all control over finished product (songs used, album covers, release dates) were done by Lester Sill. A reasons Sill chose "D.W. Wasburn" as a single was to give his good friends Lieber-Stroller a piece of the Monkee pie.

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    1. Correct. Kirshner was long gone by the time of BBM.

      Lester Sill made some dumb choices too, "D.W. Washburn" being one of them. It's OK, and was a minor hit, but it was a sign of declining returns.

      So many better songs that got left in the can back then... Shocking to see how many quality songs went unheard for decades. Some better song choices might've meant a few more hits, or sustained popularity for a little longer.

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  32. Call me obsessed, but I think some more Beach Boys tentative albums could be in order. Their entire '69-'71 era was chalk-full of them. "Reverberation" (essentially an outtakes compilation scheduled to be last Capitol album), "Add Some Music", "Sun Flower", "Surf's Up" (with 'Til I Die segueing into Wouldn't It Be Nice To Live Again, the way that Dennis would have had it. [I know you already did Landlocked, but this would be different]) Hell, any ol' era will do for me.

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  33. David Bowie's unreleased "Toy" album would be awesome.

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    1. I'd love to do it, but only eight of the fourteen songs are out in a lossless format.

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  34. On receipt of the new Monkees album, could Was Not Born to Follow be included here on Peter's side? Yes it's the voice of an older man, but the backing track is from.this time and it's probably a better representation of his work than Seeger's Theme!

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    1. old backing track but new vocal on that one...and it IS great..but the cool thing is you can always make your own!

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  35. I was under the impression that some of these tracks(especially Tork's) are more from THE BIRDS,THE BEES AND THE MONKEES period,an album he cut several tracks for but was sadly squeezed out of. He could have had a quarter of that album. By the time of PRESENT Peter was long gone,so I question your timeline on this. Otherwise,love your blog and keep up the stellar work!

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  36. Just found your site. This is great! I'm especially impressed by the stereo mix of Prithee; really pro-sounding. I'd love if you could somehow find your way to give the same treatment to Naked Persimmon, one of Mike's most outrageous efforts that would be a shoo-in for his side. But well done.

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  38. I only recently got into the Monkees, and I LOVE this, especially the "Mike" side. Perfectly done!!

    One of these days, I need to make myself an "all Mike" mix from this era of the Monkees; he was creatively on fire for a few years there.

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    1. Indeed, you can cull his Monkees tracks and unreleased tracks and make some fine LPs!

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    2. Indeed, you can cull his Monkees tracks and unreleased tracks and make some fine LPs!

      Delete
  39. I wish this were real.

    Have you done the intended version where the 3 Monkees each get a side and then one band side?

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    1. That would've been interesting, had The Monkees (minus Peter) had followed through on it. I suppose some "band" songs from Peter's time still could've been included.

      Out of curiosity, what would've been on the "band side"? By the time Peter was leaving, the "band" mentality of Headquarters, and the Pisces album to an extent, had splintered away.

      Were there honestly enough "band" tracks of the three, or four, of them to have actually done this?

      The remaining three actually working as a group and recording with Sam & The Goodtimers (The R&B band that backed them on their 1969 tour) would've been a fascinating idea, but that never happened.

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  40. I was under the impression that The Birds,The Bees and The Monkees was meant to be a double. Tork cut enough tracks for his portion but was frozen out,quit after Head and wasn't even around bt the time Present was made.

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  41. You might want to check Rhino Handmade's box sets for every release which seems to support My statement,not that it matters a whole lot. But the session dates are there.

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  42. You are correct in that Present was meant to be a double album but Tork was still gone,except for two outtakes from earlier sessions. Sorry for the mistake.

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    1. Maybe you misunderstand.

      The Monkees expressed the intent of making a double LP with each Monkee having their own Side during the press tour for HEAD, during the summer of 1968... While Tork was still in the band. It is believed that project was to be called The Monkees Present...

      Obviously that concept was scrapped when Tork left. But they later reused the title without the concept. You might want to check Rhino Handmade's box sets for every release which seems to support my statement.

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  43. Your smart assed reposte notwithstanding,thanks for the info and your work in general.

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    1. Wow. How rude. How abut just thanking our host and leaving it at that? He doesn't have to share this work with us.

      Not to mention, he's 100% correct and not being "smart-assed" at all.

      Anyhow, soniclovenoize, thanks for this! Only recently discovered the site. Hope you keep sharing goodies with us. Already snagged the Dylan/Dead alternate album, Macca's One Hand Clapping, and will likely grab this too.

      I might quibble with a few of the choices here, but it's pretty solid. There's only so many truly good "Davy songs," and Peter, unfortunately, just didn't have much material at all.

      Peter's songs for HEAD were his best ones. Not a lot after that. Shame he didn't record the vocals for the "Wasn't Born to Follow" backing track until 2016 (for the wonderful Good Times album). A 1968 vocal for that song would've been a great addition here (Though the Byrds version will always been the definitive one).

      Anyhow, thanks for all you do!

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  44. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  45. Okay, fine (LOL, fine, rather, fantastic!), but what about the rest of the rare & good Monkees tracks that you found and reference within this post?

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  46. In a different world, Soniclovenoize gets his own section in the Phonolog directory. How's that for a mashup of analog-past and digital-present?

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  47. " By April 1968, Kirshner handpicked twelve out of the sea of over 40 songs recorded since November 1967 to constitute their fifth album The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees."

    Donnie the K was long gone by then... He got fired early in 1967, after putting "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You" out as a single. It was at that point Nesmith had had it with him, put his fist in a wall and made a threat.

    Headquarters was made without Kirshner's supervision. No way that album happens had Kirshner still been in charge of the music. That was the whole point. Nesmith (and Peter and Micky to a lesser extent) ousted him and got more control over the music.

    Davy, who Kirshner favored and was pushing the most, was likely the only Monkee sorry to see Kirshner go.

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  48. empty3
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    ReplyDelete
  49. Thanx< This is nifty. Kinda like when folks used to make their Friends "Tapes." Like in High Fidelity.

    ReplyDelete
  50. Empty Three
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    ReplyDelete
  51. Replies
    1. Flac:

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      MP3:

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      Delete