The Monkees Live @ The Fox Theatre 6/23/11

The Monkees 45th Anniversary Tour
The Fox Theatre Detroit


“Here, I'm going to make you a big star ... and you don't have to pay any dues.
For that, you're going to get no respect from your contemporaries.
To me, that was the cruelest thing.”
- Phil Spector, 1968 Pop Chronicles Interview

Spector’s prescient comments resonate with the Monkees to this day. After all this time and a massive amount of media coverage from newspaper articles, interviews, books and autobiographies, the members of the Monkees continue to be derided for their manufactured image and an enduring misperception about their musicianship or lack thereof. This current reunion performance should put at least some of that purist grousing to rest.


Davy Jones, Mickey Dolenz, Peter Tork made no bones about it. They were in Detroit to sing and dance and make some wonderful music. 37 songs and over two hours later they proved their mettle and then some with a well produced multi-media presentation that went beyond the hits and dug deep into their impressive catalog of music. Video clips from the sixties television show were interspersed with segments from their obscure 1968 film Head and period commercials. The archival performance clips were matched with the onstage set list to provide a powerful mirroring of the past to the present.


The band opened with a rapid fire archeological excavation of their earliest sons beginning with I’m a Believer, Mary, Mary and Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow) as well as Valleri, Saturday’s Child and a rather restrained I Wanna Be Free. Their 1986 chestnut That Was Then, This is Now got things back on track with some deep in the pocket obscurities that sounded great - I Don’t Think You Know Me, All of Your Toys, and Someday in the Morning. Davy Jones knocked it out of the park with a rousing high energy performance of She Hangs Out and Peter Tork sang Nesmith’s What Am I Doing Hangin’ Round as if he owned it. In fact, Tork appeared to be in great shape. His voice has gotten better with age and he is able to sing with depth and nuance – pitch perfect! Dolenz is acknowledged as the best vocalist in the band. He is. His voice is almost operatic in its power and range. He effortlessly spans at least three octaves and he’s the most energetic yet composed performer onstage. He can swing, stalk, and skip across the stage like it was 1967. And so it was.



According to reliable sources (Peter Tork), Davy Jones was in charge of the stage production and the song list. Good thing. He had impeccable taste in balancing the hits with the more obscure tracks that true Monkee fans want to hear. He was able to segment the show in a way that would build the energy and excitement for the musicians and the crowd. The eight piece band proved to be crack musicians – drums, guitar, bass, sax, trumpet - and they all sang - whether in unison or harmony. The result was stunning. The sound was crisp and balanced never too hot or muffled. As the show progressed, Jones gradually found his voice and his sea legs. His energy shifted and he danced like a race horse first off the line. It was an inspiring performance that no one else could pull off with such an offhand charm - he was Jones-in’ like a prize fighter taking a hit, shaking it off and coming back for more.


Midway through the show the Monkees devoted an entire musical segment to Head, their film masterpiece that included Peter Tork’s psychedelic Can You Dig It and the rockin’ Do I Have to do this All Over Again as well as Goffin/King’s Porpoise Song (Theme From Head), As We Go along (Carol King/Toni Stern) and Nilsson’s Daddy’s Song. It is pure musical and theatrical magic that has earned its slight cradle of grace in the ensuing 43 years, affirmed by fans and critics alike.


They shifted gears to mixing up tracks from their session for Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. (the astrological signs of each band member) – Cuddly Toy, Words, Goin’ Down, Daydream Believer with songs from the lp Headquarters which is famously known as the first Lp where the Monkees had control in the studio. The results were stunning. Toward the end of the night Tork sang the wondrous Shades of Gray, his song about contemplation, values and multiple realities. He played piano AND the French Horn – a virtuoso performance. By the end of the show the Monkees exploded with an upscale Your Auntie Grizelda and rousing renditions of Last Train to Clarksville (a great Boyce & Hart anti-war song that’s not “in your face” about it), A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You, I’m Not Your Steeping Stone, and a sing-a-long crowd pleasing, hands in the air Daydream Believer. The encores were well considered Nesmith’s Listen To The Band, the bourgeois busting Pleasant Valley Sunday and a reprise of I’m A Believer with Dolenz, Tork and Jones goofin’ like modern day Marx Brothers chasing each other off the stage and running back to take just one more bow for their adoring fans


This is a tour-de-force that no other band could pull off with such aplomb and loving sensitivity to a bygone era of mini-skirts and music that mattered. The Monkees were able to reach down and deep into our Boomer spirit to open up a forgotten path to our youthful exuberance where we could divine such nonsense as peace and love and remember, just for a moment, that we really believed we could make it happen.

CODA: Although it all happened 25 years ago, in my mind it’s only yesterday. My son Ryan was only 5 years old when I gave him several of my old torn up and tattered Monkees albums. The dusty LPs sat on the floor in the corner of his bedroom for what seemed to be months. He didn’t seem very interested in the treasure I bestowed upon him… but gradually…quietly he began to pick up the LPs and look at the covers. When I played the LPs on my stereo, he listened silently, as if preoccupied with other thoughts. One day I went into his bedroom. He was sleeping but resting next to him were several sheets of paper with almost surrealistic images of the Monkees. Ryan had quietly, meticulously drawn his heroes. He was also copying their names in large erratic letters – DAVY, MIKE, PETER, MICKEY. One day I was getting ready for work, Ryan was outside on his swing. He was swinging furiously and shouting something intelligible. I walked outside to check in on him and all the hubbub. And then I stopped in my tracks… I could hear him singing clearly, exuberantly, at the top of his lungs…”Hey Hey We’re the Monkees.”


That summer I took the entire family to Castle Farms in Charlevoix to see the Monkees in Concert. It was a great show. Ryan sat next to me on those old rickety wood benches, entranced by the spectacle of the crowd, the stage and the uncommon opportunity to hear his favorite songs in an organic, living moment. The air sparkled with the energy of pulsating live music that resonated deeply within our five senses and beyond.


Ryan never forgot it. Neither did I.


Peace & Love
Bo White.

John Sinclair Sweet Man of Peace Live @ White’s 4/4/08

It’s hard to believe that John Sinclair is 66 years old, in relatively good health and aging gracefully. He is thinner now and appears centered and mindful and exudes a sense of acceptance - amazing after all those years of notorious substance abuse and social protest. Nowadays his schedule is heavy on personal appearances yet less hurried-up and demanding than those heady times in the sixties. This gig is just one of several before he returns to his expatriated home in Amsterdam later this month. Before the show I approached John as he sat quietly, getting into the zone for his performance. He looked tired, reflecting back to me my own tired mind. He told me of his love for Amsterdam and its freedoms, “The police don’t carry guns and nobody cares if you get high.”

We both shared our worries about the deterioration of civil liberties and personal freedom in the United States and the false patriotism that erupted in the aftermath of 9-11 tragedy. Fear prevails over confidence and reason. Where are we headed?

Could there possibly be other enlightened societies out there like Amsterdam. In 1628 Rene Decartes described Amsterdam as if it were today:

What other place in the world could you choose where all of life’s comforts and all novelties that one could want could be so easy to obtain as here and we could enjoy such a feeling of freedom?
- From the film Twenty To Life: The Life and Times of John Sinclair

A packed hours greeted John enthusiastically, some brought CDs to sign, others with books of poetry. One of my good buddies brought a copy of first MC5 album. He asked John to sign the censored inner cover that left out John’s diatribe about revolution and F***** in the streets and he wrote,
Where’s the liner notes?

Local poet/playwright Marc Beaudin opened the show and later sat mesmerized by Sinclair’s majestic yet humble presence. It was a night when the aspects were right - Aries was rising. Mars ruled and good vibrations reigned over us all as we shared a communal appreciation of blues, jazz and poetry and their organic link to peace and love.

Muddy Waters was born on April 4th, 1913 in Rolling Fork Mississippi and John wished him a loving Birthday tribute with two extended pieces; Louisiana Blues and Country Boy (also dedicated to his long-time guitarist and collaborator Jeff Baby Grand).

John’s dramatic reading of Louisiana Blues had a tinge of irony and just a shade of irreverence that seemed as self-directed as it was targeted to the natural inclination of his hero. A brief excerpt will give you an idea of the truth that lay behind the words:

I’m going down to Louisiana
Baby, behind the sun
I’m Goin’ down Louisiana
Honey, behind the sun
Well, you know I found out
My troubles just begun
-Muddy Waters

This is Muddy Waters speaking:
It’s a con job
on people’s heads,
you know,
gettin’ the fools
And these mojo doctors

Was drivin’ big cars
owned big homes
Cuz the peoples were brainwashed.
My grandmother & father
their mother and father,
was so brainwashed

they thought people could
point their finger at you
& make frogs and snakes
jump out of you
or make you bark
like a dog.

John’s poem Country Boy reveals how McKinley Morganfield became Muddy Waters. It seems that McKinley was in late infancy when he took to crawling around and playing in the mud like most kids do. At an early age we all seem to have a natural affinity to all that is wet and dirty...we are truly anchored to mother earth. But to the dismay and amusement of his folks young McKinley took it a baby step further and began eating it...joyfully, like he couldn’t get enough of it. Ah, a fond childhood memory - a natural curiosity, eating the inedible. Muddy gained his name and a butt-spankin’ at the same time.
Hallelujah!

Happy Birthday Muddy

John proved to me more AND less than his legend promises. He is no longer that sassy panther that stalked the urban jungle of Detroit or the socialist one-for-all and all-for-one communal trans-love god, rockin’ with the 5 and soul struttin’ with Mitch Ryder’s Detroit. No, that was in another lifetime. Now John is the blues scholar, a spoken word genius chronicling an almost forgotten yet heroic history of American roots music and its street savvy and knowing creators.

They ain’t nobody’s fool and this ain’t homogenized dreck for the masses. Curious it is that blues fans nowadays are primarily white or in my case off-white.

John’s Cross Road Blues gives us the skinny on a dark legend, left home at 16 with an older woman, sold his soul to the devil, died of poisoning at the hands of a jealous husband. But Robert “Tommy” Johnson left enough clues to convince us all about his revisionist stature as a blues icon.

The King Biscuit Flour commercial was a hoot…delivered by KFFA announcer Sonny Payne:

Pass the biscuits,
Cause it’s King Biscuit Time!
Light as air! White as snow!

Yes folks that’s
King Biscuit Flour, the perfect flour
For all your baking needs.

Mmm, makes me wanna scarf down some of that southern cornbread goodness…but not too much, you KNOW what it can do to that sweet cantilevered booty of yours.

The final piece “my buddy” was excerpted out of John’s evolving masterpiece opus Fattening Frogs For Snakes. It was conceptualized as a text to be set to music and it has evolved for over twenty years through a painstaking Herculean process writing and performing. This is John’s tribute to his friend Henry Normile who was murdered in Detroit in 1979 outside of his jazz club, Cobb’s Corner. Years after his death, Normile came to John in a vision and inspired this poem in which perfectly gorgeous angels are administering to his every earthly need on a bed of clouds - cocaine, pussy, and lobster, in that order.

John’s “historical” poems are a form of alternate rebellion as he tells us about an almost forgotten history of black culture and music, the genius artistry of black musicians that was the co-opted, pre-empted and homogenized by white mainstream culture. This is a history that isn’t taught in classrooms, though it should be – for the sake of preserving an honorable heritage, a noble identity.

It ain’t fair, John Sinclair
In the stir for breathing air
Won’t you care for John Sinclair?
Let him be, set him free
Let him be like you and me
- John Lennon

And so it is…