MLT Club Member David Herrick
MLT Club MemberForum Replies Created
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Well, I guess I could list my top four Monkees albums, since that’s the only group that I even HAVE four original albums by. I’ve included the title of a favorite track from each one.
1) Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.: “The Door into Summer”
2) The Birds, the Bees & the Monkees: “Tapioca Tundra”
3) Headquarters: “Shades of Gray”
4) Head (movie soundtrack): “As We Go Along”
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As far as just the lyrics, my favorite is It’s Alright. I’ve always been strongly individualistic, and that song encourages you to be yourself regardless of what appearances others expect you to uphold.
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I don’t drink, and it’s not for any high-minded reason. I just don’t care for the taste of alcohol. I’ve tried beer, wine, champagne, etc. in social settings where it was offered to me, but in each case the first sip was followed by a rancid aftertaste that I could do without.
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Aw, Jung, you didn’t even give us a chance to try to guess who was in that blurred-out photo.
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I like Grave’s Law, Jung. It reminds me of something I once heard at a talk given by Edward Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb. He was about 90 at the time, but he was talking about a concept he had developed for a nuclear power plant that was completely self-contained deep below the surface and inaccessible to humans, and had feedback mechanisms that would shut the whole thing down if anything went wrong. He commented, “The only way to make nuclear power foolproof is to deny access to the fools.”
I’m also a big fan of Cole’s Law. It’s basically shredded cabbage with vinegar and mayonnaise.
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I’ll be the first to agree with you, Graham. I’ve made no secret of my admiration for Judith on these forums.
Bruce Woodley was a decent composer, though. He wrote several songs for the group, and most notably co-wrote Red Rubber Ball with Paul Simon.
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Here’s a very memorable (to me) appearance of the Beach Boys on David Letterman’s show in 1994. The guy with the long hair is Al Jardine’s son.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11UvkPpj7pM&t=38s
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I just thought of a couple more with a solo at the end: Colour My World by Chicago, and Spinning Wheel by Blood, Sweat & Tears.
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Admittedly I’m probably the only one who knows this one, but the Monkees recorded this song in 1966, although it wasn’t released until 1987. According to a print source I have, “Paul Suter provides a fuzzed-out flute overdub for the instrumental break… consisting of both flute and organ layered together.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZZibB5azQ8
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Joe, I’ve heard most of Nez’s stuff, and I love the country-flavored songs he wrote during the declining period of the Monkees and continuing into the First National Band era. I’m not a big country music fan in general, but those tunes are great. Such simple and straightforward melodies that I can’t believe they didn’t already exist, and lyrics lightly sprinkled with evocative imagery.
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If I had been around in the 60’s, I’m sure I would have dismissed the Monkees out of hand as a crass attempt to cash in on Beatlemania. But coming to the party twenty years late I saw their TV show as a way to sample the works of some of the top songwriters of the era for free. And after I felt I had gotten to know the actors, I became interested in exploring the rest of their music.
Love ’em or hate ’em, you have to be impressed with the fact that they actually learned to play the songs they had been faking on the show, and played numerous concerts in front of thousands of people with no backing musicians. As Micky Dolenz has remarked, it’s like Leonard Nimoy actually becoming a Vulcan.
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Wow! Bonus points at the two-minute mark for playing the guitar while still gripping the flute.
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And of course there’s its sibling, the solo in Creeque Alley.
And another great one in Along Comes Mary by the Association.
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You’re right, Howard; I forgot about my own boundaries on the era!
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Howard, I was just thinking of Wild Thing, but I wanted to verify that it was a flute of some kind. It is, and it’s called an ocarina, which I was not familiar with:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocarina#/media/File:2016-01_Ocarina_front.jpg
