Micky Dolenz & The Holstein Shuffle

Much like that time or two I blogged about Boxcar Willy (here & here), I STILL have more to say about The Monkees.  And then I’ll stop.  Until I think of something else that I may have forgotten. 

Although Davy Jones was hands-down the undisputed favorite Monkee for most girls in the U.S. (and I agree that he was pretty darn dreamy, God rest his soul), I was more of a Mike Nesmith kinda gal.  I appreciated his underplayed and intelligent sense of humor, his Texas accent (which someone on the internet recently compared to Jim Parsons' accent, which is totally true...Parsons plays Sheldon Cooper on Big Bang Theory), and his bold choice of head covering.  Later I would be thankful to Mike Nesmith for coming up with the idea that was behind one of the greatest time-sucks of my life between August 1, 1981 until approximately August 19, 1987...MTV.  And I’d also be thankful for his sweet momma Bette Nesmith Graham for coming up with the utterly brilliant Liquid Paper, which would save me much time and money in the typing up of my early college papers (yes, I had to use an electric typewriter until I could afford my first computer).

Now, having said all that, my second favorite Monkee, the one who I could really relate to because he acted so darn spastic sometimes (much like myself) was Micky Dolenz.  His songs were my favorites.  If you watch Dolenz sing Randy Scouse Git (words which sounded cool, but held no meaning for me until I looked them up not long ago) in this episode, you will know what I mean.  The image of Dolenz scatting during this song very nearly makes me wet my pants every time I hear it.  Clearly, this is a guy who just doesn’t take himself very seriously and enjoys having some fun.  But he is sincerely a talented singer.  And when Dolenz sings the song Goin Down, well, I just want to get up and start dancing like he does in this live performance, doing that crazy jazz shuffle that I’ve only ever seen one other time in my life being danced by a man for whom I have great respect and admiration, a man with whom I would travel for a two-week anthropological-college-course-credit camping trip in the Four Corners area of the Southwest back in the early 90s...that man being the legendary JSU archaeology professor Dr. Harry Holstein who, when in his cups would dance a dance so jazzy, nay, so shuffly, all of his students (myself included) would forever dub it The Holstein Shuffle.  You can't ever undo seeing The Holstein Shuffle as performed by the Holsteinizer himself...

We’re Too Busy Singin’ to Put Anybody Down Part II

Now, although I first started listening to The Monkees when the Vietnam War was still going on, I was too young to make any connection between the fact that these guys were on TV singing and being sweetly goofy for us adoring girls when they could have or should have been soldiering in Vietnam.  No, all that mattered to me and my sister was that Davy Jones, Mike Nesmith, Peter Tork, and Micky Dolenz looked endearingly cute in their groovy outfits and sang songs that we could sing along with so that we could nurture our school-girl crushes on them.  We did not care about their opinions concerning the Vietnam War.  We had no opinion about the war ourselves.  But now, I want to know what their feelings were about the situation…

I’ve been nosing around the internet, trying to find anything connecting The Monkees to the Vietnam War, and I discovered some things that may or may not be true about the group, like the following:  1)  that Last Train to Clarksville (The Monkees’ first hit song), written by Boyce & Hart is about a young soldier who is being deployed from Fort Campbell army base in Clarksville, TN to Vietnam, AND that the refrain “Oh, no, no, no…Oh, no, no, no” is “a response to the Beatles famous ‘Yeah Yeah Yeah;’"  2) that in 1967, British-born Monkee Davy Jones was ordered to report for a medical examination that could have resulted in his being drafted into U.S. military service, but was excused because of his short stature and being underweight (NOT on the grounds that he was the sole supporter of his family, which is reported on several sites); 3) that Micky Dolenz was also drafted in 1967 and that due to being underweight (not because of Perthese disease, again, reported on numerous sites) he was excused; and 4) that the FBI mentioned The Monkees in two different files, one file for anti-war activities, the other file so redacted as to be unreadable.  

I have found few interviews in which the guys talk about where they stood politically or personally on the Vietnam War.  But in an interview that Davy Jones granted to Spinner, posted July 13, 2011, we can see a glimpse of Jones’ stance when the following question was asked:

“Spinner:  Even though 'Last Train to Clarksville' was secretly about Vietnam, the Monkees strayed from controversy. Why?

Jones:  The world was changing, and they were trying to hide the fact that it was. We were told never to talk about politics, never to talk about the war and never to talk about the marches. If I've got any regret whatsoever, it's that I didn't march to Washington with everybody when they did have the civil rights march.”

If what Davy Jones said is true, and we have no reason to doubt him, then we can assume that all four of the band members kept their opinions to themselves for the sake of their careers.  But at least one Monkee, Davy, wished that things had been different...that maybe if he had had more of a voice during a time when so much change was going on in the world and in America that he would not have had that regret.  Wonder if any of the other band members felt that way?

We’re Too Busy Singin’ to Put Anybody Down Part I

Allow me a moment to backtrack a bit and return to the month of May, 2012, a month during which I was working on and/or supporting several of our Gadsden Reads programs for Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried.  One of the programs scheduled for our series was on the music of the Vietnam Era, presented by friend/conductor of the Etowah Youth Orchestra/musician in local band Leftover Ego, Mike Gagliardo.  After I listened to Mike’s engaging presentation, I got in my car and headed back to the library, all the while listening to a compilation CD of The Monkees’ greatest hits.  I had obtained the disc a couple of weeks before to honor the recently-late Monkee Davy Jones, who had died back in February, and I had been listening to CD almost nonstop since it had arrived in the mail.  As I drove along, a realization crept over me, the realization that The Monkees as a band had been created during the Vietnam War, and consisted of four draft-age young men.

The Monkees were sort of America’s late 60s answer to The Beatles.  They literally existed as a commercial venture for a TV show.  They were a band whose members were initially not allowed to play the instruments that they pretended to play on screen; they were only allowed to act and sing songs that were written for them.  But they were musicians, all of them, accomplished musicians, and they wanted to play the music they were pretending to play.  So, they eventually fought for the right to write, play and supervisetheir own music, all with the studio producers’ backing.  And they would eventually tour with much success.

My sister and I were HUGE Monkees fans during the mid-1970s, which was after the show had already been cancelled (it ran from 1966-1968), but while it was still in rerun mode.  Mom allowed a thirty-minute episode of The Monkees, along with a Little Debbie Snack Cake and a glass of milk, to be part of our after-school treat.   Many an afternoon, Vicki and I would carefully pick our way past usually-good-natured-but-potentially-volatile-bus-ruffian Jeff Partee, shove ourselves through the sea of knees blocking the isle, and rush off of the school bus almost before it came to a full halt.  With ponchos flying and book bags spilling along the driveway, we’d dash into the house and plant ourselves in front of the TV, which mom already had turned to the proper channel so that we could catch the opening strains of the theme song, “Here we come, walking down the street.  We get funniest looks from everyone we meet…HEY, HEY, WE’RE THE MONKEES!  PEOPLE SAY WE MONKEE AROUND!  WE’RE TOO BUSY SINGIN’ TO PUT ANYBODY DOWN…”

In 1985, I visited London on a school trip.  I brought back with me a souvenir that I still cherish to this day (with its’ seven pounds, ninety-nine Virgin Records price tag still affixed to the front):  a prized double album of The Monkees Greatest Hits…vinyl.  Vinyl, I say!  Both records were on heavy rotation in my bedroom for months after I returned to the States, which only acted as a primer for the following year, 1986, when MTV began airing a marathon of back-to-back episodes of The Monkees old show in a series entitled Pleasant Valley Sunday.  Vicki and I once again found ourselves glued to the TV, and The Monkees found themselves caught up in a second wave of Monkeemania.  Yes, Mike’s knit cap, Davy’s British accent, Micky’s one-man-circus antics, and Peter’s sweet-but-stupid act were still appealing…