John Ware, Drummer of The First National Band reviews the 2013 Tour

The reviews about the 2013 Tour keep pouring in.  Mostly just random fan ravings, excited bubbles about which songs they put in ("Door Into Summer") and which they took out ("Daily Nightly").  The Boys are full of energy and as great as ever, etc, etc...

So when I happen across a genuine and completely unique take on a concert, I pay attention.  And so should you. Not just because it is from a contemporary of The Boys.  Or because he's a musician.  Or even that he's played with Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris and the Hot Band (which included member's of Elvis' band, TCB).  Or even because he's from Nez's First National Band.  Or because he's really interesting, as this rare interview from WheresThatSoundComingFrom .  To help you get situated, there's also connections to Red Rhodes (Nez's Pedal Steel Player) and the Flying Burrito Brothers, who famously scoffed at the former Monkee and his Alt-Country pet-project. Just because you have 2 former Byrds, doesn't mean you should throw stones at glass houses . . . (or whatever metaphor you'd like to use)

Read John Ware's take on things: a positive review for an entirely different set of reasons.  You don't have to be a fanatic from the '60's craze, or just another appreciative musician.  You just have to GET IT.  He got it.

From John Ware's Facebook post, 8/6/13, 5pm Eastern Time:

OK...we all know the truth. It was a goddamn television show. It stole it's look from Richard Lester's HARD DAY'S NIGHT...wholesale. Three of the four principals were actors with modest skills beyond clowning and frowning, and Michael Nesmith didn't get the gig because he could write memorable songs. He got it because he was funny and showed up at auditions wearing a $2 knit watch cap...a gimmick. It "HAPPENED" because the time was right. The POP music business has always been a squirrelly bitch. The public knows what it likes, and it quite often likes garbage. The public especially likes garbage fed to them regularly on a TV screen, and THE MONKEES were a banquet for the masses. I barely knew they existed. I was in college, and television was not my drug. I also didn't listen to much pop music radio. I had my own recorded stash, and I DID inhale. Mainly I blissed on a band from "back home." It was the backing band for a white devil named Ronnie Hawkins. My college classmates HATED the shit I had - not that any of them were glued to pop radio. I discovered Mike Nesmith quite circuitously. I got a job right out of grad school playing drums for the Stone Poneys (a logical progression if ever one were offered), and Mike wrote Linda Ronstadt's hit single, DIFFERENT DRUM. He was "around" the band, because we were working his material. Over a period of months Mike and I became friends, and (this is well documented) we eventually made music TOGETHER. I had nothing to do with the MONKEE-shines. I certainly became aware of his part of the TV boy band, but it wasn't the music THEY promoted. It was the music that HE wrote. I missed what had been produced to capitalize on the synthetic fame of the group, and, by that, I mean I missed the complexity of the songs "they sang." It's easy to dismiss the MONKEES and yet very hard to deny that the records (the radio assault) were exceedingly well crafted fare. That fact was hammered home to me at the Monday night show the "boys" presented at the Paramount Theatre in Denver. It was a sensory BLAST in keeping with the TV heritage. The entire "concert" was accompanied by a non-stop jumbo screen montage (sometimes synched to the show and sometimes NOT), and the 100 running minutes was also non-stop. There was no room for daddy...no coming up for air in the backseat of my Chevy. Those guys WORKED HARD FOR THEIR MONEY, and, whether one likes the tunes or no, it was a recitation of perfectly sculpted POP MATERIAL. I'm here to say there were no ONE/FOUR/FIVE songs on the playlist, and, if you have to look that up, do so now. Onstage the players looked like a gathering at a neighborhood bake sale, including the moms and your strange uncle, Bob. They may have looked bizarre, but the ensemble played a tight, musical, exuberant (bet you're surprised by THAT one), and memorable tunestack that deserves a STANDING O.

Modern Folk Quartet

During the Monkees Convention, we got to hear about one of those seminal moments that help you become what you are.  It was a casual question that got me intrigued.

Henry Diltz (amazing Rock Photographer) was asked how he got into the business.  He said he was touring with a band, waiting for their Phil Spector hit to be released.  Somewhere in Michigan, they had stopped by a thrift store and there was a table with a few old cameras.  He picked it up and started taking shots of the band clowning around.   When they had the film developed, it turned out it was "slide film", and so came back not as photographs, but as slides for a projector.  Suddenly, as these casual moments were projected on the wall, larger than life size, he saw a new kind of vision.

He was on tour with the Modern Folk Quartet, waiting for Phil Spector to release the song that was gonna make them all famous. He was the hotshot producer famous (then) for the Wall of Sound. It wasn't actually released until 1991! Called "This Could Be The Night", written by Spector and Harry Nilsson it was the hit that never was.  The clip shows it as the theme song for the film, "The Big TNT Show", which was a sequel to "The T.A.M.I. Show" (1964) both were concert footage films.  In the days before Youtube, a song needed to be released as a "Single" for it to count on the charts.

MFQ had originally gotten together in Honolulu around 1962, and worked with an amazing number of future legends before their breakup in 1966 (although they still get together periodically).  They worked with the Herb Cohen, the agent for Frank Zappa and Tim Buckley.  And Jim Dickson, the guy who would later produce the Byrds.  They did an (uncredited) song in the movie, "Palm Springs Weekend" (1963) with Connie Stevens & Troy Donahue.  It captures the "Traditional Folk" scene, as it grew out of the coffeehouses.  They're in a casino, doing the "Ox Driver's Song"  (WARNING!!  The sync is terrible, almost comical, I offer it for historical purposes.  If someone finds something better, let me know!)  Diltz is singing lead and playing banjo.  They are all in suits, because that's what nice young performers wore in those days.  And how the Beatles first appeared.

That guy in the glasses would go on to shoot Woodstock, the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, CSNY and most of Rock for the rest of his life.  Most of the extensive list can be found at his gallery, Morrison Hotel.

Chip Douglas had an interesting path, starting in a group called the Wilcox Three, which was modeled after the Kingston Trio.  After MFQ he joined the short lived Gene Clark Group, which featured the titular ex-Byrd, and a former member of the Grass Roots, Joel Larson.  The final member rounds out the earthy 60's band names, Bill Rinehart, formerly of The Leaves.

Douglas was essentially stolen from the Turtles (yes, the "Happy Together" Turtles) by Mike Nesmith who heard him at Hollywood's Whiskey A Go-Go.  He became the Monkees producer, a major shift in style from Don Kirshner.

Jerry Yester would join the Lovin' Spoonful and then go on to produce The Association, Tim Buckley and Tom Waits.  He married Judy Henske, who is a singer in her own right, and also rumored to be the prototype of Annie Hall (1977 film).

Cyrus Faryar was another interesting member, who was a friend of Dave Guard (of the Kingston Trio) and was asked to replace him after he left the group.  The guy who eventually ended up replacing him was John Stewart, the guy who wrote "Daydream Believer".  He also did not join the group which became the Byrds, although he was asked by Roger McGuinn.

There was a lot of influence on the Monkee music catalogue.  "Riu Chiu" was recorded on their 1964 album called "Changes" (does that sound familiar to anyone?  Isn't what the Monkees used for an album name after Peter left?)  If you listen to the arrangement, it sounds hauntingly familiar.  One of my favorite songs recorded by Peter Tork is "Come On In" (only available on a later Monkee Missing Links Album)  written by Jo Mapes.  MFQ did it in a much more uptempo version on Shindig (1965).  Additionally, MFQ also recorded a version of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Bells", set to music by Phil Ochs.

MFQ still performs together on occasion, and Diltz still performs "This Could Be the Night", as he did (fabulously) at the Monkees convention, backed by the fun cover band, The Characters.

It just goes to show you, that if this is NOT the night or the hit you've been waiting for, there may be many more excellent surprises for you along the way.