GOODBYE, DAVY JONES...

He with that unmistakable British accent, he who fell in love with a new girl in each Monkees' episode, he who sang Monkees' songs, including "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You", "Daydream Believer" (a #1 Monkees hit), and "Valleri". He who is no longer with us, due to a fatal heart attack when he was caring for his horses in Florida. He is, and was, Davy Jones, a former Theatre trouper, who went on to become a member of The Monkees. It's been said that Davy's Monkee-ness was already in place, and Micky, Peter and Mike were among the zillions of actors who applied for The Remaining Three Monkees. And so, it's 'Bye Davy'. Another voice of the past, gone just like that. Time waits for no one, right? It's always sad to learn that another musician has met The Reaper. Here's proof that time changes things...here's a fairly recent picture of Davy Jones; most stars have some resemblance to their younger selves as time goes on. The Elder Davy doesn't look anything like his Monkees character.
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Losing your favorite pop stars ain't easy. After all, it's we who buy the records/tapes/cd's of their music; we invite them into our homes where they entertain us; either that or oldies radio stations are casting about, sending signals to radios nationwide; on occasion, worldwide. So we get attached to them, and then they pass away and it's almost like losing a family member. So I was saddened to hear the news today, oh boy...it used to be that big rock stars overdosed, or their tour jet crashed, or that they were playing with guns which accidentally went off or whatever. Nowadays it's everyday mundane things like heart attacks, or back problems, or cancer. Heck, Glen Campbell has Alzheimer's Disease. I guess Even The Monkees have to face the Grim Reaper one day. We've lost two Beatles, after all. I don't know why, but lately I've been thinking we're going to be losing a bunch of rock stars sometime soon, and I'm alarmed I thought that, now that Davy's gone. Shudder.

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Back in the old flower-power days, Controversy Rocked The Monkees! OhMyGosh,The Monkees didn't play their own instruments! It's well-known that session musicians were heavily used on records by Herman's Hermits, The Byrds, Paul Revere and The Raiders, Love, The Mamas and The Papas, The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys, to name a few. Good songs are good songs no matter who plays them, as long as they play them well! This first Monkees' album was great fun; it was issued in 1966, a good mixture of ballads, pop, and (almost) hard rock. There was something for everybody here. For this album, Mike Nesmith (another Monkee) wrote a song titled "Papa Gene's Blues", but on the Record And Jacket, it was listed as "Papa Jean's Blues". It was changed later, but the "Papa Jean's" first-Monkee Albums are worth a bit more in terms of collectors' value.
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Another Monkees album, "More Of The Monkees", was issued in 1967, featuring "I'm A Believer", the one song that everyone on the planet knows by heart. Man, that record was big; it was on the charts almost forever, and is a shrewdly-crafted record; every word and note were letter-perfect; a cold, calculated piece of Pop Songwriting. But the Monkees wanted to do more on their records than Just Sing, and the producers would have none of that. They fought tooth and nail, and the contentious climate led to the dismissal of Don Kirshner, who was a big power-broker-type-producer in charge of Everything and Then Some. Kirshner went on to use a Cartoon group, The Archies. Cartoons can't rebel or put their fists through walls (Monkee Mike actually did that).
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The Monkees did play (almost) everything on their third album, "Headquarters" (1967), on which they sounded like an enthusiastically energetic Garage Band, and on "Pisces Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones LTD", their fourh album, they really sounded sharp; they brought in a few outside musicans but the proceedings were under the group's control. All of the Monkees wrote songs;  Davy was a part of all this, and beginning with the group's fourth album, "The Birds, The Bees and The Monkees",  Davy co-wrote quite a few of the group's songs, as did the rest of the group. So I'm sticking up for The Monkees here. They were a respectable band, being four strangers thrown together and expected to put out some kind of saleable musical product. I think they did quite well. Of course, The Monkees had access to many great songs by great songwriters, so that did set themselves a part from the competition, but still, it takes talent to pull that off, doing the songs well, sounding like a real rock group. So there's a concise history lesson for ya. But getting back to Davy Jones...
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Before the Monkees, it looks like Colpix Records was going to try and market Davy as some sort of Teen Idol in the mold of Bobby Rydell or Fabian. I haven't heard anything on this "David Jones" album; I'd place it as being released sometime in the early 1960's. I  remember reading in one of my Rock Books the fact that David Bowie had to change his name from "Jones", because he wanted to avoid confusion with the "David Jones" pictured here. If you collected Monkees' records, you might remember the bright red-and-white labels which Monkees were on (Colgems--Columbia Pictures/Screen Gems). The old Colpix label was, of course, Columbia Pictures' label.
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This is probably the hardest Monkees album to find; it's called "Changes" and features only Micky and Mike in a sort-of Last-Gasp manner. After Peter left, Mike, Micky and Davy recorded two albums. Mike left, the group still owed the record company one more album, so this is what happened. It came out in 1970, and featured lightweight pop tunes written mostly by outside writers (Micky wrote one song for this LP). People had seen 'four' Monkees, and after Peter left, there were 'three' Monkees. Then Mike left, and the Monkees are a two-man band here. Some people joked that if this kept up, pretty soon, this group would be called "The Monkee". And here is that Monkee...
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After The Monkees disbanded, Davy came out with this album in 1972, and "Rainy Jane" was the hit here. Some say this album consists of old Monkees session tapes, which is possible, but who knows for sure?. I've seen several Monkees' reunion concerts and as Davy aged, he was barely recognizable, but when you heard that voice, you knew it was him. Pre-Monkee, Davy was quite the all-around song and dance man; so much so that he once said, if someone opened the refrigerator door, he'd do "ten minutes" when the light came on. Of course, he played tambourine, maracas and other percussion instruments, and the back of one of their albums shows him playing acoustic guitar.
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Here's another artifact of Davy's post-Monkees-days; a rather misguided attempt at grafting sci-fi onto pop music; it was released in the mid-'70s and disappeared without a trace; this is not The Record That Set The World On Fire. You might recognize Boyce and Hart; as a team, they wrote a whole bunch of Monkees' songs, such as "Last Train To Clarksville", "(I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone", "Take A Giant Step", "Let's Dance On", "Valleri" and quite a few more. Davy wrote a charming tune for this LP, titled "You And I", a tune he later did for The Monkees' reunion LP, "JustUs", which came out in 1996 along with a one-hour TV special which was done in a style similar to the old Monkees episodes. Micky and Davy are the two persons on the left of this album cover.
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I think I have a good idea of what Generations before mine felt upon hearing of Rudolph Valentino's death, Glenn Miller's disappearance, of Frank Sinatra's death, and of course, Elvis left the building long ago. And now those of my generation (and younger than that) see some of their favorite performers disappearing into the haze. A Purple Haze, that is...

A SOCIETY WITHOUT MONEY? It Could Happen!

THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL: I've wondered about this topic once in a while. There's a whole lotta plastic cards out there these days, and I've often thought that one of these days, there might be no more Paper Money (and coins, for that matter), because it won't be needed. And the Debit card is mighty, mighty handy. I fell into a sort of rhythm the last couple of weeks, paying bills, buying stuff, going to restaurants and just living life. I've had no cash in my possession for the last two weeks now. Swipe the card here, swipe the card there, heck, swipe yer way through life, for that matter. Why I've not used the card for all my purchases before, I don't know. I'm not saying I'm going to keep doing this, but who knows?

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It's been said before, in forums much more educational than this one, that Money is the source of Germs. Look at that $10-dollar-bill you've got there. YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE IT'S BEEN! And does that make you feel kinda queasy when dealing with Paper Money? There's a new one for the compulsive-obsessors. Dinerophobia (fear of currency). Or, it could turn into a new mental crisis. Just think: Something Else to get uptight over. One day, you'll need actual money for something! Noooooo! I don't want to handle Dirty Money!  Soon, we'll have a world with no more tills! No more making change! No more coin slots in newspaper machines. No more dropped pennies to be found in Parking Lots or anywhere else. No more coins ending up in the washing machine! "Buddy, Can You Spare A Dime?" "Huh...? What's a dime?" (obviously that last one won't happen for decades, but ya never know...) Perhaps someone's grandkid will one day ask you, "gee, you actually remember when people used to use Real Money?"

                                                                                                                                                                                                           ? SHOULD WE HAVE SEEN THIS COMING? Whitney Houston, gone just like that? Whoa. There are a whole lot of female singers today, who over-emote, have no sense of dynamics (loud vs. soft), and who'll sing anything they're given, because after all, looks and image are most important these days, and all these female singers have to do is YELL, as long as it's in key. It's a HIT! Maybe that's not so important though, because modern technology has come up with a device that can raise or lower the singer's key without cutting into the amount of time the singer happens to hold that particular note. Instant Repair for being off-key! Okay, I'm not really that ignorant. It takes talent to hit the charts, and sometimes it takes more energy to keep it all together once Fame is Achieved.

I'll admit I didn't see this one coming. There were drugs. Parties. Relationship problems. And maybe she'd been out of the spotlight for so long that perhaps she was forgotten about, what with new chanteuses popping up weekly, perhaps daily. A whole lot of female singers in the plastic world of electro-pop should humble themselves and give thanks that Whitney Houston blazed the trail for them all. She had a great voice...sometimes too great (ouch, my ears), and pretty much sang dumb songs, one of which contained this over-the-top yearning: "I Wanna Dance With Someone Who Loves Me" Huh??? Are you KIDDING? How does one know in advance if the person "Loves" them enough to dance with them?  Of course, I may be reading this all wrong, but it's not like every couple who dances falls in love with each other! But I suppose society works differently these days. I'm a social dud, what can I say...lookin' for love on the Dance Floor? And how sad is that?

Back to Whitney's dance song, I used to play that record on the radio, and it was a good tune, in that it was upbeat, and it was easy to tell she was having a good time singing it even if the idea behind the lyrics fell out of the starting gate. Not all songwriters are geniuses, obviously. Her voice had power; she could out-siren a fire truck! Trouble is, on that song, she sang Full-Speed-Ahead without any concern for dynamics. (To keep listeners from thinking, "Gee, this is dumb song?") I keep going back to her first big song, "Savin' All My Love For You", and there she was, singin' and croonin' that song with results on a level comparable with the best of any female singer over the last few generations. She sings softly...then she asserts herself and bites into a phrase here and there...alternating her phrasing, loudly, softly, loudly, softly...thaaat's how it's done. She had pure, raw talent. It's always sad to see someone flame out too soon. She coulda been one of the greats. Maybe she already was.

Finally, I want to congratulate BLOGGER.COM  for having come up with an ultra-complicated photo tool that enables a person put a photo/photos into their blog. It doesn't take long to type one of these dumb entries; it's wrestling with the photos that takes up time here! I can easily double my posting time if I'm using photos in my blog. Come on, you "blogger-dot-com" people. Get with it! Make this thing easier to use! Is that too much to ask? You might've noticed all the copy in the first part of this post turned out "centered". Another blogger-dot-com screwup.

EX-BEATLES FLOODING THE MARKETPLACE!!!

Well, not exactly. But I've bought two new albums by ex-Beatles in the last two days. And due to my connections, I got one of them Before It Will Be Officially Released. Sometimes life is indeed good.

In my previous post (Yesterday! I'm flooding the market with my posts) (Well, not exactly), I generalized about Ringo Starr's new album, "2012". Not exactly the most imaginative title, but then again, this isn't exactly the most imaginative album ever released. As I stated Yesterday, Ringo's music isn't and has never been Atrocious. On "2012", some tracks rock fairly well, and he appears to be in good voice. The disc contains the old Buddy Holly tune, "Think It Over", Lonnie Donegan's old tune, "Rock Island Line", plus two songs he wrote and recorded previously, namely, "Wings" and "Step Lightly". So I knew four of these songs going in. Actually, I never paid much attention to "Wings" to begin with, and evidently not too many others did either. Here, it's fairly pleasant, but I'm going to have to go back to the original version on his 1976 album, "Ringo's Rotogravure" and compare the two, and I'll do just that when I have absolutely nothing else to do. It's safe to say it's a pleasant song that fits right in with the rest of the pleasant songs here. The entire CD is pleasant."Step Lightly" is also pleasant, although on his new version  the time signature has been modified to a plodding 4/4. The original version was in a soft-shoe 2/4, and Ringo doesn't do any tap-dancing here, like on the originaversion. It was 1973; Ringo recorded an album called "Ringo".  The "Ringo" album was fun; it had great songs, even a hard rock tune, plus contributions from John Lennon, George Harrison and Paul McCartney, among others. But that was then. This is now. Moving on...

I've listened to Ringo's "2012" exactly once, and it coasted right on by. It is a pleasant album with pleasant songs. Some rock fairly hard; others don't, but they are pleasant nonetheless. And I imagine the next time I play "2012", it will again be a pleasant listening. This album is so pleasant, that it'll be over long before you thought it would end, so you can play it again for another Pleasant listening experience. What's the point, you ask? Ringo's "2012" album doesn't provoke, it doesn't feed the imagination, doesn't give the listener much of anything to react to. It shows no artistic growth, and because there's nothing to really react to, either way, all I can say is, it's Pleasant. Ringo's supposed stock in trade is his semi-official campaign for "Peace and Love". Both pleasant things. And so an album about Pleasant Things will be Pleasant. Nothing less, nothing more. The disc comes with a little booklet in which he twice flashes the Peace Sign. Another photo shows him with his hands on his belt, highlighting the "Peace Sign" belt-buckle he's wearing. If "Peace" is so important to him, perhaps he should collaborate with Yoko Ono, since she's allegedly into that. Only, Yoko's music is more provoking than Ringo's will ever be. And I don't like her music. But it is provoking.

I don't trust Ringo's blissed-out "Peace and Love" image. It just hits me wrong and I'm not sure why. To someone with Millions of Dollars at his disposal, maybe it's a popular thing to flash the Peace Sign all around everywhere, because he thinks everyone can be just happy, happy, happy. Yeah, rrrright. I think my difficulty with Ringo began a couple of years back when he warned people in no uncertain terms to "quit sending me stuff to sign; I'm a busy star, I'm leading a Star's (Starr's?) life, SO DON'T SEND ME ANYTHING TO SIGN, YOU BLEEDIN' SOFT-HEADED FANS! Oh, and PEACE AND LOVE, Dammit!" Okay, he didn't say "Dammit" but you get the idea. He looks like an IDIOT waving the peace sign everywhere. Sometimes it's tragic to see your Stars (Starr's?) grow up and get old. Lastly, if you've heard One Ringo Album, you've heard 'em all. Why do I keep buyin' em? I don't know. I must be an idiot. I was once a fan. I'm not so sure now.

But 'all of the above' doesn't begin to address my biggest problem with Ringo's "2012" album. The Damn Thing has only 9 songs on it, and its Running Time  ISN'T EVEN A HALF-HOUR LONG!!! As a music buyer, I feel Cheated because of this. Not that Ringo's previous albums have been  overabundant in the Time department, but all of his earlier albums have contained at least 10 songs. In fact, his "Vertical Man" album (1998) had 13 songs clocking in at over 50 minutes! Out of the ten Short Songs on "2012", two are remakes of old songs, and the other two are remakes of songs he's already recorded. So out of the 9 songs here, only 5 of them are totally new material! I must ask, if you're not going to write a few more new numbers why not do a few more remakes of old songs to make the CD Longer? Y'know, to make the CD a Better Musical Value? "Y-NOT?" This is the equivalent of jumping into bed and finding your covers were short-sheeted. Not Even Thirty Minutes of music TOTAL. Heck, I've got LP's that contain 30 minutes on ONE SIDE! I paid 14 Bucks for Ringo's album. And I got short-sheeted.
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Paul McCartney's new CD will be released next week. I've already got a copy. The record guy I deal with has to be away for a few days next week, so he sold it to me today. Isn't life grand? I've been listening to big band swing, crooners and songbirds off and on for the last few years, and I've really developed an appreciation for a lot of that material. Otherwise, I'd tee-off on Paul the way I did on poor ol' Ringo. Paul's new album is titled "Kisses On The Bottom". When I first learned that a few weeks ago, all sorts of ugly pictures began invading my brain. But it's also a lyric line in the old standard, "I'm Going To Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter", so that placated me, at least for a while. Paul really did "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive" on this album, and he doesn't play one single solitary note on it. It was recorded in the Capitol Records studio where Frank Sinatra and Nat "King" Cole did their thing.

You may have heard Paul's Beatles softie-songs such as "Honey Pie", "When I'm 64", "Martha My Dear" and "Your Mother Should Know". John Lennon hated those tunes, labeling them as "Paul's Granny Music". Paul's always had this granny-music element within him. In the mid-70's, on the Wings album "Venus and Mars" is another soft-shooer called "You Gave Me The Answer"; "Baby's Request" is another Wings smoothie, from the "Back To The Egg" album. Paul said that he grew up listening to his Dad playing Piano, and got exposed to all of the old songs. But Paul said recently that his Dad inspired Beatles Music. Paul, that's kinda hard to swallow. I mean, didn't your Dad want you to sing, "She Loves You, Yes, Yes, Yes" and you told him that "Yeah Yeah Yeah" worked a lot better? (That actually did happen.)

I've also listened to this album exactly once. And my impression is, he sings these old songs fairly well. He certainly doesn't embarrass himself, and he's treated every song with the respect they deserve. And he does a great "It's Only A Paper Moon". Paul wrote two songs for this album, and I must say his vocals on those are more direct than on the old chestnuts he sings here; it sounds as if he is being Very Careful on some of the old standards, and that's a good thing, I suppose, although I wish he'd dug a little bit deeper into his own personal style, because unless that happens, then the songs are just re-makes by an anonymous somebody, and some of Paul's vocals on these old standards almost come off as "anonymous treatments". But Paul isn't waving Peace Signs in everyone's faces, so that's something positive. But more than anything, Paul takes real chances here, recording in an environment he's not used to, with all those great old musicians in back of him. Maybe he only wrote two songs on this LP, but he's stepping into Mighty Big Shoes here. I'll take an album of old standards any day over too-short albums filled with Generic Paint-by-the-numbers semi-rock-pop-whatever-it-is music. Oh, one more thing: Paul's new album clocks in at almost 50 minutes...over 20 minutes longer than Ringo's new disc.

Finally, Paul wasn't the first ex-Beatle to soft-shoe-shuffle in a recording studio; that honor goes to, you guessed it, Ringo! His first solo album from 1970 was titled, "Sentimental Journey" on which he warbles nothing but Old Standards. And that LP contains more music than his new CD! Finally, while writing this diatribe, I was listening to an Amy Winehouse CD. It's full of provoking music sung in a provoking way, totally unlike Ringo's new CD.

Ya Gotta Know Something To Be A Know-It-All...

ALTERNATE TITLE: "...but I'm not gonna let that stop me from posting..."
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The more I know, it seems the Less I know. Although in looking at the big picture, it seems that everything just seems to repeat itself. That doesn't mean that I actually know what's going on, but when what "goes around" comes around", I can look back and think, "I should have seen this coming", after which I slap myself on the back of the head in best Mark Harmon "NCIS" style. "WHACK!!!" "OOF!" That said, here goes another posting...
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REPUBLICAN PARTY: IS THIS THE BEST THEY'VE GOT? Mitt Romney, the Eternal Millionaire (if not Billionaire) and Newt Gingrich, that philandering so-and-so who couldn't wait until one of his sick ex-wives was dead before dating someone else, are the GOP Elephant's front-runners. And the Newt (not to be confused with the Gecko) is losing some of his party faithful cos he couldn't quit his low-down ways. But this information didn't really be dirty-laundried because most people don't really like him anyway. Meantime, Romney makes more in a week than lots of people make in a year. Well, good. If he eventually is elected to the Oval Office, he'll be able to keep his mind on his work, since he doesn't have to worry about running out of money anytime soon.
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IT'S TIME TO DONATE TO THE CAMPAIGN ONCE AGAIN: No, not the Political Campaign. The campaign to insure that Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr don't become destitute anytime soon. Paul McCartney (who might just have more $$$ than Mitt Romney) and Ringo Starr (who really needs to stop flipping the Peace Sign every waking moment) are coming out with new albums. Paul's is full of old jazz-vocal standards. He's written a couple of new songs for that album, but the whole thing is chock-full of 1940's type music. Just the thing for the listener who's always wondered what an ex-Beatle would sound like if he stepped into Frank Sinatra's shoes. Ringo's new album is gonna be another collection of new mundane minor songs, plus some cover versions of '50s music. It will be unremarkable. Ringo really has not cut a great record since 1973 (The "Ringo" album with "Photograph", "You're Sixteen" and "Oh My My" (Whoa, 3 hit singles!)

Why am I so sure his new album will be a dud? Because I've purchased All of His Music over the years since the Beatles' breakup, and over the years, it's all been unremarkable. Not Atrocious by any means. But unremarkable. One of his records wasn't released at all in the USA...the record company didn't like it. That album, "Old Wave" (which came out in the early '80s, I think) was released Only in Canada. It too, is, well, unremarkable. Color-by-numbers music. Count the song in, insert words in the appropriate places, sing the chorus, allow for an instrumental, then one more verse and chorus and yer done. As Queen once sang, "all we hear is...Radio Ga-Ga...Radio Boo-Boo...Radio Blah-Blah..." (Radio Ca-Ca, perhaps?)...except this music will never get anywhere close to the radio.
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FROM DECREPID TO HALF-WAY PASSABLE: Sometimes a person finds him/herself in the situation where anything he/she does is an improvement over what was done before. That's the situation I was in. I recently bought, for just over a hundred bucks, a stereo copy the Beatles' famous (infamous?) "Butcher Cover" that their record company covered up in haste so many years ago when the album was first released in 1966. When I bought it, here's what I got:
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Rough Indeed. And yes, I saw this before I bought it. But rather than seeing things as they are and asking 'why'; I decided to see the possibilities and ask 'why not'. (No, I'm not running for office.) The previous owner tried to peel the "Trunk" cover off, and in doing so, tore huge bits off the cover, totally eradicating John and obscuring Paul's pretty face. But the wickedly-smiling George and the out-of-it Ringo were left mostly intact. I stuck the cover in a plastic sleeve and marked out the areas in the worst disrepair. For a picture of what was used to cover up this cover, scroll down to the end of the blog...
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I've got a Mono "Butcher Cover" that's in good shape. The only difference between Mono and Stereo is, the Mono doesn't have the gray 'stereo bar' at the top. Stereo Butcher Covers are also worth up to twice as much as a Mono covers.  Otherwise, all images are the same size. So...off to the print shop I went, having color copies made of my good cover, to overlay the bad portions of the shot-to-hell cover. The color copier somehow added a bluish tint to the background, so it wasn't an exact match, but as Stan Freberg once said, "it's close enough for jazz"...
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Here's the result I ended up with. John has been brought back to life, Paul's face has been restored, and I drew in the piece of meat held in place under Ringo's left armpit. I also drew in his left knee with a marker. It became obvious that I wasn't going to have a perfect color match, so I colored in the background above the group with a gray "Sharpie" marker. But then I had a metallic finish to deal with. So I sprayed some Elmer's Glue onto the finish, which eliminated the reflection. I filled in the gray bar at top with a black Bic Pen. and overall I'm happy with the way things turned out. There's almost 50% of the original cover showing through, so I can prove to anyone that this is an Original Cover. I'm also hoping I enhanced its value a bit. As far as the end result goes, I've seen covers in worse condition going for more than the $110 I paid for this one. Unblemished Stereo Butcher Covers are Priced Out Of This World, but at least I have a "stereo butcher", ha ha ha ha Ha Ha Ha HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAA!!!
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Here's the Mono Butcher-Peel that I bought almost a decade ago. The "Trunk" cover was pasted over the Butcher Cover,  This is the original "Trunk" cover that was laid over this "Butcher" cover. The "Trunk" cover continued to be issued long after the "Butcher" covers had all been covered up. Ringo's black shirt in the Butcher photo can be seen through the white area at the left of the "Trunk" cover when laid on top of the "Butcher".  The cover I bought had some water damage at the bottom center; I paid $1,000 for it. Not the kind of purchase one makes every day. Notice at the top of this Mono butcher-peel that there is no gray bar, indicating "Stereo" at the top. Judging from the care and patience it takes to peel a Trunk Cover off the Butcher cover, the only advice I can give is "don't try this at home". The copy I have was too far-gone to save totally, so I overlaid new images on it instead and saved at least some of the original images.
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So what goes around comes around. You might recall I mentioned Ultra-Rich Mitt Romney earlier in this post. He can buy all the Butcher Covers he wants. As a voter, I can be bought. Mitt, send me a pristine Stereo Beatles-Butcher cover and I'll vote for ya...