A Talk With Micky Dolenz

Monkees enthusiasts can likely recall a scene from the episode of the show called "The Monstrous Monkee Mash." While Mike Nesmith, Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork are searching for Davy Jones in a haunted house, Peter disappears. The realization inspires Mike and Micky to break the fourth wall, yelling at the camera in unison, "HE'S GONE!" (It was a recurring joke on the show.)

"Maybe we make it a duet," Micky asks Mike. "If you leave, I'll be a single."

Without missing a beat, Mike imitates the opening thump of their theme song, and Micky sings in a mock-hysterical voice, "Here I come/walking down the street/I get the funniest looks from/ all the people I meet/ Hey, hey, I'm a Monkee!" 

The sequence of that hilarious scene probably unfolds quicker than it takes to read about it. But it's become strangely true. With the passing of Mike Nesmith in late December 2021, Micky Dolenz is now the last surviving member of  the Monkees. (Davy died in 2012; Peter in 2019.) What started as a television show that brought the zeitgeist of  A Hard Day's Night into the living rooms of Middle America became much more than that. Some top shelf composers and the Wrecking Crew session players of Los Angeles helped to launch these four disparate lads into pop stardom. (They proved they could play the instruments and take control of the studio process along the way, but that's another story.) Most of the band's biggest singles had Micky Dolenz singing lead. And damn, could that kid sing! 

At 79, he shows no sign of slowing down. Though he could rest on some extremely catchy laurels, Dolenz has continued to be a productive performer with a scope that goes beyond his heyday. 

Before his guitar-slinging pal passed away, Micky recorded Dolenz Sings Nesmith, an homage to his longtime pal which took some deep cut Monkees tunes as well as some of his solo material and, with the help of Christian Nesmith (Mike's son), helped to reimagine them in some bold new arrangements. (Incidentally, the original inspiration for the album came from Nilsson Sings Newman, in which singer Harry paid tribute songwriting singer pal Randy.)

Earlier this year, Micky - who had previously done a full-length salute to Carole King -  paid tribute again, this time to a band that took some jangly inspiration from him years before. Dolenz Sings REM might only be an EP, but it proves that Micky still pays attention to the modern cats. There's something exhilarating about hearing him sing "Radio Free Europe." Even those of us who might not be too keen on the original "Shiny Happy People" can be won over by his version (thanks in part to the soaring back-up singing of Micky's sister Coco.) With a front cover shot depicting our hero in a car in front of Wuxtry Records (the Athens, GA record store where REM members Michael Stipe and Peter Buck first met), it betrays a genuine love and hat tip to the band. (Hopefully a sequel will follow someday.) 

Throughout all of these modern projects, one fact becomes clear: Micky still has a strong set of pipes. When he comes to South Park Amphitheatre this Friday, August 2, the performance has been titled "Micky Dolenz: Songs and Stories." No mere nostalgia trip for the almost octogenarian, he calls the evening "a flat-out rock concert." 

Micky and I spoke by phone for 20 minutes about a week ago. For a fellow of his stature and a fellow of my Monkees devotion, that time is a mere drop in the bucket, but any time with this charming guy is worth it. Plus having spoken with each Monkee except Davy Jones, the opportunity was not something I wanted to miss. 

When we finally got past some phone issues, I wanted to avoid the tired stories that we all know and kept it to a few leading questions. Micky proved himself to be plenty loquacious, sharp as a tack and a bit humble to boot. He started off talking about his connection to Pittsburgh from the start of his performance career. 

Micky: Before we start, I’ve got a little bit of trivia for you. 

Lay it on me.  

Guess where the first public performance I ever had was as a singer. And I was also playing guitar. It was in 1955. I was 10 or 11 years old. It was my first performance onstage in front on an audience singing a song and playing a guitar.

I think I remember you telling this once at a concert. 

Uh oh!

Was it at Kennywood Park?

Yes it was!

Did it involve an elephant?

I was on a promo press junket for this series that I was doing called Circus Boy. I had a pet elephant called Bimbo. We came out, cross country by train because, obviously, they couldn’t put the elephant on a plane! That was my pet elephant in the show, We were on a press junket doing personal appearances: Kennywood Park; in Chicago there was something, I think the Pump Room. In New York, Grand Central Station. And then in New York, up onstage with the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall.
But that was my first performance. And I have it on tape! I came out with a little local three-piece band and sang a few songs. Then the elephant came out and did a bunch of tricks with the elephant’s trainer, of course. Basically, in my first performance as a professional, I opened for an elephant! I love telling that story.
I love Pittsburgh. I think it’s so beautiful. All those beautiful houses overlooking the rivers. Fantastic!

I also have little bit of Pittsburgh trivia related to you. My uncle used to be in radio here and he went out to California in the '60s and became a bit-part actor and was on two episodes of

The Monkees.

Wow! What was his name?

Rege Cordic. He was the Town Cryer in [the episode] A Fairy Tale and the doctor in the Christmas episode.

[Sounding genuinely excited] Wow, how cool! Is he still with us?

No, he passed about 20 years ago. But he had a really rich baritone voice. And that actually leads into what I wanted to ask you too. How do you preserve your vocal pipes after all these years?

Funny you should bring that up. I’ll tell you what I’ve done it over the years. But first I have to tell you, I had a bit of laryngitis for four months. I still have a little bit of a croak, nothing as bad as it was. But I had to cancel a couple of shows, it got so bad. We tried to figure out what it was. My EMT specializes in voice. It’s been a real challenge for me. I don’t know where it came from. I don’t know why. It just hit me. I couldn’t talk, I certainly couldn’t sing. For months it’s been going on. I just saw him again yesterday and it was a lot better. I was focusing on the shows this weekend. And it’s going to be fine. They figured it out and it’s gotten incredibly better.
I’ve been asked this question a few times. You know your vocal chords are muscles, right? So if you think of it almost like a sport. In my case, my mother and father were both singers, actors and performers. So part of it is inherited. Part of it is the luck of the draw, inheriting the right musculatures, as we call it. Then of course there’s the training. If they hadn’t been in the business, I might never have utilized my voice. But they were, so over the years, as a child I learned to sing very young. My mom taught my sister and I how to sing. How to sing harmonies. And then, it’s a little bit nature and a little bit nature.
During the Monkees, boy, I was singing a lot. I never had a coach. But I had people, and a bit of advice here and there. I got very, very lucky after the Monkees. Well - luck or design. I never ended up going through that period, post-Monkees, in the '70s and '80s, going around to sing in smoky, dingy nightclubs with no monitors. That wiped out a lot of people, as you can imagine.

I moved to England and I didn’t sing a note, hardly, for 10 to 12 years. I was directing and producing television and movies. I went through, again, a bit of the luck of the draw. It was by design. I wanted to be a director at the time, after the Monkees. So I missed that 10 or 15 years where all of my contemporaries were singing in smoky [bars]. It was horrible in clubs, in concert, everywhere. We didn’t have monitors. Not in those early, early days. You were singing over the band. and you only heard yourself bouncing off the back wall. So it was brutal on people’s voices. It also kind of saved my tubes, as it were, for 10 or 12 years. 

The biggest thing that happened, I would say – I don’t know how much you want me to go into this – was when I got a Broadway musical. It was Aida, the Elton John/Tim Rice musical. I was going to do it on the national tour and then on Broadway for about a year. And my manager said, “You should really take some vocal lessons.” And I said, “What are you talking about? I’ve been singing for 30 years!” And she said, “Trust me. Eight shows a week on Broadway, doing those kind of songs.” I said alright. And I’m so glad I did. 

It wasn’t about learning to sing, or reading music. It was about breathing. It had to do with how you save your vocal chords by breathing, and breathing exercises. And by warming up. That’s the next thing. I warm up before a show. I warm up before a tour. I warm up every day, doing exercises. Like you would for a sport. You wouldn’t go out and play Wimbledon without having warmed up or played a game in weeks.

Anyhow, sorry to ramble on.

That’s okay. The only other person I’ve asked about their voice is Johnny Mathis. And you gave a much more nuanced answer than him.

Johnny Mathis, one of my favorites, ever. He’s the first album I ever bought as a kid. I told him that when I met him.

I don’t know if this is totally accurate but I read that before the Monkees, you had considered going to college for architecture.

I did go. Oh yeah. I was in college, studying to be an architect. I had a couple of semesters under my belt. I was doing little day jobs, because I had done that series [Circus Boy], in the summer, on school break. Mainly just to make money. And I would get little bit parts. There was a show called Mr. Novak. Peyton Place. You know, guest star things.
My plan was to be an architect. And if I couldn’t make it as an architect, I could fall back on show business! I’m serious. 

I was in school when the Monkees audition came along. Obviously I took a couple of days, I went to the audition, then there were mini-auditions. I would just take off a day here and there to do the auditions. When my agent said, “You’ve got the pilot,"  I didn’t even quit school because I knew - back then to this day - most pilots don’t sell. I didn’t even quit school. I took a week off to film the pilot and then I went back to school! Then when we got the order for the first 26, that’s when I quit school.

Do you ever get existential and think about where we’d all be if you’d blown off that audition?

Oh boy. [Laughs] A lot. Or if they had chosen not to cast me. But I wouldn’t have blown off the audition. Not blown it off, my agent would have said you’ve got an audition for a pilot. I was up for three different pilots that year, all music shows. Because [music] was in the air. Yeah, I often wonder, or if they had chosen to go with someone else. Which would’ve happened, of course.

At what point did you realize, wow this thing is really freaking huge?

Yesterday! (Laughs) No, it constantly amazes me. A number of times in my life, like when I came back from England. It happened to be around the time of the MTV thing [in 1986, when the station reran the original episodes, eventually leading to a reunion tour]. That was a huge surprise.
No, I remember specifically when that [first] happened. It was in December of ’66. The show went on the air in September. We were in production, 24-7: filming the show eight to ten hours a day. Then, since I was doing most of the lead singing on the songs, I would have to go into the studio until midnight and record [songs]. Back then, of course, without social media and all that other stuff, you really didn’t get a sense of anything. There weren’t fans. There wasn’t paparazzi. There wasn’t anything like that. Because they couldn’t find you if they wanted to, people would try but…
So that Christmas came along and we got a hiatus from filming the show. I was planning to go up to the family home up in San Jose for Christmas. So I made my Christmas shopping list and I jumped into my car and I drove to the neighborhood mall. I was born and raised in LA, so I drove to neighborhood mail.
I just got out of my car to go in and get all my Christmas presents for the family. So I go through the big glass doors at the mall. All of a sudden a bunch people start running at me. I thought it was a fire. So I’m holding the doors opening going, “Don’t run! Don’t run! Don’t panic. Walk carefully!” And then all of a sudden, I realize, “Shit, they’re running at me!” And I was pissed off because I couldn’t do my shopping. I had to send one of the roadies to do my friggin’ shopping!
And that’s when I went, “Oh shit, something’s going on here.”

It looks like I’m at the 20-minute point with you and that’s my limit.

Only because there’s another [interview call] coming up. Do you want to ask about the show? 

Yes. I want to ask about the set list for the show. What can we expect?

What you can expect is of course, all the big Monkee hits. That goes without saying. I always do them in their entirety because I know a lot of people and a lot of the fans there may not be familiar with all the other Monkees stuff, I know that they want those big hits. So I made a vow years ago that I would make sure that everybody got those hits. But then I discovered over the years of playing, as long as they know they’re going to get the hits, you can go off and do different things. You can do deep album cuts, which I have, or you can even do non-Monkees material because they know they’re going to get those hits.

In this latest iteration, it again still all the big hits, with a nice seven-piece band. Then not long ago, I started telling stories. I would ask the audience, do you want to hear stories. And they were like, “YEAH!” So I start telling stories about the day and about the Monkees and about my experiences and specifically about people I knew. Like specifically, I tell a story about Stephen Stills. I’m not going to tell the story now because you have to come to the show! (Laughs) And then sing a particular song. I tell a story about Jimi Hendrix opening for the Monkees. A lot of people don’t know that. Then I sing an appropriate song. And other examples: I tell about meeting the Beatles and going to Abbey Road Studios when they were recording Sgt. Pepper. And I sing a song. I remember them recording when I was there. And people seem to love it.

I’m really looking forward to it.

I hope you can come.

 
Oh, hell yeah, man! Me and some friends of mine from work are already looking forward to it.

Friday, August 2. 7:30 pm. South Park Amphitheater, 100 Farmshow Rd., South Park Twp, PA 15129

CD Review: Jason Stein/Marilyn Crispell/Damon Smith/Adam Shead - spi-ralling horn

Jason Stein/Marilyn Crispell/ Damon Smith/ Adam Shead

spi-ralling horn

(Balance Point Acoustics/ Irritable Mystic) irritablemysticrecords.bandcamp.com/album/spi-raling-horn

In person, the trio of Jason Stein (bass clarinet), Damon Smith (bass) and Adam Shead (drums) combine integrated three-way free improvisation with somewhat theatrical, surreal elements. Their visit to town in 2022  included moments when Smith had several bows wedged between the strings of his instrument; Shead dismantled his drum it, leaving pieces spread around the performance space, with electric toothbrushes vibrating inside the shells. Their Hum CD (2023) captured the energy of those trio performances.

spi-ralling horn ups the ante a bit, with the great pianist Marilyn Crispell joining the trio in the studio. Whereas Hum features two 20-plus minute performances, this session bands a 63-minute set into seven tracks. Each one has distinct qualities, yet the whole album is best appreciated in one sitting, since it provides a deep look at the imaginations of these players and how they work together.

Maybe it's pure coincidence, but Crispell waits 50 seconds to join Stein, Smith and Shead on "a song paid by singing." She begins tentatively, but fits right in immediately, straddling the space between the bass clarinet's lengthy threads of melody - which ran across the instrument's whole range - and the ever-shifting rhythm section.

In that opening piece and the following "a universe of otherwise," the quartet moves on pure energy. Crispell, whose more recent albums as a leader have been more delicate than her work with Anthony Braxton or her own trios in the '90s, can still get aggressive and she moves in waves full of dynamics. As Stein winds down on this track, without fully stopping, some noises float to the surface, keeping the source (Smith's bows, Shead's percussives?) a secret that still enthralls.

The group could probably could have kept moving freely and maintained focus but things branch off in the next few tracks. "the ground laid open" begins with piano and bass clarinet in a duet (almost playing counterpoint in a few moments) before turning the focus to Smith and Shead. "saturant moon water" is a hypnotic tone poem with cascades of quiet chords, bowed harmonics and sustained high pitches. From there, the group shows how delicate they can get without sacrificing depth in "so close it cut my ribs," a title that contradicts the ballad-like pedal point movement of the piece. 

If Smith's bass was overshadowed during the early part of the album, he opens "a rusted bell's clank" out front of Shead's hi-hat, making his whole instrument resonate deeply without resorting to any extended techniques, not even a bow. Brevity is good but he leaves us wanting more. Free improvisation can often end ambiguously but the album's last track does with definitive exclamation points. After Crispell joins Shead for a brief duet that recalls the best moments of Cecil Taylor and Andrew Cyrille, the drummer brings the set to a climax with some loud snare crashes, signalling that they've reached an ideal spot in the performance. That kind of thunder brings an audience to their feet.

The meeting of Crispell and the Stein/Smith/Shead trio came together due to the pianist and bassist's mutual admiration of visual artist Cy Twombly. The album's cover art, and presumably the track titles, originate from the artist's work. 

CD Review: Travis Reuter - Quintet Music

Travis Reuter
Quintet Music (self-released)

www.travisreuter.com or travisreuter.bandcamp.com/album/quintet-music

Birds of Fire was the first Mahavishnu Orchestra album I ever heard. Two-thirds of the way through, I turned it off. That was close to two decades ago, so details are a little fuzzy. But I think I gave up around "Sanctuary" in large part because it felt like four out of the five musicians were playing the equivalent of 1-2, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3, 1-2-3-4-5, 1-2-3, 1-2 in tandem and it just felt too rigid. And hyper.  John McLaughlin fans will cut me some slack, I hope. My assessment is more metaphorical than literal. Besides I'm telling you that story to tell another one.

The fuzzy memory of Birds of Fire came back to me while listening to Quintet Music, the second album by Travis Reuter.  No one, including this writer, will mistake the guitarist for a McLaughlin apostle, but he does write some particularly knotty compositions that divide his quintet into various sections, with bass and drums playing together in a choppy but taut manner, while tenor saxophonist Mark Shim, vibraphonist Peter Schlamb and Reuter himself play melodies or improvisations (or both, maybe) in front of them. There are times when the guitar and vibes shift to foundational support too. Shim frequently plays in the lower range, adapting his tone to the point where he almost sounds like he's playing a baritone. 

Bassist Haris Raghavan has the herculean task of bouncing between the front line and locking in with drummer Tyshawn Sorey. A striking example of this comes in "Same Song," when he and Schlamb ever so briefly join forces and create a cluster that sounds like an old school pinball bumper being hit by the ball. Sorey, who often takes other composers' convoluted tempos and helps our ears make sense of them, almost does the opposite on this session. His parts sound busy, pushing hard against the rest of the group and often making it hard to latch onto the music.

There's no sin in writing or playing that way, of course. Tension can be fun. In "#13 F34," Schlamb begins by soloing over Reuter's ringing chords; by the end, they switch roles. "#9 Low/High 1" starts with a clear guitar line, which Raghavan echoes, while Sorey goes wild over. The piece, one of only two that go beyond the seven-minute mark, switches to a different setting after two-and-a-half minutes but returns to the initial part at the end.

Most of the pieces stay below five minutes; Reuter, Shim and Schlamb each also get an interlude with the rhythm section, all of them coming in under two minutes. The brevity proves Reuter doesn't try to overpower his band with too many ideas. "#8 D@z" keeps it single length (3:18) yet still manages to have Shim and Schlamb trade solos back and forth. 

But "Fast Louis," which comes next, begins with little variation in terms of dynamics. It could be the same track. Granted, the whole piece (the other extended track) ultimately has more space instead of cramming it with caffeinated ostinatos and lines. Yet, the 10 tracks on Quintet Music starts to run together after awhile. Finding the subtleties between them requires a deep dive. Sorey's drums occasionally sound as if the depth of his parts isn't captured as clearly as it could have been, which might take away from the group. There were times when I wanted to see this band in person, to see how they bring this music together. That setting could bring out nuances that the speakers only hint at. It also makes me curious to hear Reuter's 2012 debut Rotational Templates, which utilized electric piano instead of vibes.