Record Collector // August 2015 by Amanda Rohde

record collector | august 2015 | no 443

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Comedian and broadcaster Iain Lee grew up on The Monkees. But could he take a giant step between being a fan and realising his dream of reissuing obscure, must-hear gems by the mighty Micky Dolenz? He didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know . . . but he had to try.

’m a Monkees fan and have been since I was about three. I’ve gone through the different stages of not knowing they weren’t cool because I was too young, then having to hide my Monkees fandom while my peers were digging Primal Scream and other hip bands, and then finally being able to allow my freak flag to proudly fly. The Monkees were ridiculed for years, but they came out the other side and are now beyond cool. Somehow I’ve gone from just being a super fan, to actually releasing the first-ever compilation of solo tracks from Micky Dolenz, the group’s drummer and most versatile vocalist. These tracks were press dup and disappeared without troubling the charts, and have become lost classics. When I started the project, I had absolutely no idea how to go about getting a record made. Now, finally Micky Dolenz: The MGM Singles Collection, is getting a legitimate release on 180g coloured vinyl with a 12-page booklet, digital download and, fingers crossed, maybe CD. It’s been hard, expensive work. Over the past five years I’ve had my patience tried, my confidence knocked and I stand to lose a few quid. So how did this come about? And more pertinently, why? It all goes back to my favourite period in any pop group’s career, the end of the adulation and success, when the roller coaster takes its first, inevitable, downward swoop. What do you do if you have been in one of the biggest pop acts of all time, sold millions of records, had a hit TV series and are recognised pretty much all over the world? When that bubble bursts, where do you go? How on earth do you follow that? This was the question troubling all four members of The Monkees in 1970. Just a few years before, they had sold twice as many records as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones combined and thanks to their successful television series, had become worldwide celebrities. And then, it all ended. It wasn’t a sudden demisee, more a slow deflating. The TV series was cancelled because the network wanted to carry on with the “Davy falls in love with a Russian spy who has the microfilm and they get chased by the bad guys” formula, while the group wanted to do something a bit more grown up. It’s been mentioned they wanted to do a variety show in the style of Laugh-In. It was never going to happen. Head, their break into movies, though an artistic triumph and now a cult classic, was a huge flop at the time. And the proposed run of hour-long TV specials was pulled after just one, the disappointing and frankly half-hearted 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee. After the special, Peter Tork bought his way out of his contract, while Michael Nesmith, Davy Jones, and Micky Dolenz soldiered on bravely, fulfilling obligations including some embarrassing soft drink ads teaming them up with a load of annoying kids and, bizarrely, Bugs Bunny. That they released some of their finest music in this period, including the majestic Listen To The Band, is irrelevant. Without the TV show to push the records, no one cared. When the group finally disbanded, they went their separate ways. Nesmith invented country rock with a cosmic twists and released some wonderful, if commercially disappointing albums. Tork started a band with his girlfriend Reine Stewart, called Release, submitted and unused theme for Easy Rider, then vanished into a haze of pot, beer, and teaching English. Jones, the heartthrob, popped up on various TV shows, released a few singles and an album, and ended up back in England doing theatre, drinking, and pondering what it all meant. For me, the most fascinating post-Monkees career is that of Micky Dolenz. When the group split, he’d already been in showbiz for over 15 years, having starred as a kid in Circus Boy.

Possessing a natural acting talent and a great white should voice, surely he’d have no double securing a gig now the band had fallen apart? Truth is, he didn’t have a clue at this point what he was. He auditioned for acting jobs and casting directors wondered why a drummer had turned up - though he did come second for the gig of The Fonz in Happy Days! He’d try and sit in with bands and they wondered why an actor who didn’t play his own instrument was auditioning. Few people recognised that he was actually a pretty strong drummer. Frank Zappa did and asked him to join his band, but the labels were having none of it and, sadly, it never happened. While lost in the haze of not having a clue what he should be doing, Micky released some fine singles. A bit

of pop, some slightly avant-garde electronica, a bit of rock. And they went nowhere. In the early 70s, no one knew what to do with him; even he wasn’t sure what way to go. These early 70s singles, released on MGM and its subsidiaries, are bloody good and worthy of a wider audience. Trouble is, you can’t get them. They came out, sold about five copies and vanished. I wanted to change that, and bring them back to a wider audience. The first trick was trying to find out who owned all of the tracks. They initially came out on MGM, Romar, and various labels. A bit of digging around led me to Universal, which had bough MGM’s back catalogue. I’d been told by others who had tried to get this compilation off the ground as far back as early 90s that Universal had never admitted to owning the material. They had no

Bugger. record of these records in their records. Having no idea who to contact,t I found an email address for someone - anyone - at Universal in the US and asked: “I’m after the following songs by Micky Dolenz, who do I need to speak to?” So began the chase. I was passed from pillar to post, sent from Department A to department Z. Ignored, forgotten about and misled. After months and months I was passed onto the person who could actually help me, but they denied the company owned the songs. Undeterred, I called on the army of monks fans and collectors out there on the web for help. I asked for scans of all of the relevant singles, A- and B-sides. I had them within about 30 minutes of putting the request out. Armed with this information, and an article I’d found online stating that Universal did own all the old MGM songs, I went back to the company. “Ah,” came the reply. “This changes things. Let me have a look.” Some time later, the contact came back to me and confirmed that yes, they did own the tracks and that yes, they would be prepared to licence them to me for release. This was incredible news. The only problem was, I did not have a clue how to proceed from here! How the bloody hell do you release a record? Unlike most things I touch, this project had been blessed with luck and the kindness of others - and boy, was I about to get a massive dose of both. A gentleman called Glenn Gretlund got in contact. He’d been following my progress online and thought he could help. He actually ran a record label! Incredible! And while the thought this project might be a little too niche for his imprint, would I be interested in starting a small company with him to get this record out there? Oh man,

would I? I tried to remain cool but really I wanted to bite his arm off. And that is how the 7a label started. One Glenn got involved, the business side of things began to take a bit more shape. He helped me word emails so I sounded like I knew what I was talking about. Glenn helped me come up with a package to present to Universal that dealt with how mch we would pay them for the tracks and what we would get for that. Suddenly, we had a bona fide contract with Universal bloody Records! Worldwide rights on all the songs we were after, for three years, and we could release them on vinyl and digital. So far so good. Next problem was the tracks themselves. We had all the songs, but they were needle drops. A guy in the US called Scott had done a superb job of cleaning them up, but they were undeniably needle drops. There was nothing we could do about it though. We didn’t have a hope of getting the master tapes, they were long gone. Or were they? Massive stroke of luck number two. I received an email from someone calling himself Rob. It was all very mysterious and frustrating. He couldn’t say who he was or what he did but he thought he might be able to help find the master tapes. Well this was weird. To be honest, I thought he could be some random nutter from the internet just trying to mess us around, but I indulged him. “OK,” I replied, “if you reckon you can find the masters, you’ve got a month to do it, then we are going to press with what we have.” I’d forgotten about this Rob character until a few weeks later when he got back in touch. He proudly

announced that he was one of the Audio Preservation Specialists at the Library of Congress and that he’d found the original tapes, knew exactly where they were and who we needed to contact to get them. This was an incredible revelation. The masters would take this project into the league of super cool. We’d already had a fair bit of flack from some ungrateful numpties on Facebook, complaining that we were using needle-drops and that it was shameful and this project should be boycotted and so on. I’d tried to bite my tongue, but did find myself telling some of these killjoys that if they thought they could do better, then they should get off their lazy arises, dip into their own pockets and do it themselves. Armed with Rob’s info, a whole new round of email exchanges with Universal began. They must have groaned every time my name popped up in their inboxes with the subject heading “Dolenz”. There was the usual batting back and forth, finals,

nothing to do with me guvtype things. But . . . after a few more weeks they said yes, they’d found the tapes. They even sent pictures to prove it. This was incredible. This folly, this stupid idea I’d had years ago was really starting to take shape. While the company worked on converting the tapes for us, a third piece of luck cropped up. Someone suggested I contact a guy called Mark Kleiner. I was told that he was a writer in the US who’d started writing a book about what happened to The Monkees after they split up, but he’d become disheartened and had never completed it. He might have some stuff that we could use in the project for some sleeve notes. No guarantee, but it was worth a punt. I emailed Mark, explaining the project. As with everyone I was tapping up for a favour, the first line of the mail said something about there being very little money, that it was kind of a fan thing but we wondered if he could help. Well, it turns out that not only is Mark Kleiner the nicest guy in the world, he’s also a brilliant writer. He immediately sent back pages of stuff he’d written resting to this period in Micky’s career. It was incredible. He’d interviewed most of the key players, the execs, and had put together the most comprehensive article I’d read about this time. “Hey, Mark, this stuff is great. We’d love to use it . . . er . . . well . . . we can’t actually afford to pay you anything . . .” I hit “send” on that cheeky email and hid. The reply came. “Hey man, that’s cool, just really pleased to be a part of this. Thanks for asking. Use what you want.” And that short email, paraphrased slightly, sums up this whole venture for me. Everybody who has got in touch to offer help has done it all for free, or occasionally mates rates. Sure, Universal wanted a fair few quid, that’s their job, but even the deal they offered wasn’t outrageous. Everyone else has been supportive (apart form a few dicks on Facebook) and offered to help for very little or free. All we needed now was a cover. I volunteered to look at some photo websites and try and find the best pictures of Dolenz from this period to use on the from and the rear. I spent a fantastic few hours trawling through collections online and found the picture I wanted. A beautiful shot of Micky, from around 1968, so not period but it worked. It was stunning and would look amazing. I twas taken by the legendary rock photographer and Monkees’ friend, Henry Diltz. Henry has shot some of the most iconic album covers in the world, including the first Crosby, Stills and Nash record as well as pictures for The Doors and other great bands. I clicked on the pic to see what the damage was. Ouch. To use it for an album sleeve was going to be 900 euros. Way our of budget. By this point, we were hoping to break even. Any idea of making money was out of the window. There was no way we could stretch to 900 euros. OK. Things had been going so well, I thought I’d chance my arm. I’d met Henry very briefly at a Monkees’ convention and I’d had a brief email exchange a few years before with his assistant, Gary Strobl. I wrote to them both. I explained the project, told them it was a labour of love, that Glenn and myself were at best going to break even, and that to make it really special we would love to use this one picture by Henry but there was no way we could afford it. Could they help? Please? Stroke of luck number four. Gary replied almost immediately. “This sounds like a great project, we’d love to help, in fact we have loads of unseen pics of Micky from that period. Would these be of any use?”

Attached to the email were 13 fantastic pictures of Dolenz in the studio, working with Harry Nilsson, Red Rhodes, Chip Douglas, all great pics that had just been lying in storage. And the price they were offering them for was very reasonable. My biggest fear about this whole thing was Micky Dolenz himself. He’d never really talked about this period in his life or those songs. What if he hated them? Maybe he considered them an embarrassment and wanted nothing to do with them. There must be a reason he hadn’t tried to re-release these. Or supposing once he caught wind of this project, he’d only agree to it if we paid him thousands of pounds? I knew I had to contact him but I was holding off for as long as I could. But I could wait no longer. I had to send an email to “his people” and explain what we were doing. Legally, he couldn’t stop the project, we had all the permissions and rights we needed. But as a fan, I wouldn’t have felt good releasing this project without Micky’s blessing. It was integral that he was cool with it. Lucky break number five. Micky returned my contact. He couldn’t believe anyone would be interested in this stuff, thought we were nuts for doing it, but yeah, he thought it was cool, he was humbled that we’d put so much effort into it and gave it his thumbs up. He didn’t want any money (though we promised him a few copies that he can sign and sell on his website if he wants) and would be happy to be interviewed for the project. I’ve interviewed all four Monkees at various points in my life. I never get nervous around celebrities, but when I speak to a Monkee, I become a giggling 15-year-old with a beaming grin. Speaking to Micky about The MGM Singles Collection was no different.

I asked Micky what he thought of this project, basically a series of obscure solo songs being put together for the first time. “I am incredible surprised, and very flattered, and honoured - I am very glad that some of this stuff is being listened to! I liked it, at the time! And I’m glad that other people do.” What was great about chatting to Micky was some of the new stories that he told me. I’d never heard this stuff before, including the revelation that he had recorded various parties and still has those tapes in storage. The guest lists were mindblowing! “I would have a party and people came over . . . I remember Mama Cass at one point. I think Mama Cass is in the background on Oh Someone [one of the songs on the album], among a bunch of other people. I’ve got wonderful tapes of Harry Nilsson and

Marc Bolan and Brian Wilson and John Lennon . . . I can’t even remember. It was a long time ago!” And that was it, the final piece of the jigsaw was in place. We had everything we needed to make a great sounding and a great looking record. But what about the songs? Are they any good? They are. It’s a real mix of styles from a man who was a bit lost but had a few quid in the bank thanks to careful investment from his mum! When I asked him why he’d recorded them he replied, “For fun! I had a recording studio, and the one thing I remember, most of those songs, not all, but definitely a few, were just done as demos in my home studio. And one of them we did one night at a party! It was more for fun and a jam than anything.” There are some great guest performances. Peter Tork plays bass and arranged Oh Someone, a deliciously dirty little rocker that is a million miles away from the folky country sound of Headquarters. Harry Nilsson not only wrote but also produced Daybreak, a joyous cut which highlights Micky’s sensational soul voice. And pedal steel legend and friend of Michael Nesmith, OJ ‘Red’ Rhodes, pops up on the Chip Douglas-produced Love War. “I [had a] free hand, I could record anything I wanted because it wasn’t under auspices of The Monkees, so that’s what I did. I just recorded stuff and wrote what I liked.” So after years of effort, I’m releasing an actual record. I’m so chuffed. And 7a will continue to release Monkeesrelated albums. WEe are talking to Bobby Hart, the legendary songwriter, about other projects, and the other Monkees and their families had better watch out: I may be coming to your town!

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