Latest news with #MickyDolenz
New York Post
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Post
The Monkees drummer Micky Dolenz recounts the first time he met Paul McCartney
Micky Dolenz and Paul McCartney came together in the 60s. The Monkees drummer, 80, is looking back at the first time he ever met the Beatle, 82, decades ago. 'The first Beatle I met was Paul [McCartney], the night before at dinner at his house,' Dolenz told People in an interview published on Wednesday. 'I'd gone over to England to do a press junket, just myself. As it turned out, a publicist got involved and made it a 'Monkee Meets Beatle' thing at Paul's house for dinner. Just me, him and Martha the sheepdog.' 6 The Monkees, from left: Micky Dolenz, Mike Nesmith, Davy Jones and Peter Tork get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles in 1989. AP From what transpired next, it seems like the fellow musicians quickly formed a friendship. 'He invited me to Abbey Road [studios] the next day,' recalled Dolenz. 'I don't even know if he told me the name at the time, but they were working on 'Sgt. Pepper.' I just about peed in my pants, but I'm trying to be cool. I got all dressed up thinking … I don't know what I was thinking.' 6 'The Monkees.' NBCUniversal via Getty Images 6 This June 4, 1967 photo shows The Monkees posing with their Emmy award at the 19th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards in Calif. AP 'I guess I thought it was gonna be some sort of Beatlemania fun-fest freakout psycho-jello happening thing,' the singer confessed. 'So I got dressed up in paisley bell bottoms and tie-dyed underwear and my glasses and beads and hair. I looked like a cross between Ronald McDonald and Charlie Manson.' But when Dolenz got to the session, things weren't what he expected. 'I walk in and, well … there's nobody there! I was like, 'Where are the girls?!'' he shared. 'It was just the four guys sitting there under fluorescent lighting, like my high school gymnasium, in the middle of the day. John Lennon looks up and says, 'Hey Monkee Man, you want to hear what we're working on?' From then on he called me Monkee Man.' Along with McCartney, the Beatles included the late John Lennon and George Harriso and Ringo Starr, 84. 6 The Beatles. Bettmann Archive Dolenz rose to fame after being cast in the 1966 television sitcom 'The Monkees' before landing the role as the drummer and lead vocalist in the band that was created for the series. The performer is the only surviving member of the group after Michael Nesmith died in 2021. Peter Tork passed in February 2019, and Davy Jones died in 2012. The show ran for two seasons from 1966 to 1968. 6 The Monkees perform live. Splash News Looking back at what he would tell his younger self when first being cast in 'The Monkees,' Dolenz told the outlet, 'Get a good lawyer. I am not kidding. I won't say much more except this: Have you heard the term 'unconscionable bargain'? How about the phrase 'pact with the devil'? Faust? You know the musical 'Damn Yankees?' I'm doing one called 'Damn Monkees!'' Now, this summer, the performer is set to tour the country and sing those Monkees classics. 6 Davy Jones, Peter Tork, Micky Dolenz, Mike Nesmith. AP 'I've tried so much different material over the years. It's all about the audience, as far as I'm concerned … You know, I'm not the kind of artist who's gone down the path of reinventing,' Dolenz said about what fans can expect. 'At least musically. We've all seen it happen with big acts. I've been to concerts for big acts who have a lot of nostalgic hit tunes and they don't do 'em. Or if they do, they do it with some contempt. Like, 'Oh, I guess you want to hear this piece of s–t.''
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Sole Surviving Member of The Monkees 'Still Monkeeing Around' Has Fans Saying the Same Thing
The last surviving member of the hit 1960s group made a huge announcement on Thursday, May 22, that left his fans all saying the same thing. , 80, shared on Instagram and Facebook that he would be adding some performance dates in August in Cleveland. "🎶 Cleveland! I'm coming your way for two nights - August 13 and 14 - and I promise to bring all the hits, all the stories, and at least 70% of the dance moves I had in 1967. Now, you could stay home and rewatch old Monkees episodes… but where's the fun in that? Join me live instead - no laugh track required. 😉 🎟️ Tickets are on sale now, and you'll find the link in the first comment. Get yours before they're gone - because I'd hate for you to hear all about it from your neighbor who did go. MickyDolenz #TheMonkees #ClevelandConcerts #StillMonkeeingAround #TourLife," wrote Dolenz on social media. Tickets can be purchased here. Fans are super excited, with one writing, "You have no idea how excited I am to see you!!! I missed it when you were relatively close by, and I thought I missed my chances, but this just made me feel incredible, I knew that I had to see you at some point, and finally, I shall have that chance, love you Micky, you still sound amazing!! ❤️." Another added, "It's one of my venues that I have been lobbying to have you play here in my backyard for years.! Finally , @micky_dolenz@musicboxcle 😁." "Just got tix!!! So excited," wrote a third fan, and a fourth fan wrote simply, "My favorite Monkee ❤️." The Monkees burst on the scene in the late 1960s. They were a fictional band for their eponymous NBC sitcom, but they became such a hit that they turned into a real band, recording several albums and going on tour. However, when the show was canceled in 1968, the group only lasted two more years together, though they have reunited periodically over the years. 🎬 SIGN UP for Parade's Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox 🎬 However, in the last 15 years, three of the original members have sadly passed away. Lead singer Davy Jones died in 2012, and bassist Peter Tork died in 2019. In 2021, drummer Dolenz and guitarist Michael Nesmith went on a farewell tour, and Nesmith tragically passed away from heart failure just weeks after the tour concluded, leaving Dolenz as the last surviving member of the group. In a recent interview with The Observer-Reporter, Dolenz acknowledged that it is both hard to get older and hard to watch your friends pass on, saying that at this point, he's just "glad to be above ground." "The travel is tough, but the shows are easy. That's why they call it playing," added Dolenz. Sole Surviving Member of The Monkees 'Still Monkeeing Around' Has Fans Saying the Same Thing first appeared on Parade on May 23, 2025
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Only Surviving Member of 'The Monkees' Shares Exciting News: 'Mind-Blowing'
When you think 60s pop rock, you think of The Monkees. The band reached icon status for their multiple chart-topping hits back in the day, including "I'm a Believer," "Last Train to Clarksville," and "Daydream Believer." Since the band's breakup in the 70s, they've seen several reunions until the untimely passing of all members of the band, aside from drummer Micky Dolenz. Dolenz has been spending the past three years touring and celebrating the Monkees, and he has some exciting news to share. Dolenz will be taking over the Boston City Winery for a couple nights for what he's calling a "cultural experience." Fans showed their support in the comments of the post. "He's still doing great good for him. 🥰" "Micky's shows are an absolute must-see!!" "Mind-blowing!!! He's 80!!!! He's been making people smile for several decades. 😀 A true living legend. ✨️⭐️✨️" It seems that in the fans eyes, Dolenz has only gotten better with age. If I wasn't before, I'm a believer now. Tickets are on sale for the City Winery shows, so get yours before they sell out!🎬SIGN UP for Parade's Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox🎬
The Guardian
28-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Five Great Reads: Micky Dolenz; postcards from a tram; and the meaning of life
Happy Saturday! My favourite part of the week is here: bringing back five great reads that deserve a buoy in the rapids of this week's news cycle. Take a beat, digest and, if you have a favourite read, tell us here: There is a surprising trend happening under our noses: beard transplants – something I'd never heard of before sniffing out Simon Usborne's story on this growing industry, where transplant tourism and illicit clinics are rife and the stakes are high. Are the risks worth it for the chance of a thicker, fuller beard? Yes (for some): Franck Fontaine feels 'much more confident' after his transplant, aside from when his six-year-old daughter begs him to 'shave it off'. Words of warning: Spencer Stevenson, a prominent mentor for balding men, urges caution. 'You can have a bad hair transplant and sometimes get away with it, but with a beard it's a whole new kettle of fish because it's on your face,' he says. 'You can't put a hat on it.' How long will it take to read: five minutes. Following in philosopher Will Durant's mail trail, James Bailey decided to write to some well-known people to hear their thoughts on the ultimate existential question: what is the meaning of life? Their answers are fascinating and funny – but could they help us frame our days on Earth? From the hundreds of comments left on this story, perhaps yes. Susan Pollack, Holocaust survivor: After a British soldier rescued and placed her into an ambulance, Pollack has taken nothing for granted. 'I remember the effect and appreciation this first helpfulness had on my life,' she writes. 'It gradually removed the heavy iron cover on me, and sparks of 'I can do' and 'I want to do' gradually came into my existence.' Hilary Mantel, late author: 'You use two terms interchangeably: 'meaning' and 'purpose'. I don't think they're the same. I'm not sure life has a meaning, in the abstract. But it can have a definite purpose if you decide so.' How long will it take to read: 10 minutes. Just shy of his 80th birthday, Micky Dolenz spoke to Alexis Petridis about being in one of the biggest music groups in the world – and its last surviving member. John Lennon described the Monkees as more 'like the Marx Brothers'. The original advertisement for their show called for 'folk'n'roll musician/singers … four insane boys'. My only real appreciation for the group was their impact on mainstream music: from I'm a Believer (thank you, Smash Mouth) to Daydream Believer (thank you, grandma). 'It was not a boyband. It was the cast of a television show, like when the cast of Glee made albums.' – Micky Dolenz The legacy: the Monkees 'weren't supposed to have such staying power', Petridis writes. 'The TV show was cancelled in 1968 after two seasons … But [it] is a kind of period piece, a last transmission from a more innocent era of 60s pop that was about to be overwhelmed by psychedelia and more serious-minded artistic ambition.' How long will it take to read: five minutes Sign up to Five Great Reads Each week our editors select five of the most interesting, entertaining and thoughtful reads published by Guardian Australia and our international colleagues. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Saturday morning after newsletter promotion Each week, I eagerly await the Guardian's Washington DC bureau chief's latest analysis on Donald Trump. The themes are always disturbing. But I find something comforting about being privy to conversations the experts are having. This time around, David Smith warns 'America is sleepwalking into authoritarianism'; that Trump's actions are edging closer to those of Hungary's Viktor Orbán's; and he hears we may be approaching 'Defcon 1'. I've forgotten what I found comforting … A political strategist and former campaign operative for George W Bush and John McCain, says: 'Donald Trump is producing a Washington television show from the Oval Office that's authoritarian in nature. You go on TikTok and see the deportations scored to songs and videos released by the administration. It's a theatre of the absurd. It's a theatre of malice. All of it is desensitising people to the use of authority and power.' How long will it take to read: six minutes. Further reading: Smith's analysis was before the White House's catastrophic security blunder on Signal. For more on that, Andrew Roth's take on the depths of the Trump's administration loathing of Europe is worth your time. Sketching tram route 35, Josh Nicholas sees a whole new side of the city he has lived in for three years. Before the experiment, he walked the same Melbourne streets, caught the same trains. 'I must have hundreds of sketches of Flinders station alone. So I decided to be a tourist,' he writes. 'I caught some of the energy': Nicholas sketches fellow passengers crammed inside the stuffy tram. It's chaotic at the best of times but the effect it has on his watercolour works is stunning. How long will it take to read: three-and-a-half minutes. Enjoying the Five Great Reads email? Then you'll love our weekly culture and lifestyle newsletter, Saved for Later. Sign up here to catch up on the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture, trends and tips for the weekend. And check out the full list of our local and international newsletters.
The Guardian
24-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘It was not a boyband!' Micky Dolenz on the madness of being in the Monkees
In 1965, Micky Dolenz was an architecture student and jobbing actor in Los Angeles, doing the rounds of auditions for TV pilots. As a 10-year-old he had played the lead in a TV series called Circus Boy, but the former child star began to notice something odd about the jobs his agent was now sending him to: every one was for a series 'about kids in a band'. He says: 'One was called The Happeners, about a little folk trio like Peter, Paul and Mary. One was about a surfing band like the Beach Boys. Another was about a big family folk ensemble. Something was in the air, obviously, because of the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Four Seasons, Motown. Young people, who had disposable income, were being targeted.' None of those shows got made but a fourth audition proved more fruitful: it called for 'folk'n'roll musician/singers … four insane boys' who looked as if they might hang around a hip Sunset Strip coffee shop called Ben Frank's. Dolenz got a leading role, happily acquiescing to learn to play drums. 'It was kind of the same as when I was in Circus Boy and they told me I had to learn to ride an elephant – 'Great! When do I start?'' The series was green-lit and the Monkees proved so successful at parting young people from their disposable income that, within a year, Dolenz was unable to visit the shopping mall near his parents' home in San Jose without causing pandemonium. 'I go through the big glass doors and all of a sudden there are people running, screaming. I thought it was a fire. I hold open the big door and I'm going, 'Slow down! Don't run! Don't panic! It's all right!' And suddenly I realised they were running at me. I was like, 'Oh God!'' It was, he concedes, a very strange kind of fame. He was playing a character clearly based on himself and also called Micky – the drummer in a luckless fictional band called the Monkees. 'We lived in a Malibu beach house,' he wryly notes, 'and every episode had us trying to get a record deal or trying to get a gig and never making it – which does beg the question of how we could afford a Malibu beach house.' But in real life, the band became one of the biggest in the world, at one juncture selling 6m albums and 5m singles in four months. Or rather, they were actors pretending to be a band, in order to front a succession of records that they hadn't actually played on. Initially at least, everything but the vocals was handled by crack session musicians. When their second album, 1967's More of the Monkees, was released, the first they knew about it was when it appeared in the shops. It seems a deeply peculiar blurring of fantasy and reality, guaranteed to mess with an early twentysomething's head. 'Oh boy, oh boy!' chuckles Dolenz, tapping the side of his skull. 'You don't want to be in here sometimes! I think because of my upbringing in the business, I always attempted to separate the person from the persona. I wasn't always successful, but that's incredibly important if you want to survive. To some degree, I've always known that Micky the wacky drummer on television was who the girls were in love with – not me, Micky Dolenz, who grew up in the Valley. Now that's easy to say, but sometimes very, very difficult to do. But if you don't keep that separation, it can be disastrous. We see that happen all the time. An interesting, weird place to be.' It's even weirder that Dolenz is still talking about the Monkees nearly 60 years later. They weren't supposed to have such staying power. The TV show was cancelled in 1968 after two seasons. The big hits dried up around the same time. But here Dolenz is, Zooming from his holiday home on the Delaware River a few days after his 80th birthday, the last surviving Monkee, looking jaunty in orange-tinted sunglasses and a rakishly angled trilby. (Davy Jones, Peter Tork and Mike Nesmith have all died.) Rewind TV is now repeating the show in the UK for the first time in years, although in truth, some channel somewhere in the world seems to have been re-running the series almost constantly since it was cancelled. It was a mainstay of children's TV in the 70s, while MTV's repeats in 1986 proved so popular, they triggered the first in a series of Monkees reunions. There is one sense in which the show's longevity is surprising. You might have expected the music to last: from I'm a Believer to Daydream Believer, the big hits were exquisitely turned examples of the songwriter-for-hire's craft. But the show is a kind of period piece, a last transmission from a more innocent era of 60s pop that was about to be overwhelmed by psychedelia and more serious-minded artistic ambition. Dolenz, however, stopped being surprised at the show's durability decades ago. 'It was about a fictitious band that wanted to be the Beatles, or the Stones, or whoever. That struggle for success is a classic theme in Hollywood movies and Broadway shows. It was more like a little Marx Brothers musical on television than a band – a little romp, laughing, singing, music, shtick. John Lennon first made that comment, 'The Monkees are like the Marx Brothers.' He was absolutely right. And the comedy wasn't topical, nor was it satirical. So it stands up, it has legs.' He chafes a little at the suggestion that the Monkees were effectively a manufactured boyband, saying: 'It was not a boyband. It was the cast of a television show, like when the cast of Glee made albums.' But Dolenz admits he was the member most comfortable with whatever the Monkees were: a showbiz pro, unbothered when albums appeared without their knowledge, or when the producers showed so little confidence in their ability to play live that they booked their first gig in Hawaii, 'because back then Honolulu was like another planet, so they figured if we really sucked no one would hear what happened'. This was not a view shared by all his bandmates. When More of the Monkees appeared, a disgruntled Nesmith broke ranks, publicly describing it as 'probably the worst album in the history of the world' and bluntly telling a reporter: 'I don't care if we never sell another record … tell the world we don't record our own music.' 'Frankly,' says Dolenz, 'I didn't give a shit one way or the other. I don't mean I didn't give a shit about Mike. I did – and I knew what he was going through. He was frustrated because he was misled. He was not an actor, he was a singer-songwriter, and they told him he was going to write and record his own music. And basically, he was not allowed to do that. In the very early days of the show, he went to the producers with his guitar and played them a song he'd written that he wanted the Monkees to record. According to him, they said, 'Thank you, but no thank you – it's not a Monkees song.' He said, 'Wait a minute, I am one of the fucking Monkees. What are you talking about?' But they blew him off. 'So Mike, in his inimitable manner, gave it to an unknown girl singer kicking around town, Linda Ronstadt. The song was called Different Drum. It was a Top 20 hit. So he was terribly frustrated and I felt for him, and I backed him. He's the one that told me not to go to New York to record the new Monkees single – and I didn't. I went to England, where I met Paul McCartney for the first time. He invited me to a Beatles session for Sgt Pepper. So – no regrets.' For all that he viewed himself as an actor first, Dolenz seems to have rather enjoyed the life of a rock star. Some of the 60s pop aristocracy were a little snippy about the Monkees (the Byrds wrote the sarcastic So You Want to Be a Rock'n'Roll Star? about them) but most were not. Neil Young played on their albums. At one bizarre juncture, Frank Zappa asked Dolenz to become his drummer, but the Monkees' record label wouldn't give him permission. 'I was sort of relieved,' says Dolenz. 'I mean, you listen to his stuff and it's like 7/13 time, you know, these ridiculous time signatures.' Dolenz took full advantage, knocking around with the Beatles, hanging out backstage at the Monterey festival and inviting its star turn, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, to support the Monkees on tour – on the grounds that 'he was very theatrical and the Monkees was a theatrical act'. This had disastrous consequences: Hendrix swiftly quit, dispirited by the experience of performing Purple Haze to nonplussed teens screaming for Davy Jones. When Nesmith's gambit paid off and the Monkees were allowed to write and perform their own material, Dolenz jumped in with both feet. He wrote their fabulous 1967 hit Randy Scouse Git, was the first pop artist to take delivery of a Moog synthesiser, and says his happiest memories of the band were recording their third album, Headquarters. They were finally permitted to have a say: 'Pinocchio became a real boy.' Dolenz has 'absolutely no pains, no regrets, no pangs' that the series was cancelled. You could tell he was tiring of it from the final episode, which he wrote and directed. The plot involved TV controlling people's minds via a symbol that looked remarkably like the logo of their own network, CBS. The episode was laced with references to marijuana, anti-war songs, and featured a guest appearance from Tim Buckley, debuting his exquisite Song to the Siren. None of it seemed designed to part young people from their disposable income. Nor did Head, the 1968 Monkees film with a screenplay by Jack Nicholson, allegedly written under the influence of LSD. 'We were looking to move on: we didn't want to make a film that was a feature-length Monkees episode where Davy falls in love and the girl's uncle is a crook and we have to save him and we sing her some songs. So Head was a little bit stream-of-consciousness. When they first screened the movie, it was not a typical screening. They had 'movieolas', with one of the five reels of the film in each and the idea was you could start watching the movie from any point on any reel.' He laughs. 'It was a very, very 60s idea.' Dolenz sees Head as a film about breaking the traditional rules of Hollywood, which its producers and Nicholson would go on to do with Easy Rider the following year. 'There's a lot of breaking the fourth wall, a scene where I start talking to the director and say, 'I can't take this any more' and walk off through the back of the set, through the typical Hollywood backdrop painting.' But it was also very obviously about the Monkees and their discomfort with being, as one song from the soundtrack puts it, 'a manufactured image with no philosophies'. It ends with the band trapped in a glass tank, being stored away in a studio warehouse. 'It did terribly at the box office,' says Dolenz. 'Nobody seemed to care. I certainly didn't. But of course now it's this incredible cult film. Every once in a while, someone comes up to me and tells me it's great. Quentin Tarantino did, so did Edgar Wright, a wonderful director. It's a very interesting little film.' It more or less ended the Monkees' commercial career. Tork left, then Nesmith. Dolenz and Jones soldiered on, then split in 1970. Dolenz says he never really had any further ambitions in music. He eventually moved to England and reinvented himself as a producer and director, famously directing the 80s kids' show Metal Mickey. 'No Monkee business,' he nods. 'I remember that feeling, that moment when someone interviewed me and the article didn't say, 'Micky Dolenz, ex-Monkee.' It said, 'Michael Dolenz, producer/director.' Not that I ever tried to escape the Monkees, but I carved out this different career, so when the Monkees first reunited in 1986 I was fine. I had no problem going back and recreating that character.' He toured, on and off, with various iterations of the Monkees until all the other members died. He still plays live occasionally, describing it as his 'day job', and seems as content with the Monkees' legacy as he could possibly be. But then, he always was. He thought they were quietly groundbreaking. 'Nothing like that had ever happened before,' he says. 'We were on our own. We were long-haired weirdos on television. Back then, the only time you saw long-haired weirdos on television, they were usually being arrested.' Micky Dolenz: Live at the Troubadour is out now. The Monkees is on Rewind TV, Mondays to Fridays at 10am and 6.30pm
