GREAT MOMENTS IN STONER CINEMA

Another repost, for a good reason. I hung out with some friends today and for the first time in over a year actually shook hands and hugged. It's amazing what a difference that makes. Anyway, two of them couldn't remember if they'd ever seen Head, the film starring the Monkees. (A description is below.) So I thought I'd post it again so it would be easy to find. I checked the mp3 links and in doing so was reminded what great shit they had, never mind the fact that it's the Wrecking Crew actually playing. Theses songs (below) are just damn good songs. I gotta revisit their records one of these days. Here's the old post:

One thing you have to realize about anybody that was young when the Monkees were on the top of the charts is that most wouldn't have known the difference between them and the Beatles. It didn't matter, they had long hair, they appeared to be a band, and they were on a wacky TV show every week. They were in magazines and had trading cards that came with banana flavored yellow gum. If you were in my neighborhood there was a kid that would pay five cents for a piece of the unusual gum, and the pack of trading cards only cost five cents, so yeah, if you snagged him when he still had his allowance, you had your first introduction to the world of flim flam.

Where was I? Oh yeah, the Monkees appeal wasn't just the music. They were a brand, way more accessible than real bands that actually played instruments. They were marketed like crazy, every possible way you could imagine. And the hits? Well, when the pool of songwriters include Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Neil Diamond, Boyce and Hart, Neil Sedaka, and Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich among others, and the music is played by the Wrecking Crew and other studio musicians, that path to hits is simple: don't fuck up.

Alas, the wool can only cover the eyes for so long. The Monkees knew they were frauds, but wanted the gravy train to stay on track. There were attempts to actually play instruments, but as the fans grew older and less naive, they had to step it up. So they made a movie. A weird movie. A movie that sprang from a stoned weekend with the producer of their TV series, Bob Rafelson, and a young screenwriter, Jack Nicholson. That Jack Nicholson. The movie, Head, bombed, as many interesting but out of the ordinary movies do. That doesn't mean that it isn't worth watching. No, it's good, really good if you're of the sort that digs pop culture gone haywire. It's fucking nuts. It's like one of those hair brained ideas that you have when you're stoned, but think better of when you're not. Thankfully they didn't second guess their stoned selves. As if to make a point, the cast includes the A and Z of opposites, Annette Funicello and Frank Zappa. In the same flick. Man, they had to have been stoned to dream up that juxtaposition.

I've posted it before, but a friend just posted a recent thing from NPR about the movie and it occurred to me that what respect I may have lost for their musical output over the years was replaced by a healthy respect for their efforts to cross over to a more counterculture audience. As "music" movies go, only the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour and Frank Zappa's 200 Motels come close to the crackpottedness of Head. That's high praise over here.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
The Monkees - Porpoise Song mp3 at Tumblr From Head
The Monkees - She mp3 at Tumblr
The Monkees - Goin' Down mp3 at Tumblr Dolenz raps
The Monkees - Sweet Young Thing mp3 at Tumblr
Visit:
The Monkees Tried To Cut Their Strings With 'Head' at NPR