Stories behind memorable albums of the 1970s as told by the artists

Tag: Micky Dolenz

Mike and Micky: The Monkees are still magnificent

It was early 1967 The Monkees were frustrated. Sure, they had a successful television show — wildly more successful than anybody could have imagined at the time — and their first two albums, “The Monkees” and “More of the Monkees,” had reached No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 200 Albums chart.

But The Monkees — Mike Nesmith, Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork and Davy Jones — weren’t being taken seriously as musicians and songwriters. And that was beginning to wear on them heavily.

So when it came time to make the third album, they went on strike, which was spearheaded by Nesmith.

“Mike had become very frustrated, and I don’t blame him because he had bought into this whole thing (The Monkees),” said Dolenz in a July 11, 2017, interview with The Vinyl Dialogues. “He was a singer-songwriter and he came into The Monkees with that in mind. I know … Read more

Micky Dolenz and Mark Lindsay getting some kicks out of monkeying around

The Monkees had gone on a press junket to England in early 1967 and the Beatles had welcomed them by hosting a party at the Speakeasy Club – known as “The Speak” – in London.

The party had left such an impression on Micky Dolenz that the following morning, the Monkees’ drummer decided to write a song about it.

“I was just sitting in my hotel room with a guitar and I started writing a sort of stream of consciousness about my experiences over there. All the people and references in that song are somebody that I knew,” said Dolenz in a recent interview. “The Four Kings of EMI are sitting stately on the floor – that was because the Beatles had the Sgt. Pepper album.”

Dolenz called the song “Randy Scouse Git,” a phrase he had picked up from watching the English television sitcom Till Death Us Do PartRead more

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