Decorator Micky Permalink
Ever since Sammy arrived in Hollywood she and Micky have been busily redecorating his house in Laurel Canyon. But they’re not just re-painting everything. In his usual thorough way Micky’s decided to change the shape of many of the rooms and so he’s tearing down the walls, building them up in new places, installing new doors, and he may even alter some of the windows. None of his friends will probably recognise the house when he finishes it.
Just in case you think it’s an odd time of the year to decorate, you must remember that in California the temperatures are in the 70’s. In fact, when I spoke to him on the ‘phone Micky told me: “It’s 75° here, man”.
Start of filming fixed Permalink
The script for the first full length Monkees feature film has now been completed and filming is scheduled to start on February 15th. All the boys are keeping very quiet about the story of the film. “You’ll just have to wait and see,” Peter told us, “Anyway, we’ll probably change quite a lot of things while we’re actually shooting, so it’s probably better if we don’t tell you everything now.”
Guest for each Monkee Permalink
During the week before Christmas when the boys were busy filming one of the next episodes of their present series, Micky, Mike and Davy each invited a special guest to appear with them on the show.
Micky invited rising new star Tim Buckley, who sang one of his songs.
Davy’s guest was Charlie Smalls, the well-known American jazz pianist, who played the piano and afterwards he and Davy talked about “soul music”.
Mike’s guest was Frank Zappa, the leader of the Mothers of Invention group and after a bit of micky-taking Frank Zappa proceeded to completely destroy a 1941 Ford car with a sledge hammer while Mike conducted each blow as though Frank were playing the drums.
Rave reviews for Mike’s first solo L.P. Permalink
The Los Angeles Times doesn’t give many pop records good reviews but their Record Correspondent raved about Mike Nesmith’s first solo album called “Witchita Train Whistle”.
It’s a completely new sound which has been dreamt up by Mike. It can best be described as “Contemporary Big Band Pop”. Mike wrote all the songs and worked on the arrangements. Many famous players sat in for the session, including Shorty Rogers who conducted, Hal Blaine played the drums—he’s often assisted the Mamas and Papas and The Fifth Dimension with their records, and Doug Dillard played banjo, amongst many others.
We can’t give you a release date for “Witchita Train Whistle” in this country but as soon as we can get anything definite we’ll let you know.
Recording time for each Monkee Permalink
As you know, the Monkees have always found it difficult to spend enough time in the recording studios working on new tracks for future singles and L.P.s whilst at the same time they had to work on their television series in the film studios.
However, this has all now been sorted out and Screen Gems have set aside one or two days, specially for recording, every week for every Monkee.
