Asks Jackie Richmond
Hardly a week goes by without one of the pop papers coming out with a story about: “Monkees will definitely tour Britain in March”… or “in May”… “or April”. Sometimes the stories are splashed across the top of a page so that you just can’t help see them. Sometimes, they’re tucked away in the news columns so you have to get your magnifying glass out to spot them.
But whichever or whatever way they’re presented, they CAN be darned unfair to our lads the Monkees. And here’s the reason why…
Everybody wants the Monkees to come back to Britain and do some more of their super-fantastic stage shows. That much goes without saying. But these stories of “definite” plans to return are honestly just so much eye-wash. One could almost say they’re just made up—just a figment of a reporter’s vivid imagination! But that’s not really true.
Gossip Permalink
What happens is that the reporter picks up a news lead in maybe an American paper. Or he overhears some gossip at a record company office. Some little thing happens to persuade him that what he hears or reads is absolutely true. So out comes the story.
Now we, the true Monkees fans, read these things and build all our hopes on the stories being true. We start planning and saving up so we don’t miss out on seeing the boys—either at the London Airport or at their hotel or at their actual stage shows. And then, maybe weeks later, we find out that the original story is just not true. We feel brought down. Unhappy.
Fact is that at the time of writing this rather angry piece there are NO set plans for the Monkees to come back to Britain. Now hold on! Don’t take that as meaning they never will. But it stands to reason that they can’t make definite plans right now what with their involvement in their first major movie for Columbia Pictures in the States.
Everybody knows that you can’t just rush out a film of this importance. It takes a minimum of five weeks to shoot. And then it may over-run because we know how the boys insist on going for full perfection. This is their break-through into the cinema big-screen world and they want it to be just right so that we, the fans, get the very best quality in return for our money.
But there is this other important point. We, who read a newsstory about their pending arrival here for dates can get misleading thoughts when we read that the projected tour is off. And people who don’t even like the Monkees have the opportunity to put it round that the boys don’t care about their fans here—“How can they when they keep cancelling tours?” is the way it is put. Nobody mentions that the tour wasn’t ON in the first place, so how on earth can it be cancelled?
For we know that the Monkees are exceptionally keen on Britain and their British fans. They enjoyed their first stage-show trip here and they’re all most anxious to come back again.
There’s plenty of evidence of their enthusiasm. Like how Davy and Micky and Peter have come back to London for short holidays and how they’ve made a tremendous number of close friends this side of the Atlantic. And both Peter and Davy said at some length to us: “When we do get back on a working visit, we’re all very keen that we play a lot of other towns other than London. London is very important but we kinda feel sorry for the fans who live way out and had to make such a long journey to see us last time we were over.”
Booming Permalink
Fact is that the Monkees’ career is booming in a lot of different directions. Touring is high on the list of “things to do”, and Britain high on the agenda of “places to visit”, but these persistent stories claiming that they’ll DEFINITELY be here on such-and-such a date do the boys no favours at all. There are enough people ready to knock the Monkees without the added strain of them being blamed for stories they knew nothing at all about.
Worth remembering is that WE get the facts straight from the Monkees’ mouths for “Monkees Monthly”. And we don’t get involved in rumour stories which merely build up the hopes of the loyal fans in this country.
Third Monkees Monthly competition results Permalink
This was one of our most popular competitions ever and, as you know, the Monkees actually judged it. Out of all the cards that were sent to them in Hollywood the winners they chose were:
1st PRIZE £20
Patricia Burrows, 18 Thursby Road, Burnley, Lancs.
“Don’t just stand there… undo something!”
2nd PRIZE £10
Lynda McGill, 5 West View, Bransty, Whitehaven, Cumberland.
“That’s the last time I take you to see an old Pearl White movie!”
3rd PRIZE £5
Lynne E. Hall, 50 Albany, Calderwood, East Kilbride, Glasgow.
“Gee Mike, we don’t need publicity that bad, do we?”
