Monkee Business

March 04, 2010

Dave Mackay was a bass player friend of mmine. He had the same exact name but with a different spelling of another bass player friend mentioned in a previous story that was posted on this blog just a few days ago. The first Dave I met when I was fifteen years old when we both lived in New York City. Dave, meet the other Dave.

This other Dave and I lived in California. In the early 1970’s we used to play together in several different mmusical groups. One group I was a member of was a gospel street choir consisting of 25 members. Dave filled in from time to time.

The Fairfax Street Choir had a small gaggle of five men singers, most with lower voices for the purpose of accompanying the often and quite noticeably overpowering angelic misses. Six to sixteen were equal odds with most choirs. Two band members sang; the pianist and the member bassist Clyde.

The leader of the long haired entourage was the same pianist; also a woman. In addition, the band included yours truly along with four male banned members most of whom didn’t sing.

Our excuse was that there were no microphones with stands designed or not yet invented to accommodate the more often then knot energetic movements of each sweating more than normal instrumentalist. Besides that our leader said we couldn’t sing worth a damn anyway. She was right of course; the band was without a doubt, the real singing choir members screaming tool.

At the end of a rehearsal one evening Dave asked if I’d like to join him on a short road trip to be involved in somewhat of an audition with a friend of his who lived in Southern California. I said, sheesh Dave that’s a long trip, isn’t it?

Carmel was the town, but he wouldn’t reveal the name of the person nor band he wanted mme to enter the trial by fire unless agreeing to his request. “What are you kiddin’ mme pal? Who does that?” I asked with a band dumb meant.

After frowning a lot then laughing for a short while I acquiesced after he reminisced how he’s never let mme down as far as green and mmusic was concerned. He also pointed out that we have never lost our shirts when involved in any of our mutual mmusical experiences. I buttoned mmy shirt at this point.

OK, I’ll give him that I said but this was a little too far away from home to trust him without further knowledge of the future events. There had to be a warm bed not under the stars as well as food other than mars bars or cheap take outs. I asked him of the future prospects if agreeing while mentioning that I’d like to see home again. After all I had two dogs and a roommate to consider.

Naturally he couldn’t answer those questions because he didn’t know himself. All he knew was that this person asked him to find a drummer and bring him down; then we’ll go from there. After thirty seven more minutes of cajoling I kissed mmy home, mmy dogs Red and Sadie good -bye. I didn’t kiss the roommate named Richard but asked him if he’d feed the dogs if I never returned.
He agreed if I’d bring him back a large cheese pizza with no anchovies.

Instead of driving down on route five, the main highway towards our final destination of Carmel Mr. Dave chose the very scenic Route 1 which tossed and turned us like two bugs in a bed of shivering timbers. His vehicle headlights didn’t work, the shocks were non-existent and he bumper made scraping noises.

The stranger in question was Mr. Mike Nesmith. One of the Monkee’s. I finally trusted him when we drove into the driveway and Mr. Monkee was standing right in front of Dave’s car when we pulled up.

As I opened the passenger side door Mr. Monkee walked over to mme, thrust out his hand like a turnstile would after dropping in change and said, “Hi, I’m Mrs. Nesmith’s son Mike.” I immediately fell in love with the guy and his humour.

While shaking his hand he said we were going for a jog. We were to leave our stuff in the car and follow him to the track. The track was a local college stadium that had an outdoor oval he and his wife used everyday. I was out of shape and looking forward to vomiting somewhere in the middle of all the neglected exercise. I was searching for the nearest bush after half a lap.

Needless to say it was hard to get a word in edgewise between his asking questions about several people of our mutual acquaintance and the fact that he was running more than jogging didn’t help for a shared conversation.

To keep up I had to concentrate more on where mmy feet were as opposed to not biting mmy tongue during the long jump steps between each word. He noticed mmy panting but didn’t slow down one mile per our. He may have gone faster.

After telling him a little of mmy typing experiences he let mme know that if it weren’t for his mom’s initial help of inventing White Out he probably would have had a harder time to get to where he was that day. I told him he owed mme half his house due to mmy mistakes but I’d accept a box of onion skins instead. I never received the onion skins; not even one of those small bottles of White Out.

MMind you the mman was quite the inventor himself. After what I thought was a long jog but was his shortened one, we slowly walked back to the little castle on the beach to begin our mmusical acquaintance. The first thing Mr. Mike presented after a grand lunch was to show Dave and I how his Elephant Parts was coming along.

Elephant Parts turned out to be one of the first if not (thee) first purely mmusic video ever made. He was experimenting with all kinds of moving and sound equipment in the process of producing this first of its type. He pointed out all the nuances of each segment before showing us the almost completed version. Little did I know how little I did know what was coming in the world of videos.

We spent over two hours jamming in his mmusic room. It sir prized mme to learn that his mmusicianship was of the highest quality, reminding mme of what some have said; he was the only real mmusician of - that bunch of Monkee’s. Peter Tork was no slouch either. Living in the same area we shared more notes.

Mr. Mike’s lyrics were much better than I’ve ever heard Monkee’s sing. Some say the Beatles copy band never wrote words for groan ups. Mr. Mike was quite the humour us Monkee. He smiled wide when looking us in the eye’s as he sang, when we conversed and while discussing our parts to his songs. His knowledge of his instrument was quite evident.

His electric acoustic guitar playing was clean and precise. He only spoke soft while his personality always projected kindness and confidence. He has a distinctive voice and phrasing that only he can claim. His jokes and friendly attitude from the beginning to our goodbye helped mme personally feel after we left like one of the prime mates.