Funeral At The Movies II
The Monkees' 'Head'
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What no one told me, though, was that as time went on, the boys in the Monkees (Davy Jones, Michael "Wool Hat" Nesmith, Peter Tork, and Micky Dolenz) strived to take creative control and break away from their handlers.
Some people even claim that their third record, Headquarters, which is primarily filled with music they wrote themselves, is up there with such classics as Pet Sounds, Love's Forever Changes, and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Such a claim would be ridiculous, but even so, one must admire some of the risks that the Monkees took on screen.
Just look at the last two episodes of "The Monkees" that aired on NBC in 1968. The second-to-last episode, "Monkees Blow Their Minds," guest-starred outsider musician Frank Zappa, and featured him switching personas with Mike Nesmith during one of the scenes. The last episode ended with a solo performance by a virtually unknown troubadour named Tim Buckley singing his then unreleased song "Song To The Siren" (according to David Browne's biography "Dream Brother," Buckley met Mike Nesmith at Hoot Nights at Los Angeles' Troubadour nightclub).
If that is not enough evidence that they were taking more chances on screen, Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you "HEAD"* (damn, I promised I wouldn't play blue). "HEAD" was the Monkees' big screen debut. Mojo (June 2002) put it best when they called "HEAD" "the most extraordinary adventure Western comedy love story mystery drama musical documentary ever filmed. And that's putting it mildly. "HEAD" also lampooned such Hollywood genres as war, horror, sci-fi, '40s boxing sagas, '60s spy flicks, desert epics, the new psychedelic mentality, and rock n' roll movies."
In addition to the above mentioned, "HEAD" also spoofed such subjects as mainstream culture, the government, the record industry and the idea of the Monkees themselves. Trying to describe the movie to one who hasn't seen it is futile; it simply defies classification.
"HEAD" seems to have spawned everything from "Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls" and MTV (check the art direction of the Davy Jones number "Daddy's Song" or the thermal camera tricks of Mike's acid tinged-birthday party) to such comedy classics as "Amazon Women On The Moon." However, while "HEAD" is probably the most influential rock movie ever made, the story behind the film is just as interesting as the film itself.
I guess we should start with "Monkees" producers and co-creators Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider (a.k.a. Raybert Productions). According to Rhino Records' history of the Monkees, the production duo set out to capitalize on the success of The Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night." An advertisement was placed in Variety and 400 auditions later, the Monkees were born: September 12, 1966.
Monkee-mania promptly hit America and the U.K., as did a massive merchandising campaign (including toy Monkee-mobiles, paper dolls, trading cards, Monkees Monthly magazine, handpuppets, board games and puzzles, to name just a few).
Despite their wild success, two hit seasons, and an Emmy win for "The Monkees" series, Bob Rafelson was unhappy with his creation. Most of the public had already figured out the Monkees didn't play their own songs in the studio, and Monkeemania was dying down. By 1968 Rafelson was dropping acid and eating mushrooms with the likes of Jack Nicholson and Dennis Hopper (i.e., he was too cool for school).
According to Peter Biskind's "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls," Rafelson saw himself as a hipster and an outsider, the antithesis of the Monkees. In fact, he was embarrassed by their very existence. Rather then abandoning his Frankenstein altogether, and letting the "Prefab Four" go their own way, Rafelson and Schneider decided that they would save some face and try to destroy the Monkees in the process. Rafelson's first wife, Toby, told Biskind "the need to feel cool, in the minds of guys like Bob and Bert, was terribly, terribly important." Thus the concept for "HEAD" was born.
Rafelson recruited buddy Jack Nicholson (then a struggling B-actor) to write the screenplay for "HEAD." According to "Easy Riders," Nicholson and Rafelson "fired up some joints, dropped acid, took a walk on the beach, and came up with the novel idea of deconstructing the Monkees in a melange of music, Vietnam footage, and kitschy pop artifacts."
The creation of "HEAD" probably seemed like it would be a win-win situation for both the Monkees and Rafelson. While Rafelson wanted to deconstruct the Monkees to impress the "turned on" community, the Monkees too wanted to shed their bubblegum image and be viewed as serious musicians.
But in reality, it appeared that Rafelson truly wanted to destroy the Monkees (if not their careers, at least their self esteem -- Nicholson biographer Patrick McGilligan notes in his book, "Jack's Life," that Rafelson would try and undermine the on-set integrity of the Monkees by blasting music by the Electric Flag or Buffalo Springfield, while taunting the band with epithets like "That's real rock n' roll, man").
Though the Monkees agreed with the initial ideas and direction of the movie, and even threw in a few suggestions and scenarios before the filming began, it was Nicholson and Rafelson who had final say in the product. The Monkees never actually had creative control over the movie.
In the last scene of the film the band is helplessly trapped underwater in a human-sized aquarium that is being towed off a movie lot. It was as if Rafelson was washing his hands of the Monkees for good.
The marketing (or lack thereof) of "HEAD" also seemed like a final "fuck you" to the band. As if dropping them in a psychedelic movie wasn't enough to turn off their teenybopper audience, none of the commercials for "HEAD" made any mention of the Monkees!
The radio spots (which can be found on Rhino's reissue of the soundtrack) feature a pastiche of songs and sound bites from the movie along with a woman and man saying "'HEAD' Now Playing" in various looping patterns. The television spots (included on the DVD) didn't contain any clips from the movie, but rather featured the face of Raybert's media expert John Brockman with the word "HEAD" superimposed in the upper right hand of the screen.
"HEAD" eventually opened on November 20, 1968 and promptly tanked.
Soon after, Rafelson and Nicholson moved on to making the groundbreaking "Easy Rider" and classic "Five Easy Pieces" while the public more or less forgot about the Monkees. Their television show was canceled, Tork left the group, and subsequently so did Nesmith.
It is now almost 35 years later and the Monkees still exist, no doubt rocking such venues as the Star Plaza in Merrillville, Ind., so it would seem that Rafelson's mission to destroy them was a failed one. But I would disagree with that assessment, mainly because the reunited Monkees are -- for lack of a better term -- extremely un-cool.
"HEAD" is now a cult classic rock film, yet the Monkees aren't a cult classic rock band. They are still as manufactured as they ever were, and the mere fact that they were in a cool movie doesn't make them a cool band.
But that didn't have to be the case. What an amazing final artistic statement it would have been if the Monkees' final farewell was this stinging, countercultural pseudo-mockumentary instead of the Nesmith-produced 1996 album Justus.
Rafelson gave the group a perfect exit in the final scene of "HEAD," but they blew it. They pissed away what little credibility they might have had by reuniting and making asses out of themselves on the casino circuit (where allegedly Peter Tork insists on having a piano solo in which he plays a medley of Bach and Mozart to prove to the audience that he is not really the dummy that he portrayed on the series. The series which aired 34 years ago! How insecure can a man be? I hope he is more confident now that he is playing with his new R&B revue band Shoe Suede Blues).
If I had to choose between Rafelson's final vision for "The Monkees" and Micky Dolenz's, I would have to give the decision to Rafelson. His concept of a wild deconstruction is much more exciting than the sad, oldies-circuit reality. Now if he could only make a feature starring O-Town (maybe call it "TAINT").
End-note: I once saw Teri Garr on "Late Night With Conan O'Brien," back when Andy Richter was on the show. Conan asked her about working on "HEAD" (she had a bit part in the movie). She was very unimpressed with the whole experience, and she seemed equally unimpressed with the running joke about the film's title. Allegedly, if there was to be a sequel, the promotions were going read: "From the people that gave you "HEAD"!" Thus, I more or less ripped off said joke in the sixth paragraph.
MARK GROESCHNER | Mark Groeschner is the creator of the late, great satirical Web site Public Nigmity. When not soothing the nerves of his pudgy cat Yoda or harassing people from afar on the Internet, he works for the commercial/video production company Brand New School.