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Re: piper at the gates of dawn. mono

"Birds,Bees & Monkees" was their last mono lp release, so because of that its a difficult one to find. Sorta minor holy grail.

Excellent lp as well.

Re: piper at the gates of dawn. mono

Yeah Wallace, I agree it's good even if it sort of marks the beginning of a decline with almost no Peter Tork on the album (piano on Daydream Believer I guess). I gave up locating a US mono after a while, but found an Australian copy with the mono designated mix (after discovering the UK was a fold-down: buyer beware!) I spent about $20 for the UK copy, but still was frustrated to find it wasn't true mono at the time I bought it. The Australian copy is the mono mix.
I can't believe how much invective writer Glenn A. Baker hurls at the album. Maybe I ended up with his mono copy?
I quote from his book "Monkeemania":
"The process was a disaster, however, and the album was an abomination."
"Psychedelic stupidity at its worst, it lurched from one ill-conceived and incomplete idea to another, any worthwhile moments buried under pointless orchestration ..."
Later on he uses the adjective "dismal."
I'm not even going to look up what he had to say about "Changes" or "Present."
He's not the only reviewer i've read who dump on the album, but apart from a couple of songs and the lack of more Tork contribution, I agree with you Wallace that it's a good one.

Re: piper at the gates of dawn. mono

I did not know that Tork had minor role on Birds,Bees.

That throws my theory in the garbage: that Tork was the Monklee most likely to lead them into fullblown psychpop. (Wot with Nesmith of course being country and Jones being the obnoxious , slurpy Macca-like musichall/50s Neilsen bullshit-sound - ruining great lps with tracks like "Cuddly Toy" (Pisces,Aquarius & Jones), "Daddy's Song" (Head) and "We Were Made For Each Other" on the aforesaid "Birds,Bees" lp.


Wot do I know. Only recently learned that Bernie Krause is playing that steeldrum-sound moog on "Star ollector" (and I guess also the moog on "Daily Nightly")

Re: piper at the gates of dawn. mono

i read somewhere that mickey donelz played moog on those tracks.

Re: piper at the gates of dawn. mono

He may have, but Bernie Krause probably sold him the moog, and showed him how it works. Coincidentally I was watching the Netfkix documentary about early synth development on Netflix just two days ago called "I Dream of Wires" which features Bernie Krause and talks a lot about Bob Moog. Mentions, but doesn't show the Monkees, even though the clip of "Daily Nightly" from the Monkees TV show features Micky Dolenz fiddling with the moog. Maybe it's "Star Collector" but I think it's "Daily Nightly" where he looks up after the song and says "Far Out!" My memory is a bit cloudy these days...

Re: piper at the gates of dawn. mono

Wallace remembers clearly: it was "Daily Nightly".

Re: piper at the gates of dawn. mono

Nice!