From: colm@mathcs.emory.edu (Colm K. Mulcahy)
Newsgroups: rec.music.beatles,rec.music.misc
Subject: Monkees - tribute album out now - not for wimps
Followup-To: poster
Date: 15 Nov 1992 01:15:55 -0500
Organization: sometimes, but never early in the morning
NNTP-Posting-Host: emory.mathcs.emory.edu


Tonight was the album release party for the new 

"HERE NO EVIL - A Tribute To The Monkees" CD

just out on Long Play, PO Box 55233 Atlanta, GA 30308

It features 21 acts doing songs made famous by the Monkees, a lot of them
Boyce/Hart compositions.  Bobby Hart contributes some notes (nothing earth
shattering however).

The album opens with one of Atlanta's true originals, Deacon Lunchbox.
Burly, bearded, 40ish, construction worker by day, poet/performance artist
by night, a breath of fresh air on the local scene for several years now.
Tragically, Deacon was one of three people killed in a crash a while back,
the other two being Rob Clayton and Robert Hayes, of the Jody Grind.

Deacon takes a typically offbeat approach to The Day We Fall In Love, backed
by cello, violin and effects.

The rest of the set is "standard alternative scene" fair: Peter Holsapple,
Mitch Easter, Bob Rupe (ex-Silos), Anne Richmond Boston, Vulgar Boatmen, Those
Big Belt Buckles (the acoustic incarnation of Right As Rain), mostly acts with
some Atlanta connection.

I havn't had time to absorb it all yet, the CD that is.  Not familiar with many
of the songs either.  

The whole thing is the brain child of Jim Johnson, of the Chant [and Safety Net
Records (whose other half Bill Ashton is still working on an Alex Chilton set)],
the Chant - long given up for dead - return on this CD.

Anyway, the show was hot.  At the just reopened The Point club (closed for a 
while as a result of a city vendetta against the previous owners).

Highlights were Opium Hello doing Sweet Young Thing, Doll Squad doing Steppin'
Stone (not on the CD!), Mitch Easter doing Valleri with Lava Love, and Lava Love
doing Daydream Believer (with Mitch).  And Anne Richmond Boston and band doing
Mr. Webster.  Guitarist Rob Gal has a long track record of song assasination,
having been with The Coolies, who dismembered Paul Simon & Paul Anka on LP a
while back.  (No, this was nothing like that!)

A pity Magnapop couldn't be there to do Pleasant Valley Sunday.  Oh well.

A mid show interlude saw some video action, old TV clips (ads and all!) from
That Period.  It still amazes me how much of the visual the pre Fab Four nicked
from A Hard Days Night & Help.  While amusing for a few minutes, the totally
artificial nature of "the lads in the studio" shots soon wore thin, I for one
was glad when it was over.

While many in the crowd were old enough to have seen the shows on TV the first
time around, it was hardly an oldies/nostalgia night.  The music had an edge to
it that would have alientated any Monkee who might have wandered in, even Mike
Nesmith I bet.  

I left after 2 and a half hours of close incarceration with 200 sweaty smoky
bodies in a confined space.  Who knows what I missed.  Good value for $5, each
act did 2 numbers, mostly two Monkees songs (one from the CD and another).

CD is recommended for historical revisionists.  I for one am glad it doesn't
have any heavy weights (REM, Bragg, Hitchcock, Vega, Thompson, and similar cosy
clubs of mutual back scratchers) on it.  Bob Mould agreed to contribute a song,
but it never worked out it seems.  Then again, this is a local production, had
it been on a "real label" it would no doubt have some dreck on it.

Mind you, it would have been amusing to have say Dylan or Harrison do one!
As long as Jeff Lynne and Phil Collins were kept under lock and key.

But I digress.  Support your local indie label!  Heck, support mine too.


-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In a world of mega-stores, mega-stars, mega-sales and mega-hype, there is little
room left for the individual with a magaphone.  Everything is being brought in
line with everything else.   ERIC GOULDEN, 1990
Newsgroups: rec.music.beatles