The Monkees complete TV show on Blu-ray box set.

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Pizza, Sep 8, 2015.

  1. Collapsed Lung

    Collapsed Lung Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York, NY
    I'll take your silence to mean "No, I won't."
     
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  2. D-rock

    D-rock Senior Member

    Location:
    Columbus, Ohio
    Now that you mention the Zilch podcasts, I do recall that. My bad.

    Rhino has a track record of letting go of Monkee-Fan employees. It's actually kind of strange. Sad because that was the foundation that Rhino was founded upon. I don't get it.
     
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  3. silvertrees

    silvertrees Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    Once Andrew Sandoval started to voice some of his grievances about Rhino in public, it felt like their relationship had somewhat soured. At first, I was kind of shocked; because he had never, to my recollection said anything remotely critical of them.
    It was on The Monkees Pad interview where he stated that during the time of the restoration of Head for the BBS Criterion set around 2010, that he went to Rhino to invest in preserving outtakes from the film that were in a sad state of decomposition.
    The head of Rhino at the time wasn't a Monkees fan, in fact was rather embarrassed that they were on his roster and wouldn't commit the necessary funds( roughly 10,000 dollars) needed to clean up the film outtakes. Fortunately what Andrew was able to salvage before Rhino and Rafelson pulled the plug appeared on the Monkees bluray set . According to Andrew, this guy was trying to re-brand the label away from the Monkees/ Dr.Demento novelty releases that basically were responsible for the early commercial successes of the company in the '80's.
    More recently on the Zilch podcast paying tribute to the passing of Nez, Andrew stated that Rhino is only interested in doing one Monkees project a year, at the time being.

    Although to be fair, as well as not wanting to come across as a ungrateful fan, I want to acknowledge that Rhino deserves some praise for commemorating the Monkees 50th anniversary with two essential releases being the bluray set( not withstanding all the issues surrounding it) and the Good Times album. An honourable mention goes out for Christmas Party from 2019 and the Mike & Micky release from 2020.

    Now if Rhino can complete the SDE series, that would go along way in restoring my faith in them.
     
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  4. Collapsed Lung

    Collapsed Lung Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York, NY
    At this point -- and this is taking us off-topic here -- the big question, which Andrew Sandoval has posed on multiple occasions, is "What is left?"

    There can't be much unheard/unreleased material from the last three remaining candidates for the SDE treatment: Headquarters was made via a completely different process than any other Monkees album, and that process was already documented via the exhaustive Headquarters Sessions 3CD set, and the mono and stereo releases have already been reissued. I rarely hear about extra material from the Pieces Aquarius sessions, as those sessions blurred into the making of The Birds The Bees, which has a rich SDE already. And outtakes from Changes seem scant...heck, no one involved in that record seems to want to talk about it, even though it is not the artistic disaster some folks make it out to be...

    I'm not really sure what's left on the table here. Despite their somewhat disingenuous packaging decisions (they can't resist using period-inappropriate photos on their covers!), 7a seem to be doing a good job gathering up post-Monkees material, some of it more marginal than others...but in terms of the Colgems/Rhino stuff, can we really expect much more?
     
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  5. BobT

    BobT Resident Monkeeman

    For Headquarters, there is a large amount of backing tracks from the New York Sessions going on around the same time as Headquarters was being recorded in California. These sessions were produced by Jeff Barry and Denny Randell. So, backing tracks like Black And Blue, Eve Of My Sorrow, Love Is On The Way, (I Wanna Be Your) Puppy Dog, Sugar Man (confused by Kirschner as Sugar, Sugar) as well as early takes of She Hangs Out, ALBM, ALBY, and Love to Love, and the CD release of I Didn't Know You Had It In You Sally (You're A Real Ball Of Fire). That's 9 tracks right there. I'm sure some more unreleased stuff from the HQ Sessions has turned up, and a few remixes of key tracks could be included. So, even though I bought HQ Sessions the day it was available for pre-order decades ago, there is still so much more there that I would purchase it the day it is put on pre-order.
     
  6. silvertrees

    silvertrees Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    There's acetate versions from the Monkees first documented recording session with Chip Douglas that took place on January 13th, '67 of TGIKS and All of Your Toys that definitely need to be included on an SDE of Headquarters, if it ever comes to pass.
    A bombshell piece of information that recently only came to light in Andrew's updated version of his Monkees day- to- day book. Unfortunately they are only instrumental versions, but for their historical importance, deserve to be released.
     
  7. seeknom

    seeknom Forum Resident

    Location:
    ottawa, on, canada
    Just wanted to chime in that my Blu-ray arrived here in Canada a few days early and in immaculate condition, despite zero packing materials. I guess the saving grace was that the cardboard box it was shipped in was exactly the size of the set (width and length, not height). So while it could slide up and down, it was secure on all four sides. And luckily, the outer box wasn't subjected to any beatings, so the insides are perfect. I opened it up, booklet and discs are correct, and no tears to the hammock holding the discs (what a crazy design). Anyway, all good here.
     
  8. Collapsed Lung

    Collapsed Lung Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York, NY
    Interesting! Although that all sounds pretty marginal...but I suppose that's the name of the game at this point!
     
  9. BobT

    BobT Resident Monkeeman

    For me, it will help complete the story of Kirschner's vision for the group in 1967. To hear more of this stuff. Will it be good like ALBM,ALBY and Love To Love? Or will it be more of If I Learned To Play The Violin and I Didn't Know You Had It In You Sally (You're A Real Ball Of Fire)?
    The alternate reality of the 1967 Monkees with Kirschner still in charge lies in those backing tracks.
     
  10. Chip TRG

    Chip TRG Senior Member

    As a public service to all who own this set and don't want to keep dealing with the horrendous packaging.....do yourselves a favor and buy one of these. Then you can throw that damn box up on a shelf and still have access to the discs.....

    Now if only someone here can make a nice insert for the case worthy of this set!

    https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07QQVKF8L?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title


    [​IMG]
     
  11. FredV

    FredV Senior Member

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  12. Chip TRG

    Chip TRG Senior Member

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  13. longdist01

    longdist01 Senior Member

    Location:
    Chicago, IL USA
    @FredV not sure everyone can see that or download from link...

    Here's there another way to see it online in the group?

    Thank you again for all your help on Forum!

     
    Last edited: May 4, 2022
  14. FredV

    FredV Senior Member

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  15. RobRoyF

    RobRoyF Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southland
    Glad to see that some people are getting theirs shipped with no problems. I hope to make some time soon to watch the thing. (already mentioned up thread) I bought mine at the Micky show last month.
     
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  16. Michelle66

    Michelle66 Senior Member

    Better yet, rip it all as MKV files and save those to an SSD:
    [​IMG]
    (Serving Suggestion)

    It takes up way less space than the discs (which can then be stored away to keep them from possibly getting damaged through use).
     
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  17. MekkaGodzilla

    MekkaGodzilla Forum Resident

    Location:
    Westerville, Ohio
    Sure wish someone HERE with an insane talent for creating home-made "alternate" Monkees album art would create something for this. :whistle:
     
  18. Upsiditus

    Upsiditus Forum Resident

    Location:
    Cleveland, Ohio
    This is a very strong anti-capitalist message. Personally I believe anyone who buys a Monkees Blu-Ray set can do nearly anything they want with it, certainly including selling at a price agreed to by both them and the buyer. I don't understand the first reference here to "real fans" here. Anybody paying an excess of $500 is either 1) a true fan or 2) giving it to a true fan as a gift.
    You've misidentified the problem here. The problem is not that some greedy private person wants to make a large amount of $ quick. The problem is Rhino discontinuing the DVD sets and then arbitrarily deciding they are only going to manufacture 10,000 Blu-Ray sets, when they could easily manufacture 50,000 or 100,000 or a million sets or whatever and sell at much lower prices. No "flipper" is getting triple digits for complete DVD sets of Gilligan's Island, Get Smart, The Brady Bunch, the Partridge Family etc. Somehow the companies producing those DVD sets made the effort to produce a sufficient supply so that no one would be able to pull it off. I know the idea of "songwriting royalties/sync rights " was mentioned, but I am not satisfied with that explanation. You can get a complete set of Glee for under $50 and there were several synced "Lennon/McCartney originals" in that show.
     
  19. D-rock

    D-rock Senior Member

    Location:
    Columbus, Ohio
    There were also some tracks on Headquarters Sessions that were excerpts so there's full versions left. "Blues" is one of them.

    Andrew has said he has Headquarters & PAC&J all laid out and ready to go. And that was a while ago. Who knows what else he's found.
     
  20. BobT

    BobT Resident Monkeeman

    A delivery update. My set is within 5 miles of my house, but now USPS has to take it and deliver it. The new scheduled date of delivery is Saturday. Annoying, but still happy it is coming and soon.
     
  21. Jim Pattison

    Jim Pattison Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kitchener ON
    I've been following this thread with bated breath as I waited to receive my copy. I just got it, and am both relieved and pleasantly surprised to report that it arrived in the same packaging and in the same condition as described by @seeknom.

    All is good here, as well.
     
  22. Collapsed Lung

    Collapsed Lung Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York, NY
    ...the behavior under consideration here (buying ten sets for no good reason) falls into the "awful but lawful" category. It's certainly not illegal, certainly their right to do so, but seems a bit gauche at best, craven at worst. But no one is calling the cops...

    However, I don't agree with your implication that there would be enough demand in the marketplace to manufacture more than 10,000 sets. This is a niche product, done with a much higher degree of care and expertise than 90% of other '60s TV show packages on the market. Untangling sync rights (and paying for the necessary licenses) adds significantly to the costs -- especially compared to a series that has almost no music other than the theme song, which is usually structured as a work-for-hire for rights purposes -- but there was also a great deal of time and money spent on locating material, transferring it, restoring it, etc. Considering how long it took to sell through the 4500 copies of the SDE of More of the Monkees (their best-selling original album, featuring their biggest hit), I don't think that 10,000 was an unreasonable number of the blu-ray sets to press.

    Perhaps there will be a dumbed-down version of the set released some day at a cheaper price, but I'm not sure it would be worth Rhino's time. Their energies may be better spent licensing it to streaming providers. While streaming doesn't pay as much, there are zero manufacturing costs involved, so the margins may just be better...
     
  23. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    that
    I disagree...if this set was priced under one hundred dollars list price and made available on other retailers as well until sold out they could have sold many thousands...the price was the problem.
     
  24. kouzie

    kouzie Forum Resident

    Location:
    Batavia, IL
    But selling it under $100 likely isn't realistic. They'd likely be losing money on every box due to royalties. It's been awhile so I may have some details wrong, but years ago when Freaks and Geeks was being prepped for dvd release, the producers were pretty adamant about keeping all the original music, but it was going to be cost prohibitive. So they sold a high end version that was pricey (but had deluxe packaging). I'm pretty sure I had to pre-order it. If they raised enough money, they could buy the mechanicals for it and a lower priced version...which eventually happened. Wondering if the same would happen here.
     
  25. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    how do you know this? larger quantities means lower prices...that's a fact. ; )
     
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