Today's first song is Exotic Animals & Beaches (it can be heard as the 11th track on this page): PICASSO’S GLAM BAROQUE PSYCHEDELIC SUNSHINE (A collection of 12 way-out pop songs), by Johnny J Blair w/Davy Jones (Monkees), members of The Badlees, & other lumineers We will discuss two songs today as they are trivialities... This is a distinctly odd effort from Johnny J Blair who was a part of Davy's backing band. It's a fairly desperate attempt to include Davy in a song, but I can't really dislike it. The music is quite good and, while it's not something that I would listen to regularly, it's amusing to hear once in a while. 2.5/5.
Today's second song is Daydream Believer (Millenium Mix): I look forward to reading some of the comments about this one... I don't have too much of an issue with remixes in general, but this is cheap and nasty. It sounds like it was done very quickly, and I also don't like the effects added to Davy's vocals. He doesn't even sound good on the repeated "Daydream Believer" which is a bit of a problem when it's the title of the song. 1.5/5.
Exotic Animals & Beaches - This could almost qualify as advant guarde. The music is actually quite good. Dropping in Davy’s narration might be considered a bit “arty”. Interesting at best. 3/4. Daydream Believer (Millennium Mix) - It appears that Davy was going for a dance mix here, and it doesn’t quite succeed. 2/3.
Exotic Animals & Beaches - 3.5/5 The tone of the strings remind me of King Crimson’s Larks Tongues In Aspic. Never thought I’d make that connection with Davy! I like the track and it’s right that Davy is credited. I also enjoyed the following track, If I Could Dress Like Clive Owen; i’ll investigate further. Daydream Believer (Millenium Mix) - 1.5/5 I’d have to have taken a little mdma to get anything from that. It’s very poorly done.
Exotic Animals & Beaches is strangely awesome - I'm think I'm going to download the album. 3.5/5 That remix of Daydream Believer is quite possibly the most desperate, pathetic thing I've ever heard. 1/5
Exotic Animals and Beaches - 1/5 - I just can't... Daydream Believer - 1/5 - WTH did Davy do to my second all-time favorite song ?!?!?!?!? Just. NO.
Exotic Animals and Beaches - 3.5/5 I like the avant garde, and may have considered this a 4 if I knew Davy had more to do with it. Daydream Believer (Millenium Mix) - 1/5 Awful
Needed to carve out the amount of time needed to listen to January a couple times, which took a while. It is OK, reminded me of some Alan Parsons Project work from mid 70's era as well as his own. Lacked some of the punch of what I like about The Prison and Rays. I will not rate the other two either. Pretty weird recording and it shows Davy would try different stuff. I wonder if he knew this was going to be put to music or he was just talking, while obviously being used for something as he was recorded. I wouldn't say it works for me but it is kind of cool that Davy was doing this kind of work. As for Daydream Believer I guess some songs were never meant to have a dance mix or at least one so inferiorly produced.
I was not aware of the date although I will be honest, I thought we were still somewhere in very late 90's or early 2000's and moving chronologically through solo work. However, that does brings up a whole other set of questions regarding the recording.
I just took the date from the Bandcamp release. It says released Jan 4 2017. I guess the track could be from earlier.
Actually, the page for this track has this annotation on Bandcamp: The final mash was mixed by Tim Breon and released in 2001 on the limited-edition EXOTIC ANIMALS & BEACHES OF PENNSYLVANIA EP. A remix was included on the GRATEFUL CD in 2007.
"Exotic Animals and Beaches" -- 1/5 "Daydream Believer (Millennium Mix)" -- 1/5 This "Daydream Believer" track might be the worst thing I have ever heard in my life. And I've heard all four volumes of Just For The Record.
I made it to the 30 second mark after fumbling my mouse at the 10 second mark. "Daydream Believer (M.M.) is terrible, I've been lurking in the shadows lately but had to say something about this one. .5/5 (yes, that is a 1/2 point)
Exotic Animals and Beaches This is interesting. Davy's part in it is just the spoken word, and it works for what it is. I wouldn't recognise it as Davy or Monkees related if I didn't know. It's inventive and interesting. 3.3/5 Daydream Believer Millennium Mix Now, what do we have here. It's good that Davy (presumably) was trying something different. But, this doesn't really work. It's a combination of sounds one of which incidentally is from the song. The other bits seem unrelated. But, overall it has some strange charm and bonus points for trying something different. 2.7/5
Exotic Animals - 2/5 This is just OK track - it really just plods along. I might revisit it again. Daydream Believer - 1/5 If I could digitally burn an insipid track to smithereens then it would be this colossal mess.
Once Again (Peter and James Lee Stanley) Easy Rider Bulldozer Another Side to this Life Dirty Job Little Girl One Trick Pony Some Say Easy Rockin' Hi Babe Stolen Season Daydream Believer
Today's song is Easy Rider: I wonder whether this song was partly inspired by Leadbelly's song of the same name that Peter would go on to cover on the Relax Your Mind album. It's not a jaw dropping piece of songwriting, but it's good to be discussing a Peter original and it's a solid track. Again I think that the blend of him and James Lee Stanley works much better than Peter singing on his own, and this style of music suits him well. 3/5.
"Easy Rider" -- 3/5 Allegedly, this is the song that Peter submitted to Raybert for consideration for the film of the same name in 1969. It's a pretty good tune, though rightly rejected for the movie. Just very surprising, considering how many times he recorded the same songs over and over, that this one took so long to see the light of day. The two of them sound fantastic singing together here.
Easy Rider - 3/5 This is enjoyable and I would add this to a playlist sometime in the future. Peter's vocals are what they are, but they do work here (somewhat). Glad to hear a Tork-written original.
