The Mike and Mickey Show Live (2020 cd)

Here we go again ...

 

According to Andrew Sandoval the online listing is a misprint. The song selection on the Japanese edition of the vinyl album is the same world wide.

 

Got it a week ago and I was pleasantly surprised. Only nitpicks are the talking parts before Papa Gene's Blues and Scouse Git. They are nice to hear the first time but get old fast. RSG's intro lasts a full minute. It's nothing a little editing in audacity can't fix ut I wish they'd put those intro's at the end of the previous song.

 

Of course, for the intro to "Randy Scouse Git," the music is already playing under Micky's banter. That would make the transition a little more awkward.

 

Listening to it now for the first time.
I remember reading Slash's autobiography, and I'm paraphrasing probably, but he wrote that when he was young and buying albums he would try and get a band's live album first because their live albums are where it's at. This is a worthy addition to the Monkees canon.

Thank you Monkees, Andrew, Christian, and Rhino.

And I just read on the booklet that it's dedicated to David and Peter

 

True. I made the cut at 1:16 getting a bit of that groove and the tail end of the laughter just before that little ascending guitar riff that plays before Micky starts the song. It's not perfect but it will do.

That being said, I love this version of RSG. I actually like the arrangement more than the original. Love how they surprised us with the arrangements. You may be the one is is another that comes to mind where they tinkered a bit with it's arrangement leading to amazing results.
I am however glad that they kept Door into Summer more or less the same as the original. It's one of my favorite Monkees tunes and the arrangements is beautiful, especially during the code with the plethora of voices coming in. That must have been awesome to witness live.

 

I've really enjoyed The Mike and Micky Show, a nice souvenir of a tour I didn't get to see because they didn't play anywhere near me. I listened to it again yesterday. Micky's voice seems to have aged more than Mike's, but they can both still put on a show. I believe this is the first live Monkees album released anywhere close to the time that the concert occurred.

For those interested in older shows with more Monkees, HDTracks has the set of four 1967 concerts previously released in a limited Rhino Handmade edition.
HDtracks

 

Vinyl postponed until July 10, as per the Videoranch FB page.

 

Lp set to arrive tomorrow! Will enjoy revisiting this on vinyl, as well as my yet unplayed First National Band Redux from 7a.

Now, if only I could find some discussion forum with tips on playing records..

 

Micky's voice may sound like it aged more than Michael because Micky's singing in the original key from more than fifty years ago (he was 74 singing songs that he sang originally when he was less than 24) --while the keys on some of the songs Michael sings are dropped so they're more comfortable for a man in his seventies. Micky's also done a ton more shows than Michael has, so his voice has a lot more mileage on it. That said, Micky's voice has held up extraordinarily well.

 

I would say the "Davy Jones/Micky Dolenz,/Peter Tork-20th Anniversary Tour, 1986" album pre-dates it as far as being the first live Monkees album released close to the time it occurred-Recorded in 1986, and released in 1987, so within a year of the shows more or less...

I don't know when they recorded the stuff on the "Mike and Micky Show" album, but I'd guess at least a year or so before it was released, so if nothing else, tied with the 1986 album (or close to it) time of release wise...

However, the 1986 concert album doesn't use The Monkees name (so as not to have to pay a licensing fee), so if we're going for an actual official release using the Monkees title, then Mike and Micky's album takes it.

 

Micky's voice certainly doesn't sound bad; it just sounds different from the 1960s. He can still sing, and sing well.

How widely was that album actually released? I only saw it at merch stands, so I considered it to have pretty limited availability. (Maybe I was looking in the wrong place.) It certainly doesn't seem to be considered any kind of canon release because I haven't seen any kind of acknowledgement from Rhino that the album exists. Certainly not a bootleg, but off to the side somewhere.

 

.....but don’t these count?

 

Yeah, it was a "merchandise table" type of release, so you're right about it being limited in availability.

Not surprising that Rhino doesn't acknowledge it, as it doesn't bear the Monkees' name, so it's nothing they'd hold the rights to...

The Wikipedia entry ( 20th Anniversary Tour 1986 - Wikipedia ) says that it was going to have a regular retail release by Rhino in 1988, but the idea was scrapped.

 

I think they "count", but I'm not sure they count as far as what @SJB was getting at...

SJB was saying that "The Mike and Micky Show" album is probably the closest release from when the actual concerts happened...

I'm not sure how much time elapsed between when the albums you posted were recorded and then eventually released.

BTW: Isn't the "Extended Versions" CD the same as the stuff on the "Live Summer Tour" release? I seem to recall reading that they are the same versions of the songs...

 

There are some repeats on ‘Extended Versions’, but also a few songs unique to it like ‘Can You Dig It’ and ‘Do I Have To Do This Over Again’.

There’s also this one that came out close to the ‘Summer Tour’ release. It was sold at the merchandise stands during the 2001 tour and contains the complete Las Vegas show from that tour.

(And yes, this was the tour where Peter Tork was fired after they filmed and recorded one of the shows that was issued as ‘Summer Tour’.)

 

Did someone's nephew design that cover in Powerpoint? That's embarrassingly amateurish.

 

The 20th Anniversary Tour album was pressed by Rhino, although not officially on their label. It was intended as a merchandise table item, but shortly afterward, I heard Rhino was planning on releasing it at retail. That never happened, although IIRC they briefly sold it through mail order.

Unfortunately, at the concert I attended that summer -- Poplar Creek in Hoffman Estates, Illinois -- they didn't have the album at the merchandise table, at least when I got there. (My show was fairly early in the tour.) I finally got one on ebay many years later.

Rhino's name and logo do not appear anywhere on the album, but the spine print matches that of Rhino releases of the era, and the album has Rhino inner sleeves.

It's interesting that while Rhino did not have any rights to this album, two songs from it ("MGB-GT" and "I'll Love You Forever") were released as single B-sides (of "Heart And Soul" and "Every Step Of The Way" respectively). The former (but not the latter) was later included in the "Music Box" compilation, and as a bonus track on the Friday Music "Pool It" CD. But again, only "MGB-GT."

 

Where's my vinyl, Amazon?

 

It is the year 2020 and I hold in my hands yet another new, official Monkees lp. Who'd a thunk it?

To the few who didn't really like the cover photo, you haven't held this impressively heavy double-lp gatefold jacket in your hand. The large format photo on the front captures the immediate, frenetic, jittery and energetic "vibe" of a live show and, at least, it doesn't have hairy pits on the front and back!


Divoon!

 

2001: Live in Las Vegas would have been a decent live recording, but the cd mix has that awful, canned applause between each track. It's so obvious and lo-fi as to be distracting.

 

I'd forgotten that Live Summer Tour came out about 13-14 months after the performance, similar to The Mike & Micky Show. But the new CD is certainly the first of its kind as a spotlight release with fairly significant promotion on the band's main label, rather than a poorly-packaged cash-in licensed by a third party or sneaked out off-label.

It has been noted above that Rhino apparently pressed the 1986 tour LPs. It's very unusual for Rhino to lose tapes - they strike me as one of the more diligent archival labels - but they must have lost the 1986 tapes, given the vinyl sourcing of the CDs. (The live "MGBGT" was probably stored elsewhere on the master reel for the "Heart and Soul" single, so they had that for Music Box.)

I'm glad to see that Rhino took this tour seriously - possibly because, with half the band gone, the end of the road is in sight. (Could we please get professional recordings from 2011 and 2013, when they dusted off more deep cuts?)

 

Amazon finally got the vinyl in stock. My copy is en route! Phew!

 

I bought mine from the Rhino mail order flyer in 1988.

 

How does the vinyl version sound? My copy finally arrived at my local store today.

edit - obviously digital... discogs states D2 mastering and Glass mastered by Arvato which I thought was mainly used for CD's...