Learn to Pronounce ‘Dolenz’!
By: Jan Swanton
Jan watched the Monkees Tale at: St Gregory Church, Sudbury.
Review:
Four excellent musicans badly let down by the ‘Narrator’ who couldn’t even pronounce Micky’s surname and fed us factually incorrect information for reasons best known to the promoters.
For example ‘Sugar, Sugar’ wasn’t written until two years after Don Kirshner was sacked by Raybert. Mike said ‘That could have been your face, Motherf***er’ to a Screen Gems exec not Don Kirshner.
The Monkees weren’t a ‘manufactured boy band’. Boy bands didn’t exist until the ’80s. The Monkees was a band made up of the cast of a television show who decided to form a band. A band that has lasted for 58 years and counting.
I could go on.
Lose the ‘Narrator’. The Monkees’ music speaks for itself!
Reply From The Monkees Tale:
Hi Jan, we are sorry you did not enjoy the narration in our show, we do try to make all our shows as entertaining as possible.
Hundreds of our audience members over the years have specifically commented, in both reviews and meet and greets, that they love the narrator, and enjoy the fact they get the story as well as the music. Indeed, the show is called “The Monkees Tale” for just that reason, it includes narrated, edited highlights of the Monkees story for those who may not be familiar with it. Perhaps you missed this on the poster?
Now allow us to address your criticisms and the points you raised.
- Jimmy’s pronunciation of “Dolenz” maybe we should suggest to him that he be more English and less American to meet your approval? He can, however, spell musicians correctly, so perhaps we should not be too hard on him.
- Regarding your point on Sugar, Sugar in this video Micky Dolenz himself backs up the version of events used in our script.
- We have taken on board your point about who Mike Nesmiths angry tirade was directed at and passed that to the producer to have the original script research checked and potentially correct the narrators script.
- You are correct that the term “boy bands” was not coined until the 80s, however the Monkees were by definition manufactured. They were formed by Bob Rafleson and Bert Schneider for the TV show, therefore they were not an organic band and would never have existed as a band otherwise. We will have to agree to disagree on this point, as it is clearly a matter of opinion. How they were formed does not of course take anything away from their awesome talent and success. We love the Monkees too, that’s why we did a show about them.
- We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for choosing not to “go on”
- We did pass on your suggestion of “Lose the Narrator” to our producer, sadly it was rejected very quickly, and he threw us out of the office for wasting his time. If you would like to see our show without the Narrator, we recommend catching it at any of the many Warner venues we appear at through the year, where we are happy to inform you there will be no narration.
The Monkees Tale team