{"id":23931,"date":"2022-10-27T05:30:53","date_gmt":"2022-10-27T09:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=23931"},"modified":"2022-10-28T07:35:58","modified_gmt":"2022-10-28T11:35:58","slug":"dolenz-jones-boyce-hart-remembering-the-feeling-part-4-of-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2022\/10\/27\/dolenz-jones-boyce-hart-remembering-the-feeling-part-4-of-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart: Remembering the Feeling (Part 4 of 5)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Continued from Part Three<\/a>\u2026 <\/i><\/p>\n

The group did a fair number of television appearances in early 1976, guesting on The Mike Douglas <\/i>Show<\/i>, The Dinah Shore Show<\/i> and even Don Kirshner\u2019s Rock Concert<\/i>. For the talk show spots, they performed the album\u2019s lead track, \u201cI Remember the Feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

The band\u2019s U.S. tour ended in grand style, rerunning to Disneyland for a week-long residency, culminating with a show on July 4, 1976: the United States\u2019 bicentennial. \u201cIt was the biggest crowd you ever saw in your life,\u201d Allison recalled. Quite a buzz had grown up around the group by this time, and local radio carried advance reports of the Disneyland shows. \u201cPeter Tork heard about it on the radio,\u201d says Hart. \u201cHe called Micky, and Micky invited him down to the last show.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeter came down and joined us,\u201d Allison would recall. Bootleg audio \u2013 complete with screaming girls \u2013 documents Tork joining the group on bass guitar for a run-through of \u201cLast Train to Clarksville\u201d and the \u201cMonkees Theme.\u201d<\/p>\n

Allison and Hart would laugh at the memory of the Disneyland residency. Recalling his days playing at the Copacabana and being manhandled by security, Hart says that \u201cDisneyland was worse. You\u2019re one of the rides at Disneyland!\u201d The band was incredibly well-rehearsed by that point, mostly playing songs they had all known for a decade or more. \u201cWe didn\u2019t do sound checks or anything, \u201cAllison said. \u201cWe just showed up and played.\u201d Hart concurs: \u201cIt was loose. Sometimes Davy would talk [to the audience] for a few minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Disneyland ran a tight ship. \u201cYou started at a specific time, let\u2019s say 7:03,\u201d Hart recalls. \u201cAnd you ended at 8:06, because the Electric Light Parade was coming by at 8:07.\u201d So when the band started to run long, they\u2019d be accosted onstage by the park\u2019s management, telling them, \u201cYou can\u2019t do this, because Mickey\u2019s coming!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMickey Mouse,\u201d Hart hastens to clarify. \u201cNot Micky Dolenz.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"The band\u2019s dressing rooms were in trailers situated right next to the mortars used to launch Bicentennial fireworks. \u201cThe trailers had corrugated metal roofs to shield them from the mortars coming down,\u201d Allison recalled. \u201cThey would have blown holes right through the trailers\u2019 aluminum.\u201d The band members would get dressed for their show and then be herded into golf carts for the short trip to the stage. \u201cRight after the last spray of fireworks would go off, they would yell, \u2018DJB&H, go go go!\u2019\u201d Allison recalled with a laugh. \u201cWe were supposed to start playing right as the smoke was clearing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just over a week after the Disneyland gigs, DJB&H and their band were aboard a plane en route to Japan. With the troublesome backing band members a distant memory, the group was getting along reasonably well. \u201cTommy and Bobby were no problem whatsoever,\u201d says deWalden, who had taken possession of all passports (\u201cSo nobody could quit,\u201d quipped Allison). \u201cMicky Dolenz would sometimes be like, \u2018What the fuck is going on,\u201d deWalden continues. \u201cBut then he would go back to normal. And\u2026 Mr. Jones had his drinking problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christian deWalden put his diplomatic skills to work, helping smooth the path for the group as it navigated among Pacific Rim countries, some of which had strict policies. \u201cI knew how to get through without [Customs officials] opening the bags and everything,\u201d he explains. \u201cLike in Bangkok, every time I would arrive with two bottles of Johnnie Walker Black for them. Then it was always, \u2018Please, go.\u2019 None of them ever once opened the bags.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"The group played to receptive audiences in four Japanese cities: Shizuoka, Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. And everywhere the band went, they were followed by enthusiastic fans. Many tried to get in touch with the group. Christian deWalden notes that social customs in Japan were quite different than in the west.\u201dOne of my jobs was to stop the fans from calling the rooms of Micky and Mr. Jones,\u201d he says. \u201cThe hotel switchboard is very polite; they don\u2019t like to tell people, \u2018Go to hell.\u2019 You don\u2019t do<\/i> that in Japan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, the operators routed all fan calls directly to deWalden. He says that when he answered, young female fans would scream, \u201cMicky!\u201d He patiently explained that he wasn\u2019t Micky Dolenz. \u201cI\u2019m his brother,\u201d he would tell them. \u201cAishitemasu.\u201d (\u201cThat means, \u2018I love you,\u2019\u201d deWalden explains with a chuckle.)<\/p>\n

Prior to taking the stage in Osaka, the group found itself missing one of its key members. \u201cWe were getting ready to go on,\u201d Hart recalls, \u201cand Davy said, \u2018Oh, I want to go over to this bar and have a couple of drinks.\u2019\u201d Hart warned him that DJB&H were due onstage in ten minutes. \u201cSuddenly it was time to go on, and he wasn\u2019t back,\u201d Hart says. \u201cTen minutes late, fifteen, then twenty. We decided to go on without Davy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones had made fast friends with a couple older local gentlemen in the bar. \u201cHe sat and drank sake with them\u201d Hart says. \u201cAnd he got shitfaced.\u201d<\/p>\n

Around the third song in the set, Hart looked over at Micky Dolenz, only to see Jones leap over Micky\u2019s head and onto the stage. \u201cDavy was so pissed off that we had gone on without him, so he made a grand entrance.\u201d The effects of the sake made themselves known. \u201cDavy was so drunk,\u201d Hart recalls. \u201cHe couldn’t hardly carry a tune.\u201d After that, Jones announced \u2013 as he would do many times on the Asia tour \u2013 that he wanted to quit the group. \u201cBut Christian had his passport,\u201d Hart says.<\/p>\n

Click here to continue<\/a>\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Three\u2026 The group did a fair number of television appearances in early 1976, guesting on The Mike Douglas Show, The Dinah Shore Show and even Don Kirshner\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23953,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,51],"tags":[4961,4960,1235,1507],"class_list":["post-23931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-pop","tag-boyce-and-hart","tag-dolenz-jones-boyce-and-hart","tag-keith-allison","tag-monkees","cat-41-id","cat-51-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23931"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24153,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23931\/revisions\/24153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}