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\n\t\u201cI feel it\u2019s time to take off the black armband and just celebrate the whole Monkees<\/a> project,\u201d the 80-year-old musician and actor tells Billboard. His Micky Dolenz: 60 Years of the Monkees tour kicks off Feb. 12 in Solana Beach, Calif., with 22 dates so far announced into November. \u201cThe show\u2019s not gonna be a memorial. It\u2019s not going to be heavily tributed. I\u2019m just gonna sing the songs and tell the stories.\u201d The 60 Years performance will be a bit more formatted than his other endeavors, however.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI\u2019ll be focusing more on the chronology and on the TV show, using videos from the original episodes,\u201d Dolenz explains. \u201cI still have people ask, \u2018So what was it like when the group got the TV show?\u2019 I\u2019m like, \u2018Omigod, have you ever heard of a thing called Wikipedia?’\u201d he laughs. \u201cThere\u2019s still a lot of people who are surprised when I explain how it came to be, that it was a musical comedy sitcom on NBC with us cast in it, not a band in the traditional sense. Even at the time, frankly, people didn\u2019t get it\u2026because it was the first time anything like that had happened. It\u2019s happened many times since \u2014 Glee, for instance. They create the act and then have the acts go out. I want people to understand how the Monkees came about, so I\u2019ll be focusing on that, as well as the songs.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tDolenz, Nesmith, Davy Jones and Peter Tork became the Monkees in 1965, from a casting call that included actors and musicians (including, famously, Stephen Stills). The TV show was created by Bob Rafelson, playing off the success of the Beatles films A Hard Day\u2019s Night and Help!. With Don Kirshner overseeing the music, the Monkees hit big with four consecutive No. 1, multi-platinum albums \u2014 beginning with the self-titled debut in the fall of 1966 \u2013 and six Billboard Hot 100 top 10 hits, including the chart toppers \u201cLast Train to Clarksville,\u201d \u201cI\u2019m a Believer\u201d and \u201cDaydream Believer.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAfter the TV show finished in 1968, the quartet \u2014 which fought producers for songwriting and other creative input \u2014 continued on through 1970, then reunited in 1986 for its 20th anniversary and continued on in various incarnations. Dolenz is the sole Monkee who\u2019s been part of the group throughout its career, and he was touring<\/a> with Nesmith up until Nesmith\u2019s death<\/a> on Dec. 10, 2021, at the age of 78.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cJohn Lennon put it very succinctly, that the Monkees are like the Marx Brothers,\u201d Dolenz notes. \u201cIf you appreciate that, if you understand that, you can get your head around it and it makes a lot more sense. I remember Mike Nesmith said when we went on the road for real and performed our first concerts, just the four of us, it was like Pinocchio becoming a little boy.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cBut having said that, the producers must have had that in mind. It wasn\u2019t a fluke. It wasn\u2019t an accident. It was premeditated in the sense that if the show got on the air and did well, the records would hopefully do well, too. That was the plan, obviously\u2026and then we\u2019d go on the road and all of that. If they had not intended that, or at least hoped for it, they would\u00a0not have bothered to have cast four guys who would sing, who could play, who could write, who could act, who could perform. They could\u2019ve hired four actors, dubbed (the singing and playing) in, used cutaways. So that\u2019s why I feel this was all part of the plan.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tDolenz\u2019s plan didn\u2019t include becoming the Monkees\u2019 drummer, however. \u201cMy audition piece was \u2018Johnny B. Goode,\u2019 Chuck Berry, played on guitar,\u201d he recalls. \u201cBut when they said, \u2018You\u2019re the drummer,\u2019 I said, \u2018Yeah, but I play guitar.\u2019 They said, \u2018Yeah, we have enough guitar players,\u2019 so I was like, \u2018Great, where do I start?\u2019 It was like when I was cast as Circus Boy, they said, \u2018You\u2019re gonna ride an elephant.\u2019 \u2018Great! Where do I start?\u2019 I\u2019m an actor; I\u2019ll do what the part requires. So I started drum lessons. \u201c<\/p>\n \n\tDolenz says the chronological approach of the 60 Years shows will allow him to explore some of the less-celebrated, later Monkees works such as The Monkees Present and Changes. But he promises fans will get what they came for. \u201cThey know they will always get the hits,\u201d Dolenz says, \u201cand over the years I\u2019ve learned that as long as they know they\u2019re gonna get the hits, then I can do deep cuts or even do material from other artists \u2014 not a lot, but occasionally. But they\u2019re always tied to a story that makes sense and is part of the song.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cBut it\u2019s always tough because there was so much great material, and so many of those deep cuts that actually got attention \u2014 many of them because videos had been done for \u2019em for the show, even though they might not have ever been singles. But they became very well-known because of the television show, so people know \u2019em and ask for \u2019em.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tIn addition to the concerts, Dolenz has also released his second children\u2019s book, Lalu Toot Toot, illustrated by his eldest daughter Ami Dolenz. His first, Gakky Two-Feet, was published in 2006.<\/p>\n \n\tDolenz\u2019s 60 Years of the Monkees dates so far include:<\/p>\n \n\tFebruary<\/p>\n \n\t12 \u2014 Belly Up, Solana Beach, Calif.<\/p>\n \n\t13 \u2014 Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, Cerritos, Calif.<\/p>\n \n\tMarch<\/p>\n \n\t3 \u2014 Brown County Music Center, Nashville<\/p>\n \n\t5 \u2014 Royal Oak Music Theatre, Royal Oak, Mich.<\/p>\n \n\t7 \u2013 Silver Creek Event Center, New Buffalo, Mich.<\/p>\n \n\tApril<\/p>\n \n\t12 \u2014 Landsdowne Theater, Landsdowne, Pa.<\/p>\n \n\t15-16 \u2014 The Barns, Vienna, Va.<\/p>\n \n\t18 \u2014 Tarrytown Music Hall, Tarrytown, N.Y.<\/p>\n \n\t19 \u2014 Paramount, Huntington, N.Y.<\/p>\n \n\tMay<\/p>\n \n\t7 00 Tulsa Theater, Tulsa, Okla.<\/p>\n \n\t9 \u2014 Majestic Theatre, Dallas, Texas<\/p>\n \n\t11 \u2014 Paramount Theatre, Austin, Texas<\/p>\n \n\t13 \u2014 Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, San Antonio<\/p>\n \n\t24 \u2014 Abbey Road on the River, Jeffersonville, Ind.<\/p>\n \n\tJune<\/p>\n \n\t26 \u2014 Hard Rock Live, Orlando, Fla.<\/p>\n \n\t28 \u2014 Capitol Theatre, Clearwater, Fla.<\/p>\n \n\tJuly<\/p>\n \n\t11 \u2014 Hoover Auditorium, Lakeside, Ohio<\/p>\n \n\tSeptember<\/p>\n \n\t12 \u2014 TBA, Los Angeles<\/p>\n \n\tOctober<\/p>\n \n\t3 \u2014 Borgata Music Box, Atlantic City<\/p>\n \n\t15 \u2014 The Palace Theatre, Greensburg, Pa.<\/p>\n \n\t17 \u2014 Riviera Theatre and Performing Arts Center, North Tonawanda, N.Y.<\/p>\n \n\tNovember<\/p>\n \n\t6 \u2014 MGM Northfield Park, Northfield, Ohio<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four years after the death of Mike Nesmith left him the last Monkee standing, Micky Dolenz says he\u2019ll…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,497,9262,216,26770],"class_list":{"0":"post-342263","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-genre-pop","10":"tag-genre-rock","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-touring"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}