I guess it was around the middle of June on a David Letterman Show when it really hit me. They were doing II one of those “Dave’s Record Collection” sketches, where they sample selections from such classic LP’s as Music I Like by David McCallum or It’s Time For Regis, the album Regis Philbin put out in response to Ed MacMahon’s record when Reeg was playing second banana to Joey Bishop who, if memory serves, made a country album which spotlighted his “talents” on the mandolin, this in answer to Johnny Carson showing off on acoustic jazz guitar one night on the Tonight Show when the two talk show hosts’ respective programs were going head to head back in the late ’60s—which reminds me that Joan Rivers, who’ll already be taking on Carson by the time you read this, was once in a folk trio with Jake “Be All That You Can Be” Holmes, Jake being the guy whose August, 1967 Tower Records release, The Above Ground Sound of Jake Holmes, featured the first recorded version of his original composition “Dazed and Confused,” which he apparently sold outright to Jimmy Page right around the time he opened for the Yardbirds at New York’s Anderson Theatre, precursor of the Fillmore East, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Where was I?

Oh, yes, “Dave’s Record Collection.” One night a few months ago they cue up a track from The Hollyridge Strings Play the Hits of the Monkees (“Theme from the l|*|/lonkees” played in a, hubba Y/|iubba, minor key) and the cam:v;era pans over to Paul Shafer, :H%ho’s wiping his eyes as tears ' stream down his face. “Paul!”

says a concerned Dave. “What’s ■wrong?” “Oh, nothing Dave,” answers Shafer. “I was just thinking about how (sob) Micky, Davy and Peter are back out on the road again after all these years, and how (sob) Mike’s probably looking down from up there and (sob) wishing he could be with them and...” “Wait, Paul,” says Dave. “Mike Nesmith’s not dead. He just didn’t want to have anything to do with this Monkees revival business.” “He’s not dead?” exclaims Shafer, putting his glasses back on. “Well...SCREW HIM!”

Now let me make it clear that I’m as susceptible to nostalgia as the next yokel—if you don’t

believe me, go back to the first paragraph—that is, when I see or hear something to feel nostalgic about. And positively the most bizarre thing about the MTV-orchestrated nouveau “Monkeemania” is that the audience taking part in it is primarily comprised of kids who probably were not even born when the “group” (and we use that term loosely, just as we did back in 1966) was around in the first place. After all, you can’t be nostalgic about something outside your own life experience. Unless these kids, by drawing Monkees reruns close to their breast, are saying that 1) the Monkees were cooler than Duran Duran or Wham! could ever be (no argument there) or 2) they like what they see in the old silly pictures of their parents in long hair and bell bottoms better than their own “now” lifestyle (the “I hate my mother; she’s so much prettier than me” principle). Or both.

Fudging the issue even more, of course, is the video for “That Was Then, This Is Now,” the new Monkees single, which in-

tersperses shots of Micky and Peter performing the song to their new audience with a host of “nostalgia” laden images of the mid-and late-’60s: Body and dayglo paint, mini and micro skirts, peace signs, love-ins, etc. Which would be fine except that those images have almost nothing to do with the Monkees or what they represented. Because the Monkees were, unfortunately, little more than corporately manufactured artifacts of ’60s pop culture. They were invented, leave us not forget, by people looking to sell soap suds on television, and the “new” Monkees being searched for across America right now are being picked to do the very same thing—sell soap suds. If kids are enjoying the slapstick, semi-mindless shenanigans of the old Monkees shows, fine. Hey, the Batman show did great when re-run in the ’70s. But nostalgia? Gimme a break.

Mike Nesmith, wherever you are, this bud’s for you.

SNAP SHOTS

I Married A Shiksa! Billy Joel, “A Matter of Trust”— Wherein Mr. William Joel disrupts a nice afternoon on St. Mark’s Place in the East Village with a “live” rehearsal of yet another one of those wonderful new tunes of his that leaves you humming all the old songs that you realize he ransacked in order to create it. Personally, I’m with the kid in the mohawk who walks by the camera and sticks his fingers in his ears. Have you no respect for turf, Billy? Next time, take it to Hempstead, OK? And speaking of taking it to the suburbs...

Welcome Back To My Nightmare: Alice Cooper, “He’s Back”—Or, ask not for whom the guillotine drops, it drops for thee. Actually, with revivals so in vogue these days, why not Alice, everybody’s original groovy ghoulie? You never know—one decent comeback album could be good for a corner spot on the new Hollywood Squares. Seriously, though, are they really going to actually make 13 of these atrocities? I can just see future film scholars arguing about the rankings: “Yes, but the symbolism of the little puppy dog in II so foreshadows the innocence of the lost blind girl in IX, n’est pas?”...Fangs A Lot: Bananarama, “Venus”—I keep waiting for this video to get pulled from the air because of its abundance of midriff shots capable of corrupting the morals of any male within a 50-mile viewing radius. I’ve heard of form over content, but this is^ ridiculous!

THEM

THE ALARM Spirit Of ’86 (MCA Home Video)

by Dave DiMartino

V Boy, doesn’t war suck?

You’ve gotta feel the way IKeej about it. People are always killing each other, and they never stop and think that 8 if only they treated each other 8 nice for a change, things would be a lot different! Just think about it—if all the energy that went into making guns and bombs and stuff went into producing fertile farmland, dairy cows and things like that, I just bet we could feed the world forever! Wouldn’t it be great?

^ But see, the thing is, They don’t want it to happen! That’s right! It’s Their big plan to keep making bombs and guns and junk. Why? Because that way, They keep getting richer and richer while guys like you and me, we can’t even go out to eat once in a while. It really stinks. And it’s not a new thing or anything like that, because if you read books, you can find out that struggles like this have been going on for years and years.

■ Anyway, this is where the Alarm come in.

£ I don’t have to tell you that the Alarm is a band that really cares, do I? I mean, the four guys in the band—Mike Peters, Dave Sharp, Eddie Macdonald and Nigel Twist—are totally aware of hum plight! That’s why

they formed their band. Now, because of them, the real truth can be made known, the proper accusations can be made, and maybe—just maybe—the world be made a better place.

WSpirit Of ’86 is a wonderful documentary of the Alarm’s free concert at UCLA last April. Did you catch it on MTV? It may be the best way to see the band, if they haven’t come to your town yet. Oh, they will, don’t worry, because they care. Believe you me, they care. And you’ll care too, when you catch this fantastic 90-minute video documentary! Frankly, the band that tells it like it is is shown the way it is—hot, heavy, heartfelt and passionate. As always, the key word here is passion. The Alarm have it in spades!

And they ask some pretty tough questions, too. Like, for instance, where were you hiding when the storm broke? It’s always been my favorite Alarm song, because I’ve always known just what they mean when they sing it. I figure the “storm” is like some sort of military uprising—maybe it’s addressed to the guys in Nicaragua or Ireland or someplace like that. How about you? Anyway, I’m not that sentimental a guy, but I’ve gotta say that when that lyric comes up—you know which one, “The truth is the truth/Or the truth is surely a lie”—my eyes start to tear up, ’cause I can relate.

Don’t let anyone tell you differently—Mike Peters cooks when he starts rockin’ onstage! You can see it in the eyes of the audience. They stare up at Mike like he’s some sort of larger-than life, godlike guy—when you know as well as I do that’s not what Mike wants, he’s one of us! And I seriously doubt any Hollywood film this year will display the drama or angst Mike does when he he sings those powerful opening lines: “And now they’re trying to take my life away/Forever young, I cannot stay/On every corner I can see them there/They don’t know my name/They don’t know my kind.” Forget the poetry, forget the imagery—just relish the looks on Their faces when They find out Peters & the gang are on to Their tricks!

And what’s really cool is that the Alarm aren’t wimps. No sir. Heck, these days lots of people have all sorts of suggestions about what they’d “like” to see happen, what they’d do “if only” they could—but give ’em a chance, and you can just bet a buck they’ll back down, afraid of the consequences! Pussies? Nah—just scared people.

The Alarm won’t stand for it. I’ll tell you, I must’ve rewound this tape three or four times, just to watch the proud looks of the audience members as they sang along with the band, in triumph: “Going out in a blaze of glory/My hands are held up high.” My kind of song—and yours tool I bet!

But as hip as the Alarm are, they’ve got more than one message for us: it isn’t always so clear-cut sometimes about who’s right and who’s wrong. Like, sometimes, it’s a duality, you know? Both sides could be at fault! That’s why I think “Absolute Reality” may well be this tape’s highlight—it doesn’t just rock, it teachesl Just watch good ol’ Mike, gleam in his eye, boldly marching back and forth onstage, like a soldier, singing “This is absolute reality, reality, realityAA/e are all the cause/The solution to reality.” You gonna tell me you didn’t just learn something?!

Notice how I didn’t even start talking about how cool the guys in the band look? There’s a time and a place for everything—and sure, the guys are probably foxes and all that, but do looks really matter when the whole damn world is at stake? Hell no\ I figure that if I make my hair look like the guys in the band’s, that should demonstrate how I’m taking my stand, and that’s pretty much enough said.

You know something? This Spirit Of '86 tape is like a powerful weapon. If we just could get all the world’s leaders together in a big room somewhere and show it to them, there’d probably be world peace in a couple of weeks, tops!

In the words of John Lennon—“you may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.” There’s me, there’s the Alarm, there’s you, there’s your friends—what say we we all get together sometime, and show Them we’re not gonna take Their crap any longer!