Interview with Bobby Hart of Boyce &amp; Hart fame!: Three Chord Monte with Joe Belock

Listener comments!

12:03pm Stevel:

Take me away with your rock and roll noise machine!!

👻

12:04pm Hoboken Jack:

No out-and-about for me, i'm staying IN with Three Chord Monte!

12:04pm KP:

I wonder what Three Chord Monte is doing tonight

12:06pm BriJet:

Hi Joe! I love Words!!!

12:06pm Joe B:

Hi everybody! Thanks for tuning in! 60s pop icon Bobby Hart will be calling in at 1:30 pm to talk about his new book and his appearance at Monty Hall for the screening of Boyce & Hart: The Guys Who Wrote 'Em on May 29!

12:07pm BriJet:

Yes!!! I <3 the Monkees!!!

12:09pm Claw!:

Be-Lock!
People!

12:12pm Cheri Pi:

Wheeeeee!

12:19pm SmokinJ:

Sounds great! Can't wait!

12:20pm Mike Sin:

Hey Joe! Listening live from the beaches of Cape May! Looking forward to today's show. Well all right!

12:36pm common:

joe!

12:41pm Revolution Rabbit Nov63:

Interesting Garagey cover of Dylan! - but the precursor of 'Sunbteranean...' after all was Chuck Berry's 'Too Much Monkey Business'.

12:41pm Joe B:

The Monkee business will commence at 1;30 pm with Mr Bobby Hart!

12:45pm Vladislav:

I like this music , feel good for Monday yes

12:58pm Toddophonic:

The People's Champ retains his belt for another week!

1:00pm Listener Robert:

Wasn't Grubworm the closing Ren & Stimpy theme?

1:01pm Dominick:

More songs with grunting & mumbling please!

1:01pm Revolution Rabbit Nov63:

- Ren&S used 'Killing Floor' - this is like 'Roadrunner'...

1:02pm Sissophonic Cheryl:

This show RULES.

1:04pm Revolution Rabbit Nov63:

...also reminds of Bluesbreakers version of Otis Rush's 'Hideaway' that quotes 'Roadrunner' (Bo Diddley) :
www.bing.com...

1:05pm KevinWho:

geez this Sonics is killer

1:05pm Listener Robert:

I guess it takes a rabbit to know cartoon outros, thanks.

1:06pm Dominick:

Yow!

1:08pm Revolution Rabbit Nov63:

...except 'Hideaway' is Freddie King's...

1:12pm Listener Robert:

Now that I've listened to some "Killing Floor", it sounds less like the Ren & Stimpy closing theme than does "Groovy Grubworm", even though the former is credited by all sources I've found.

1:13pm BriJet:

Wow never heard this groovy version before!!!

1:13pm KP:

Nice!

1:13pm Frank Above:

Too bad this first version of I Wanna Be Free wasn't the one that actually came out back then. Such a better version!

1:17pm KP:

Fresh!

👻

1:18pm David Shortell:

I just borrowed the 1995 Varese Saraband CD "The Songs of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart" from my local library. It includes a version of "Words" by the Boston Tea Party. I suppose that was the song's first recording, preceding the Leaves?

1:18pm doctorjazz:

Great Cover, Young Fresh Fellows!

1:19pm Toddophonic:

I think Leaves would be before Boston Tea Party, not sure where Monkees fit in, didn't get to hear first set.

1:21pm Sissophonic Cheryl:

I love all this material so much!

👻

1:23pm David Shortell:

The aforementioned CD also includes Little Anthony's "Hurt So Bad". I didn't know Boyce/Hart wrote that.

1:24pm Tom from Detroit:

I knew who Bobby Hart was when I was 10. I didn't know who Brian Epstein, Keith Richard, Keith Moon , Brian Wilson or even Jello Biafra were for several smore decades after that.

1:24pm Claw!:

"The closing theme is not an original composition. It's a version of the Howlin' Wolf (Chester Burnett) classic blues "Killing Floor". No doubt. In fact, it's VERY similar to the arrangement on the Howlin' Wolf Chess Box.

Editor's Note: Official word is that Howlin' Wolf's song is NOT the closing theme, but it may sound like it."

Here's the source for that:
www.lysator.liu.se...

1:25pm Frank Above:

I can easily hear The Troggs playing "Dog" in a similar fashion to this version. It already sounds as if Reg were singing.

1:26pm Todd-o-phonic Todd:

@Frank Above: They decided to sing about a Little Red Donkey instead!

1:26pm Claw!:

R&S is my all-time favorite TV thing EVER, so I have always been super into any and everything about them. I know that John K. and others from the series played the opening and closing themes as the band "Screamin Lederhosen," but I don't know exactly if that closing theme was a cover of Killing Floor.

1:27pm Todd-o-phonic Todd:

Even Reg admitted to me once that this song was rubbish:
www.youtube.com...

1:51pm Mike East:

@Claw! - I suggested to my ten year old that we watch Ren & Stimpy while we eat our Friday pizza now that Adventuretime is no longer on netflix. She didn't know what I was talking about and said it sounded dumb...I gasped. I got to do some educatin'!

1:54pm d¢ pät:

man, we're talkin' toons! R&S and Adventure Time are tops in our house. My son and I are constantly discussing the themes in the better episodes. Our fave R&Ss are Don't Wizz on the Electric Fence and the one where they pay off the babies to hit the road.

1:57pm Claw!:

Oh yeah, Mike. You definitely gotta get your kid hip to them! They don't make kid shows like that one anymore...
I used to babysit for a family about a decade ago (damn, that time went by fast!), and I told the kids about Ren and Stimpy after pooh-pooing Spongebob as a R&S knockoff. They said it sounded crazy and they were curious about it, so I brought some DVDs over and they LOVED it! They couldn't believe what they were watching. They called each other EEDIOTS that whole Summer... Good times. :-)

2:00pm Bluesman:

You da man, Joe!

2:00pm Claw!:

d¢ pät - "Big Baby Scam!" Love that one... "Fake Dad" is another favorite of mine.

2:01pm d¢ pät:

I don't have a problem with Spongebob, gets pretty wild sometimes. Adventure Time is one of the greatest things that ever happened to tv.

2:01pm common:

agreed on the ren and stimpy, claw!

2:01pm Claw!:

God, I love that show so much. So many classics in those first three seasons.

2:01pm Mike East:

Spongebob is nowhere near as clever as Ren & Stimpy. I agree with dc pat on Adventuretime...I'm going to have to figure something out...I have no Cartoon Network.

2:02pm Claw!:

Yeah, I really like Adevnture Time, too. Good stuff.

Hey common! Glad you are a fan of the R&S. :) Great minds, and all that...

2:03pm d¢ pät:

No I agree, SB is for the mainstream more but it's STILL pretty hilarious. The Xmas special is great, "jerktonium."

2:03pm Mike East:

digging the interview, Joe b. wish I could make it out to the screening.

2:04pm common:

ha! claw! when i was in high school - before ren and stimpy - i was in art class and drew a dog that looked quite a bit like ren. blew my mind when i first saw the show.

2:05pm d¢ pät:

Yeah this is great Joe B. Monkees was a great thing on tv too.

2:05pm Claw!:

Yeah, I can appreciate Spongebob's kookiness. I guess my whole spiel at that time was more like, "Man, if you think *this* show is out there, you gotta see where these people got their inspiration!"

2:06pm Claw!:

Reppin for the OGs and all. That's how I do.

2:07pm d¢ pät:

To my way of thinking cartoons were boring as hell until R&S came along. They changed everything. (Well the really old cartoons are equally great)

2:08pm Michael Shelley:

What fun!

2:09pm Sissophonic Cheryl:

Great job, Joe!!!

2:09pm BriJet:

Awesome interview!!!

2:09pm Claw!:

Yeah, d¢ pät, I'll agree with that. I'd say that Looney Tunes was the shit for a good while, then... nothing for a long time, *then* Ren and Stimpy.

Rocko's Modern Life was really great, too. Nickelodeon had some GREAT animated series back in the early 90s.

2:10pm Claw!:

I might be a little biased, but I'd say that era of Nickelodeon was the golden age of kid's programming.

2:13pm northguineahills:

@Claw: W/ you on Rocko's Modern Life.

2:14pm KP:

i thought that last one was the Raiders!

2:17pm efd:

Outstanding interview, Joe!

2:17pm d¢ pät:

SHE!!!

2:18pm Listener Robert:

Not having cable, I saw Ren & Stimpy only because my friend David Lindelof (father of screenwriter Damon) showed tapes of them to us. I thought they were funny in spots, but on avg. I wouldn't've gone out of my way to see them. Stretched out w a lot of slow burns, slow dawns, etc. that weren't worth waiting thru. By contrast, 2 Stupid Dogs was worth the slow dawns. Of course all the stretching out was cost-saving, but with the stupid dogs it fit because they were stupid.

👻

2:18pm ChrisB.:

Fun afternoon, Joe!

2:21pm Joe B:

thanks everybody!

2:21pm Joe B:

www.ticketfly.com...

2:22pm BriJet:

Gosh that Mickey Dolenz has one of my favorite voices!!

2:23pm d¢ pät:

I found this old cassette tape my dad made of my brothers and I watching the Monkees in the 60's. I was 3. We were laughing our asses off in these ridiculously high, squeaky voices.

2:23pm common:

same here, brijet!

2:25pm d¢ pät:

^ what they said about Dolenz

2:25pm Tom from Detroit:

weeeeeeeee!

2:27pm d¢ pät:

jeez that guitar sounds amazing. I'm guessing Telecaster.

2:28pm Joe B:

Eugene Edwards, former guest on the Michael Shelley show, on lead guitar for Dwight on this cut!

2:29pm Tom from Detroit:

It's a cool riff. Off about 1000000 rolling stones album and also approximately slash on Michael Jackson's black and white.

2:31pm d¢ pät:

def a Telecaster--I heard the single-coil buzz at the end there.

2:32pm Bill in W.O.:

Mr. Edwards had been on the last couple of records, and his solo record from 10 or so years ago is cool, too. Saw him with DY at the Wellmont touring 3 Pears, great.

2:33pm Guido from Cologne:

great interview!

2:33pm Joe B:

at that Wellmont show, former Three Chord Monte guest Brian Whelan was also in Dwight's band on keys/guitar

2:33pm Tom from Detroit:

OMG how did I miss that the same Dwight is in the Wyldife "Wasted" track, though much more prominent in the three chord monte live recording from a few years back.

2:33pm Joe B:

thanks Guido!

2:33pm Tom from Detroit:

Dwight ripping off Wyldlife riffs again, dammit.

2:37pm Amy:

Joe is recounting my exact experience with the Flowers LP. My brother had it, and I loved the cover, plus "Back Street Girl."

2:38pm Mailman Tom:

There's a big article about the Monkees in the current issue of the Wrapper. According to the article, the Monkees did not play their own instruments on their first album and only a couple of tracks on their second album.

2:41pm doctorjazz:

Freedy Johnston is a country boy?

2:42pm Joe B:

sold the family farm to finance the first album!

2:42pm doctorjazz:

I always thought Michael Nesmith was the only one who was any sort of musician.

2:44pm Joe B:

no tork is also, very versatile. his finest hour in the studio might be the harpsichord solo on The Girl I Knew Somewhere!

2:44pm Joe H:

You're the best thing going on radio, Joe. Love the show.

2:45pm common:

great song! thanks joe!

2:47pm Chris M.:

much love to Joe B

2:47pm KevinWho:

Joe B, the banjo on You Told Me is pretty great too

2:48pm Tom from Detroit:

There was a pretty good Monkees documentary I saw that went through the whole instruments no instruments thing, and the palace revolt of the band over this in later albums. The wrecking crew documentary leaves little doubt that if you disqualified bands for not playing their own instruments you would not have had much of a record collection.

2:51pm d¢ pät:

I would argue that Dolenz played his own voice on every song he sang.

2:52pm Stevel:

Killer show and interview, per usual. Thanks.

2:53pm Stevel:

Looking forward to the Fleshlights live set. GREAT band! Get out and see 'em!

2:55pm Brian:

TOTALLY UNRELATED to Joe - Can a listener hear the difference between vinyl and digital recordings that are broadcast from WFMU? Or does it become all digital anyway, so it's the same? thanks

2:57pm KevinWho:

if you are listening to a stream over the Internet, it's (low quality) digital

2:59pm Brian:

What about terrestrial - my car or home receiver?

👻

3:07pm Ken From Hyde Park:

I've heard clicks & pops from vinyl while listening over the stream. Depends on the record, as some are full of the pops and others are pretty clean.

6:12pm psychadelic bubblegum:

Thanks again, Joe! You can get Bobby Hart's new book here:

http://www.selectbooks.com/t_psychadelicbubblegum.html

Artist	Title	Album	Label	Year	Comments	Approx. start time
Boyce & Hart	Out and About	I Wonder What She's Doing Tonite: The Best of Boyce & Hart	Rev-ola	1967/2005		0:00:00 Pop-up)
The Leaves	Words	The Leaves ...Are Happening! The Best of the Leaves	Sundazed	1966/2000		0:02:00 Pop-up)
The Monkees	(I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone	More of the Monkees	Rhino	1967/1994		0:05:07 Pop-up)
The Astronauts	Tomorrow's Gonna Be Another Day	Rarities	Bear Family	1965/1994		0:07:00 Pop-up)
Downbeat 5	Dum Dum Ditty	Victory Motel	Downbeat 5	2005		0:09:30 Pop-up)
Josie & the Pussycats	You've Come A Long Way Baby	Stop, Look and Listen: The Capitol Recordings	Rhino Handmade	1970/2004		0:12:26 Pop-up)
Bobby Hart	Too Many Teardrops	various - Action! The Songs of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart	Ace (UK)	1962/2012		0:13:14 Pop-up)

The Dovells	Summer Job	For Your Hully Gully Party/You Can't Sit Down	Collectors' Choice	1963/2010		0:22:56 Pop-up)
Bobby Rydell	The Cha-cha-cha	The Best of Bobby Rydell	ABKCO	1962/2005		0:25:41 Pop-up)
The Woggles	Only Got Myself To Blame	The Big Beat	Wicked Cool	2013	playing at Monty Hall on June 3 with Wyldlife and Sunshine & the Rain	0:27:12 Pop-up)
Gorilla Chief	Theme for Gorilla Chief	7"	Gorilla Chief	2015		0:30:04 Pop-up)
Velveteens	Ching Bam Bah	various - Party Party Party	Arf Arf	1965/2004		0:32:24 Pop-up)
The Skunks	Do the Duck	various - We're Gonna Change the World! The 60s Chicago Garage Sound of Quill productions	Sundazed	1967/2009		0:33:57 Pop-up)
The Intruders	Subterranean Homesick Blues	various - Ho-Dad Hootenanny Too!	Crypt	1965?/2015		0:37:05 Pop-up)
Thee Tsunamis	Drag	Saturday Night Sweetheart	Magnetic South	2015	early leader for album of the year! coming to NYC in July	0:38:42 Pop-up)
Monkeywrench	Levitation	Gabriel's Horn	Birdman	2008		0:41:24 Pop-up)

Music behind DJ: The Ventures	Night Train	Walk Don't Run Vol. 2	Sundazed	1964/2012		0:44:06 Pop-up)
The East Nashville Teens	The Lonely Bull	7"	Sundazed RFD	2015		0:51:42 Pop-up)
SloBeats featuring Kenny Vaughn	Burton's Move	7"	Sundazed RFD	2015		0:53:29 Pop-up)
The Greg Martin Group	Groovy Grubworm	7"	Sundazed RFD	2015		0:57:07 Pop-up)
The Hollies	(Ain't That) Just Like Me	Clarke, Hicks & Nash Years: The Complete Hollies April 1963 – October 1968	EMI	1963/2011		0:59:33 Pop-up)
The Sonics	Leaving Here	This Is The Sonics	Revox	2015		1:01:34 Pop-up)

The Monkees	Let's Dance On	s/t	Rhino	1966/1994		1:07:35 Pop-up)
The Monkees	I Wanna Be Free (first version)	Music Box	Rhino	1966/2001	Bobby Hart coming up via phone at 1:30	1:10:03 Pop-up)
Tommy Boyce	Pretty Thing	7"	MGM	1964	going out to Gary 'Records' Mitchell	1:12:41 Pop-up)
Young Fresh Fellows	I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight	Because We Hate You	Mammoth	2001		1:14:43 Pop-up)
Boyce & Hart	Words (demo)	various - Where the Action Is: Los Angeles Nuggets 1965-68	Rhino	1966/2009		1:18:04 Pop-up)
The Astronauts	Gonna Buy Me A Dog	Rarities	Bear Family	1965/1994		1:21:32 Pop-up)
Boyce & Hart	Alice Long (You're Still My Favorite Girlfriend)	I Wonder What She's Doing Tonite: The Best of Boyce & Hart	Rev-ola	1969/2005		1:22:18 Pop-up)
Keith Allison	Action, Action, Action	various - Action! The Songs of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart	Ace (UK)	1966/2012		1:24:59 Pop-up)
Bobby Hart	interview					1:32:23 Pop-up)
Chubby Checker	Lazy Elsie molly	various - Action! The Songs of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart	Ace (UK)	1964/2012	originally on Cameo - Chubby's last Top 40 entry	2:08:55 Pop-up)
Boyce & Hart	Teardrop City	I Wonder What She's Doing Tonite: The Best of Boyce & Hart	Rev-ola	1968/2005		2:09:53 Pop-up)
Minus 5	Boyce & Hart	Scott the Hoople in the Dungeon of Horror Part II:Of Monkees And Men	Yep Roc	2014		2:12:31 Pop-up)
Del Shannon	She	various - Action! The Songs of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart	Ace	1967/2012		2:15:40 Pop-up)
Monkees	Saturday's Child	s/t	Rhino	1966/1994	david gates composition, Boyce & Hart production	2:19:11 Pop-up)

Dwight Yoakam	She	Second Hand Heart	Reprise	2015		2:27:20 Pop-up)
The Tripwires	Anything Nice	Get Young	Folc	2014		2:28:51 Pop-up)
Turbo Fruits	Favorite Girl	No Control	B Melvin / Thirty Tigers	2015		2:30:55 Pop-up)
Orange Peels	Embers	Begin the Begone	Mystery Lawn Music	2015		2:33:44 Pop-up)
Freedy Johnston	TV In My Arms	Neon Repairman	Freedy Johnston	2015		2:37:28 Pop-up)
Rolling Stones	Backstreet Girl	Flowers	ABKCO	1967/2002		2:40:47 Pop-up)

Sloths	Everybody's Tryin' 2 B Somebody	Back From the Grave	Lollipop	2015		2:49:37 Pop-up)
Flesh Lights	Just About Due	Free Yourself	12XU	2014	on the show live next week!	2:50:21 Pop-up)
Junk Boys	Call Me	single	no label	2015	on the show live June 1	2:54:03 Pop-up)

May 18, 2015

Listener comments!