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Title: Just a T.V. Star?
Review: Conventional wisdom has it that two of the Monkees--Mike Nesmith and Peter Tork--were musicians and the other two--David Jones and Micky Dolenz--were actors who had to learn to fake playing instruments. These pre-fame recordings of Micky Dolenz show that he was a reasonable rock guitarist and, low and behold, a songwriter. And, this was before there was a Monkees television show. Some of Dolenz's singing is not up to the standard he set on "I'm a Believer" and several other notable Monkees tracks, and some of his compositions are not the most distinctive rock or pop of the mid-1960s, and maybe he didn't know how to play the drums when the Monkees cast was assembled, but Plastic Symphony proves that Micky Dolenz really did have a pop music background before the Monkees. Would he have been a commercially successful musician had he never been cast for the show? This EP doesn't really answer that question, but he might have had a chance...
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