God bless the Alamo Drafthouse for screening Head in their largest theater on a weekday night in San Francisco. 🥹 Who knows if such a thing will ever happen again!
Several weeks ago, Alex saw that the 1968 Monkees movie would be playing at the Alamo as part of their Weird Wednesday series and, although he must’ve known it would set me off on another full-blown Monkees phase (which would include things like marathoning the TV show and me sending him unsolicited Monkees gifs in our text thread every day until the movie), he immediately bought two tickets like the generous partner he is.
At the time, I was wowed at how many seats were already filled—look how many other people are as excited about the Monkees as me!!! Who are all of you?! Turns out all the local superfans also bought their tickets two weeks in advance, and when we checked the seating chart the night of the movie, it was exactly the same. 😂
This was our first time going to a Weird Wednesday, so I don’t know how many people usually come out for these late night oddity screenings. But this one definitely attracted a fun crowd: two 20-something women came immaculately dressed as both Davys from Daddy’s Song (incredible), and another was very obviously cosplaying as Micky from Randy Scouse Git. I saw at least one other wool hat (in addition to my own), and what I would call an appropriate amount of paisley. With the phenomenon of the Monkees slowly being lost to time, I can’t overstate how giddy/lucky I felt to be at a theater with so many other fans.
And the movie. It’s still the most chaotic, psychedelic, unabashedly self-aware film I’ve ever seen, and experiencing it on a big screen (in 35mm, complete with a few second pause for a reel change) was a trip. I think I’ve grown to appreciate it even more over time, as both a pop culture time capsule and a bold anti-war social commentary. Also, the soundtrack slaps!! In fact I hereby declare Head the best thing the Monkees ever did, and all the more impressive given that they could’ve very easily cashed in their teen pop star earnings but instead decided to assassinate their teenybopper image in spectacular fashion.
The one real missed opportunity at the otherwise-perfect Alamo screening was the notable lack of Monkees-themed programming before the film. I understand….compiling custom preshows takes time and money, and for one-off showings that don’t fill the theater, it’s easier to just use a generic 30-minute compilation of video clips tagged with labels like 1960s, camp, and pop art. But there is SO MUCH GREAT MONKEES CONTENT OUT THERE!!! The Alamo always has such thoughtful, fun preshows that I was really looking forward to seeing what they’d put together for this screening. :(
So, in the absence of an official Alamo preshow, I made my own.
It’s 30ish minutes of semi-obscure Monkees and Head-adjacent videos sourced from the far reaches of YouTube (well, except for the first clip, which is literally taken from the Monkees channel because it’s the highest quality video with the TV show intro I could find). So if you want to have your own groovy Head experience, put on this playlist while loading up on whatever substance you choose, then go ahead and watch the movie in its entirety on YouTube before it inevitably gets taken down and buried in the sands of time again.
The playlist:
“He must not be back from his dream yet.” “Impossible man, Peter doesn’t dream.”
Flip the Record 