Micky Dolenz wants the full story. The last surviving member of the 1960s-era made-for-TV band The Monkees filed a lawsuit against the FBI on Tuesday (August 30) demanding that the agency turn over all unredacted documents about his band collected during their swinging heyday.
After the agency released a heavily redacted version of their file on the band (erroneously ID’d on the title page as “The Monkeys”) in 2011, the suit notes that Dolenz filed a Freedom of Information Act request on June 14 of his year in order to get the full story. After his request was not answered in a timely manner, Dolenz’s lawyer, Mark S. Said, filed the suit against the FBI on the drummer/singer’s behalf to get access to the whole file.
“This lawsuit is designed to obtain any records the FBI created and/or possesses on the Monkees as well as its individual members,” the suit reads. “Mr. Dolenz has exhausted all necessary required administrative remedies with respect to his [Freedom Of Information Act/Privacy Act] request.” The band starred in an eponymous musical sitcom from 1966-1968 and sold more than 75 million albums thanks to such beloved hits as “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” “Daydream Believer” and “Last Train to Clarksville.”
The suit notes that Dolenz, 77, and the three deceased members of the Monkees — singer/guitarist Michael Nesmith, bassist/singer Peter Tork and singer Davy Jones — “were known to have associated with other musicians and individuals whose activities were monitored and/or investigated b the FBI, to include, but not limited to: John Winston Lennon (and the three other Beatles as well) and Jimi Hendrix.”
A portion of the document released by the FBI noted that an FBI informant attended a show on the band’s inaugural 1967 tour, describing, “subliminal messages” that were allegedly depicted on the screen, “which, in the opinion of [informant] constituted ‘left wing intervention of a political nature… These messages and pictures were flashed of riots, in Berkley, anti-U.S. messages on the war in Vietnam, racial riots in Selma, Alabama, and similar messages which had unfavorable response from the audience.”
At press time it was unclear what information might be included in the redacted portions of the band’s file what, if anything, it could reveal about the FBI’s surveillance of the group. A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice had not returned Billboard‘s request for comment at press time.
