March 14, 2001
Traverse City resident goes ape over the Monkees
Janee Meadows keeps Monkeeing around with collection
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Two years ago at a concert at Interlochen Arts Academy, Janee Meadows got noticed.
A megafan of the Monkees singing group since she was 15, she and her mom contrived some reproductions of the goofy felt hats worn by the Monkees. She wore one hat to a Monkees' concert, catching group member Peter's attention. Then she put a few more hats on stage for the group members to have - a blast from their own television past.
"Davy saw the hat and said it reminded him of the olden days," recalled Meadows, also known as the Monkees Girl. "He put it on and sang 'Daydream Believer.' They are real goofy and open to their fans."
The incident is a star in her crown of Monkees' fandom, a pursuit that in the past five years has taken her to four concerts (with a fifth on deck this spring) and yielded an extensive collection of memorabilia. From albums to tapes to pins to T-shirts (including one she designed herself) to pillows, Meadows is serious about the Monkees.
She has also founded an online fan club that has 200 members, designed stationary and hopes to create a website soon. Other coups include making Monkees cookies - shaped and decorated to look like group members - taking them to class on Micky Dolenz's birthday and somehow convincing her instructor to let the class watch a Monkees video she brought.
It was just another day in the life of Meadows, whose own lighthearted, cheerful personality matches the Monkees' sound.
"I like the positive stuff, I'm not into that dark, hard music," said Meadows, a 1999 graduate of Traverse City Central High School and a student at Northwestern Michigan College. "I got interested in them at 15 because I wasn't really into any music at the time and I wanted to get into something different, because I try to be different."
Meadows' mother, Jo-El, is credited with an assist: she checked out some compact discs from the library for her daughter and the Monkees were one of them.
"I just listened to them and that was it," Meadows recalled. "From there it just kind of snowballed; I happened to see that Micky and Davy were doing a concert at Pine Knob and I had to go to that concert."
Shortly thereafter, the Monkees 30th anniversary hit and memorabilia was available everywhere as interest in the band skyrocketed. Meadows was hooked, loving the upbeat music of the band.
"I just started going crazy with all of it, I have a stack of records and lots and lots of CDs," she said. "Rhino Records keeps finding old stuff that was never put out. Even now they've got an album of new stuff out."
She and the thousands of other fans who are still active members of fan clubs are not chagrined by the band's commercial beginnings. While critics then - and now- dismissed them as pretty boys brought together for an invented band meant to sell music and products, Meadows and her fellow devotees find Monkees music is just fine.
"Really, when you get into it, there's all different types of sounds," said Meadows. "Mike Nesmith did country sounds and Davy Jones did Broadway; Peter was a serious musician and went on to a solo career."
As for her part in her daughter's fancy, Jo-El remembers being a fan herself; though a peripheral one. Considering the many other types of music that spellbinds adolescents these days, the Meadows family did not mind their daughter's fascination with the happy, upbeat tunes of the Monkees.
"I was even younger than Janee when the Monkees were on, maybe 13," she said. "She likes that quirky kind of humor that they do; I think that it was the old shows that really got her started."