POP MUSIC / THOMAS K. ARNOLD : Perceptions of 2 Bands Changes With the Times

In the topsy-turvy world of pop music, it’s amazing how perceptions can change with time--how bands that were once admired are now scorned, and vice versa.

Two contrasting cases in point: Iron Butterfly (originally from San Diego), and the Monkees, who will be in town Friday night for two shows at Humphrey’s on Shelter Island. Back in the late ‘60s, when both groups were young, Iron Butterfly was considered a progressive and daring rock band; their mega-hit, “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” was hailed as an innovative fusion between hard rock and psychedelia.

The Monkees, on the other hand, were ridiculed as a bunch of talentless pretty boys who neither played their own instruments nor wrote their own songs; as a group manufactured by TV executives to capitalize on the success of the Beatles, they were considered a joke--and not a very good one at that.

More than two decades later, with both bands currently on the comeback circuit, it’s Iron Butterfly that gets no respect and the Monkees that do. The music’s the same, only the perception has changed: Iron Butterfly is now viewed as a self-indulgent acid-rock oddity, if not a casualty, and their obligatory live regurgitations of “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” are sometimes met with more laughter than applause. The Monkees, however, are now revered by many of the same people who originally slammed them. Despite their pre-fab origins and limited musical abilities, they managed to turn out what, in retrospect, are some exceptionally good pop records, including “Last Train to Clarksville,” “I’m a Believer,” “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” “Daydream Believer” and “Valleri.”

And it is this belated recognition, along with the growing appreciation for anything camp, that has made the Monkees as fondly remembered a part of ‘60s pop culture as the mini-skirt, “Laugh-In” and the Beach Boys.

Last Wednesday night’s sneak preview at the UA Glasshouse Six of “Great Balls of Fire,” the cinematic biography of rock legend Jerry Lee Lewis that co-stars San Diegan Mojo Nixon as the Killer’s drummer, was a benefit for the Storefront, the county’s only emergency shelter for homeless youth.

Among the hundreds of local do-gooders who turned out to watch Nixon’s movie debut was the manic bluesman himself. Prior to the screening, and amid much screaming, Nixon was grabbed by Storefront volunteer Salli Stiner and several staffers from sponsoring radio station KGB-FM (101.5) and unceremoniously dunked in a tub of green jello.

“Now that Mojo has become a big Hollywood star, we were all worried that it would go to his head,” Stiner said. “So we decided to dunk the punk and get his feet back on the ground.”

Later, inside the theater, the crowd roared with laughter at the scene in which Nixon, as drummer James Van Eaton, turns to Lewis (played by Dennis Quaid) following a particularly sordid post-concert sexual tryst and bitterly announces, “I ain’t never gettin’ married.”

Last February, just weeks after he finished up on the set and returned to San Diego, Nixon did get married--to his longtime sweetheart, Adaire Newman.

LINER NOTES: The Times last Wednesday ran a six-page advertising supplement commemorating Neil Diamond’s record-setting 10-night engagement at the Inglewood Forum. Among the stories was a bio of the aging crooner written by one Maureen O’Connor. A little investigating set the record straight: No, Her Honor isn’t moonlighting-the article was by a staff writer with Diamond’s Los Angeles P.R. firm. . . .

Blue-eyed soulsters the Jacks are back in action on the local nightclub circuit after a five-month sabbatical. In that time, Brian (Custard Pants) Clark replaced Giacomo (Jack) DiMatteo on drums, singer-guitarist Ken Layne joined and then unjoined, and lead singer-guitarist Buddy Blue had surgery on his finger “to get rid of a vile, disgusting growth,” he said. The band’s next San Diego appearance will be July 29 at the Bacchanal in Kearny Mesa. . . .

Opening for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on July 25 at San Diego State University’s Open Air Theater will be the Replacements. . . . Tickets go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. for the Call’s July 28 show at the California Theater and Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers’ August 11 appearance at the Open Air Theater. Saturday at 10 a.m. tickets go on sale for the Aug. 5 concert by the Gipsy Kings, also at the Open Air Theater.