Remembering Michael on December 10th. Pictured with Peter, Davy, and Micky, and Barbara Hamaker. Some photos by Gene Trindl, Michael Ochs Archives, Tom M. Morton, Colin Beard, Ali Cotton.
“You should’ve heard Mike singing some of those old Jimmie Rodgers The Singing Brakeman songs. He was so good, that stuff was just — you know, that stuff just warmed the cockles of my heart, you know. He could just do that stuff all day long. Just — I could just sit at his feet and listen to that for hours.” - Peter Tork, WHNN-FM, 2012
“At the Troubadour […], Peter Tork strolled in, banjo on his knee. Later, in-between ‘Alvin’ and a great banjo finger-picker, Peter yelled a hello to Mike Nesmith, who was standing in the upstairs darkness and the two fell into a hilarious patter routine." - Ginni Ganahal, TeenSet Magazine, February 1968 (read more here)
"[July 1, 1967] At this point Peter proudly produced a fan letter for Mike a rare occurrence. Mike looked vaguely impressed with his fan letter and read aloud, ‘Dear Mike. We saw the Monkees at the airport on Wednesday and my sister Linda touched Micky’s arm and then I saw you and threw up…’
‘Hey,’ said Peter, ‘let me see that! You’re not that bad looking. I don’t believe it.’ Peter read from the letter, 'Dear Mike. We saw the Monkees at the airport on Wednesday and my sister Linda touched Micky’s arm and then I saw you and threw up!’ The letter did not, of course, say this but it’s all part of the Tork-Nesmith off-stage variety act.” - NME, July 8, 1967 (read more here)
Peter and Michael on KDWB-AM in August 1967, here.
Peter and Mike on their favorite Monkees episode, "Fairy Tale" - here.
“Michael used to run a hootenanny at the Troubadour in West Hollywood, and so I met him there. But that’s all, just to say hi to, pretty much.” - Peter Tork, GOLD 104.5, 1999
“I have a great deal of respect for Mike as a musician and a songwriter. He’s very good. He could make it on his own easily. Also he’s one of the funniest people I’ve ever met.” - Peter Tork, Flip, August 1967
“I really get along with Mike best. He’s married and enjoys his evenings at home with his family. My favorite date is to stop by his place, have some coffee, play cards, and listen to groovy music.” - Peter Tork, Hullabaloo, September 1967
“I remember staying at Mike’s house in Hollywood when we first started filming the series. It was the upper story of a two-story building on a little hillside. Mike’s wife, Phyllis, was wonderful. Mike and I laughed a lot and played music together. I remember that time very fondly.” - Peter Tork, When The Music Mattered (1984)
Q: “Being that your tastes were similar, and you both were the first to leave the group, why didn’t you form a group with Peter Tork?”
Michael Nesmith: “I don’t like Peter Tork — never have liked him, I don’t like him as a man. I have to qualify that now: Me not liking somebody doesn’t mean that they’re bad people — he could do a lot of wonderful things for and to me. Not liking someone to me is a very gut reaction — a very visceral attitude. The first reaction to Peter was one of dislike. I don’t like him, I have never liked him, and I probably will never like him. I didn’t enjoy playing in a band with Peter, and I still don’t.
Our tastes were much the same, our political beliefs were similar, our ideas of fun, pleasure, our intellectual capacity, our ability to talk to each other — we were very much alike. I have a great respect for Peter — his technical abilities on an instrument and the positions he took were well conceived ideas, always a posture with a motive, never emotional.
I don’t like my mother. She happens to be a very nice lady — never done anything that would make me not like her — but I don’t. I like my wife.” - Hit Parader, February 1972
“It was something that was known on the set. They knew Pete and I went our own ways. This wasn’t a dislike of someone who had committed some infraction against me or some sort of crime. It was just, ‘Oh, this guy eats those little noodles and I don’t like ’em and I can’t eat with the guy.’ It was kind of an off-putting thing. It was, ‘Oh, he likes to play paintball and I don’t like to play paintball.’ So we never played paintball, but every once in a while we’d find ourselves in the same paintball park because we owned it, so we had to keep it clean and do all the stuff we had to do and we did do it.
We didn’t have too many civil words to say to each other, but we also didn’t fight all the time. We just didn’t say much. There wasn’t a lot to say. Peter would play me the songs that he thought were good and I didn’t. And I would play him the songs I thought were good and he wouldn’t. Then we just left it at that. Partners in silence.” - Michael Nesmith, Rolling Stone, December 3, 2019
“Michael was very kind to me at the outset. He put me up through the entire shooting of the pilot process. He and his wife had a wonderful little apartment just big enough for a guest on the day bed, which overlooked Hollywood. I remember a Thanksgiving Day when the air was crystal clear in a way that I’ve never seen it before or since in L.A., and you could see all the way out to Catalina. It was wonderful. That crystal clarity symbolizes the whole era for me. Mike and I wrote a few things together. We were very comradely and very buddy buddy, and it was a wonderful time, with Mike’s then wife, Phyllis, and Christian, their little infant baby. The early days of the pilot shooting were just great by my lights and I had a wonderful time.” - Peter Tork, quoted in Hey, Hey, We’re The Monkees (1996) (read more here)
"After [Peter] went down for the first interview, I asked how how he felt he did and he said, ‘Well, it looks good. I’ll see how things go.’ And they kept calling him back. He liked Michael Nesmith. That was the first thing that happened." - Stephen Stills, Tiger Beat, July 1967 (read more here)
“I did give Peter a voice audition on Saturday’s Child but I had to finally say, ‘look Pete, I can’t play banjo and you can’t sing. If I played the banjo I’d sound like you singing, I have to erase the tape.’ So Peter left in a huff and came back with Michael, who pulled off his motorcycle helmet, crashed it down onto the console and demanded ‘why don’t you let Peter sing? You guys never let us come to the sessions, it’s just you two with Davy and Micky.’" - Tommy Boyce, Monkeemania: The True Story of The Monkees (1997) (x)
"Mike joined us in the UK for our 30th anniversary tour in 1997. I enjoyed that tour very much; it was a good time. Nevertheless, Mike never said anything to me when he decided to leave the band after the ’97 European tour, and I still don’t know why he left.” - Peter Tork, Medium, 2017
"Yeah, I’d rather have him in, all things considered. I think that it makes an event when he’s there that, that isn’t when he’s not. [...] I think, you know, Mike changed his mind for reasons that I don’t quite understand, but what the heck." - Peter Tork, GOLD 104.5, 1999 (x)
"I still have a lot of respect for Michael." - Peter Tork, WDBB, February 2006 (x)
"I will miss him — a brother in arms. Take flight my Brother.” - Michael Nesmith, Facebook, February 2019 (x)
