#phawker

On the set of Head, 1968.

“‘What stood out for me with Davy as an artist was his spontaneous stagecraft,’ Tork recalls. ‘He enjoyed himself on stage, for sure, gloried in his part. He was so alert as an entertainer and so relaxed that things would come to him out of the blue and he would just go with them. He could be incredibly funny. Micky and I were always breaking up on stage. [...] I’m so sorry he’s gone. I’m going to miss that wit and heart.’” - Billboard, March 1, 2012

“Genuine, reliable and huggable, Peter is a natural person — really gets off on talent — loves other musicians and can jam along with the best of ‘em. I saw him holding his own with Hendrix, Stills, Young. He encouraged me no end. Bought me my first guitar and my first drum kit. […] Never really got into fashions — he had his own. The first guy I ever met who wore different-colored socks. Wore his belt buckle on the side. Hated boots. Always had on sandals or moccasins. He used to walk with a swagger, swinging his arms with a confident air. He calmed hysteria, and lifted depression. ‘Dried banana, anybody? Piece of orange?’ — smiling, waving, running his hand through his hair. He knew all the crew by their first names. Kids crying at his feet he lifted and hugged like a father calming a child. Health food was just starting to catch on in the sixties and Peter was kind of a forerunner of that whole scene. I’m afraid that sort of image was a little thin for two other guys I could mention, but I understood — I really did. And I think he knew it. […] He’s the most musically talented of us all by a mile. His songs are real. ‘For Pete’s Sake’ — which replaced the Monkees Theme at the end of the some of the shows of the second season — is one of my all-time favorite songs by anybody. I’ve joked a lot about Peter giving everything away. But it was true. He was always giving his spare room to someone who needed it for the night — anyone. And he always seemed far away somewhere — in a different space. But I’m glad I know him. Of all the things he gave, he gave me lots of laughs — and food for thought.” - Davy Jones

“[Micky] and Mike and I have a very cordial relationship and share a lot of common topics. We go to lunch together when we’re all in town and have a good time. I love and respect each of these guys in their own way, although the real joys that I shared with Davy were special. At one point we had some good hard connections but as the years rolled on, those things faded away. But I am sorry to see Davy go. He was the one member in the group that I had the strongest human connection with. I still have two guys that I love and respect left from the band, but we share a different dynamic.” - Peter Tork, Review Mag, May 27, 2016

"I only now have, in the last couple of years, come to understand how smart and good-hearted Davy Jones could be. I did not have the skills to notice that, even though I was drawn to it without knowing exactly why. But I certainly did not have the first clue of how to encourage all of the good stuff from Davy that I loved. I wish I could have known how to do it - and he might still be with us, even.” - Las Vegas Weekly, September 14, 2016 (x)

“Well, I’ve never been really close with Michael [Nesmith] for some reason. You know, I have a lot of respect for him and admiration. But somehow we’ve never integrated. We’ve never been warm with each other. We worked together and did pretty well at it really.” - Peter Tork, Clevescene, March 13, 2017

Q: “I’m curious about the various reunions that happened over the years. Is it safe to say that you guys were never really friends?” Peter Tork: “Oh, I don’t know. I would say I was pretty good friends with Micky, and there was a lot of love between me and Davy. I have a lot of respect for Mike Nesmith and we’ve structured ways to work together. Things rotate. It’s like having a basketball team. You know, gosh, it’s like having a championship basketball team. They go on the road every so often and do tours, you know, just exhibition tours but fortunately your music skills don’t deteriorate as fast as your basketball skills do, but I wouldn’t know what else to compare it to. We had a chance to go out together and we took it, and we had a great time, and if we were not friends at all we would not have been able to do it. We played tours months and months long: ‘86, ‘87, ‘89, ‘91, ‘92, ‘96, ‘97, 2001, 2002 and 2011, so we couldn’t have been such enemies.” - Phawker, circa 2012; re-published 2019

photo by Dan Long

BEING THERE: Wovenhand @ Underground Arts

The rainy late summer evening cast a suitably gloomy pall over last night’s proceedings, but the damp masses in Philly’s Underground Arts created a sorta human humidity that sapped the luster of yours truly. I was there to bear witness to another performance by the tragically but not surprisingly unheralded Denver-based gothic Americana outfit Wovenhand. For the uninitiated please allow me to smarten ya up some: David Eugene Edwards, the wunderkind/visonary behind Wovenhand, has been making haunting, beguiling music in one aggregation or another since 2001. Before Wovenhand, Edwards helmed the awesome mule-kicking combo 16 Horsepower. He is unlike any front man I have seen. Ordinarily he is very private about the personal details of his life but he revealed in the documentary Searching For Wrong Eyed Jesus that his grandfather was a Pentecostal preacher who imbued him, from a young age, with a hellfire and brimstone ideology. This apocalyptic world view is palpably apparent in the music of both 16hp and Wovenhand alike. Which is not to say it’s Christian Rock — far fuckin from it yo — rather it is steeped in a parochial oeuvre. The previous Wovenhand shows I attended were way more rustic and toned down than they were last night at Underground Arts. In my previous encounters with Wovenhand — unmolested by the clusterfuck of gawkers staking out lip-of-the-stage real estate last night to see headliner Chelsea Wolfe — I was able to get close enough to the shamanistic Mr. Edwards to catch him as he went into a state of thrall, eyes rolling about his dome and a barely audible speaking in tongues. I’m carny enough to know a grift when I see it, but the fervor Edwards exhibited seemed genuine as, pardon the cliché, Hell. You don’t have to know the tunes to get the feeling; like salvation, it just washes over you if you let it. Halle-fucking-lujah, canyadigit? The latest incarnation of Wovenhand, enhanced by the inclusion of members of Planes Mistaken For Stars, swings from rustic Appalachian tones to full-on sonic tribal sturm und drang and last night they delivered 60 minutes of sonic gospel. It was a new experience for this acolyte and what it lacked in somber intimacy it more than made up for with majesty and throng. Chelsea Wolfe, though hardly my cup of tea, gets dap from me for taking Wovenhand on tour. Despite the humid overcrowded roomful of her fans (most of whom were politely indifferent and unmoved by WH) it was still revelatory. If ya ain’t down yet, ya should be. Thus sayeth the gospel of Bearer. You’re welcome… and AMEN bitches – PAUL BEARER

david lowery of camper van beethoven interview on phawker.com

i love this part, it just made me laugh:

"PHAWKER: OK, let’s start with the elephant in the room, the question that’s on everybody’s mind today — what do you think of the new Bowie single?

PHAWKER: Do you have a lifetime supply of free coffee and donuts from Dunkin Donuts?

JL: My son wanted to know the same thing. He assumed that we could walk into any Dunkin Donuts and get free stuff, and he was disillusioned and crestfallen to find out that they don’t even know who they hell we are at Dunkin Donuts.

PHAWKER: And so am I.

JL: It’s wrong. He was like, “Dad, you should tell them. Tell them.”

JF: That would be a really awkward conversation.