Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
â Live Streamingâ Interactive Chatâ Private Showsâ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch ⢠No registration required ⢠HD streaming
In March, Michael Nesmith spent a couple weeks in New York City doing a series of interviews with the media to promote the New York opening of his latest production, âTapeheadsâ. Besides promoting âTapeheadsâ, Michael is having one of his most visible, high-profile years in a long, long time, with the recent release of a video and album and the impending release of another album and the âOverviewâ video magazine. Rock radio reporter (and MBF member) Ken Sharp had the opportunity to interview Michael and he shares that interview with us here:
KS: I know youâre asked this question all the time, so letâs get it out of the way right off. When are you going to get back together with ⌠The First National Band?
MN: Well, yeah, thatâs the most common question that Iâm asked actually. Most people come up to me and say, âSay, whatever happened to the other guys?â and I know immediately that theyâre talking about John London and Red Rhodes and John Ware. I mean, who else would they be talking about?
KS: What is Red Rhodes up to, by the way?
MN: Well, you know, Iâve lost contact with all those guys. John London moved back to Teas. Heâs working, I think, in the real estate business or something and Red Rhodes I havenât talked to. I assume that he still plays. I got a call from one of his family â his ex-sister-in-law â the other day and I called her back and she left the wrong number so I wasnât able to get in touch with her. And John Ware, I think, moved to Nashville and is working in the radio business in Nashville.
KS: April 5 marks the release of âNezmusicâ âŚ
MN: Oh, really? Is that when itâs coming out?
KS: I think it is. I was curious, some of this stuff came out in different forms, but why now? What was the idea behind compiling it? Were there a lot of requests or what?
MN: Yeah, well, it was just a combination of requests. I get a lot of fan mail from the Monkees fan clubs and stuff. And almost every single letter requests for me to put out the old music. What I did was I went back to the archives and over the years Iâve made a couple of dozen albums, I guess, and the first ten that I made are still under the auspices of RCA, but there were about 4 or 5 that I made subsequent to that beginning with a record called âThe Prisonâ. So Harold Bronson over at Rhino Records called me up and he says, âletâs put out, letâs go back and re-licenseâŚâ Thatâs kind of their business, you know, And I said, âHarold, I donât think anybodyâs gonna play any of my records.â And he says, âWell, we specialize in marketing records that donât get played.â So I compiled two LPâs.  One was an LP which was to be songs from the country sort of era, with the First, Second, Third National Bands, and the second which was to include things off âRadio Engineâ and âInfinite Riderâ but also half a dozen songs that I wrote for a movie called âVideo Ranchâ. And divided them up into âThe Older Stuffâ which was the country stuff and âThe Newer Stuffâ. So âThe Newer Stuffâ was the only thing we were able to get out because we had licensing problems on âThe Older Stuffâ. So we could only get one of them out. And when I put together âThe Newer Stuffâ I realized that I had music videos on seven or eight of them and I had also been getting a lot of requests to combine all those music videos on one videocassette, so I put it together and called it âNezmusicâ.
KS: Wasnât âVideo Ranchâ called something different? âNeonâ something?
MN: âNeon Rubyâ.
KS: Why was that project not completed?
MN: Well, the biggest reason is that I was not able to interest a distributor in releasing it. Thatâs the biggest reason. Had I been able to do that it would have gone forward. The creative elements were there, but itâs a movie musical and, like âTapeheadsâ, these things are tough. Number one, theyâre very hard to do creatively and, number two, theyâre hard to market. However, I think weâre about to enter into the time when weâre going to see more and more of those, so keep your fingers crossed. Maybe âVideo Ranchâ will come out. (laughs)
KS: Itâs nice to see unreleased tracks like âTanyaâ and âFormosa Dinerâ will see the light of day.
MN: Did you get a pre-copy of this?
KS: No, I didnât.
MN: Did you see the liner notes, or what?
KS: No, Iâm a pretty big fan, besides what I do for a living, so I did a lot of research.
MN: Sounds like youâve been on Lexus Nexus or one of those online services.
KS: Will you release any videos for the Rhino early material? Something like âJoanneâ that you never did a video for to promote it?
MN: Till you said it I hadnât thought of it. Maybe itâs a good idea. I donât know. Do you think it would be a good idea to go back and do old songs? Creatively, do you really? I donât know, because I think of the video as a form and there is such a thing as an audio-only record. Can you imagine a video of âJoanneâ, takes a picture of a beautiful woman in a filmy dress living in a house by a pond? It starts to get kind of dumb. (laughs) The emotion it evokes is different. When I wrote âRioâ I really had a picture in mind, although I didnât realize at the time that it was gonna father an entire way of life, but I did sort of have in mind that this would make something nice to put on film. Then when Island asked me to make a promotional clip to send overseas and I did it, you know, it all married up nicely. But to go bac and do it ⌠maybe Iâll write some stuff. Best I should do âVideo Ranchâ, I think.
KS: Do you still write songs? Do you still play the guitar.
MN: Yeah. Not a lot, but I still do it.
KS: Will we see new material from you? Not as an audio album, but as a combination?
MN: Yeah, Iâd do that.
KS: There is a demand. Iâd love to hear it and so would a lot of other people.
MN: You know, the biggest problem that I have, number one, is that nobody will play these records on the air. I wonât get any airplay. So without airplay making a market for this, itâs very hard and unless you have a Rhino Records behind it that is willing to commit to marketing the record without airplay, youâre in trouble. And also when youâre writing to this kind of form itâs very expensive and kind of a big uphill battle to do unless you really feel like you got some sort of a built-in market.
KS: Donât you thin country radio stations would embrace your music?
MN: Well, I donât know. We live in the days of Randy Travis and Dwight Yokum. I donât think so. I think thereâs a different mindset afoot out there.
KS: I hope it still doesnât dissuade you from making new music.
MN: Maybe Iâll be some young Dwight Yokumâs Buck Owens, howâs that? (laughs)
KS: In 1979 you felt the audio end of schemes was going to be obsolete and in 1982 you closed the record division of Pacific Arts.
MN: Was it â82? I thought it was earlier than that. Well, that sounds about right.
KS: Now ten years later with CDâs and DATâs here and music sales at an all-time high, how do you account for that and did that enter in your decision to work with Rhino on releasing stuff.
MN: Well, no, itâs an anomalous bulge. It doesnât mean that thereâs a rebirth of audio-only stuff. I mean, I think you have to look at your own lifestyle and find out, you know, what do you do more of? Do you watch more television or do you listen to more radio? That varies from person to person, but Iâll bet if you took a national statistical average youâd find more people watch more television than they listen to radio. Simple. OK, start with that as a point of departure. Why did CDâs suddenly take off? Well, number one, it was exceptional sound quality. Number two, it was a very accessible and easy user-friendly medium, and, number three, youâre able to go back and hear stuff that youâd loved for a period of time but youâd basically worn your records out. So you drew from a huge catalog, a great library of material with people who were replenishing and restocking their early audio times. But these are people who grew up on audio. Now letâs shift to the 9-year-old, to the 8-year-old who is going to be 20 in the year 2000. What kind of equipment will this person have? Will they have a CD? Yes. What can a CD do that an audio record canât? Well, it can play pictures. Youâre seeing go into place the technological base for this video revolution and I still stand by my original statement that the audio medium is going to diminish and diminish and diminish and diminish until audio-only will occupy a very small part of the overall â what do you want to call it â entertainment spectrum. Itâs like network television. Network television, look at the shrinking share. Are you familiar with these statistics?
KS: Go ahead, please.
MN: Well, Iâm not so familiar with them that I can quote them with complete accuracy, but itâs something to the degree that itâs gone from a 93% share in the mid-â70âs or early â70âs of the total homes using television to somewhere around 60% and one point represents millions of people. But you have to look at that theyâve lost, what, thirty, forty MILLION viewers? Theyâve lost it. You also have to look at what videocassette has done to the redefinition of prime time television. Videocassettes are prime time television. And what it says is prime time television is not at 9:00. Prime time television is 2:31 in the morning, itâs 6:17 in the evening, itâs 12:11 in the afternoon, itâs whenever the consumer wants to put the videocassette in and watch it. Now you have an interested consumer, aware of what theyâre watching with a high desire to view. Thatâs prime time television and videocassettes have simply robbed the network television market. Those are the sort of changes that you canât overlook when you try to make a sense of whatâs gonna come in the future, And I think youâre going to find this in the audio/video or video music or whatever name you want to put on it. I donât know what you could call it. And all the things that are going into place now is not the resurgence of the audio-only medium but basically the audio-only medium riding the technological curve of the present day and with the music getting a nice free ride on this. When itâs all said and done, these are video discs.
KS: Back to âNezmusicââŚon a song like âCruisinâ â, did you have the idea for the video in mind and then come up with the song or did you write the song first and then create a video around that?
MN: Well, with âCruisinâ â the video was very much in mind and all of the songs since then have the pictures very much in mind and try to make them both work together.
KS: Do you enjoy working that way? Does having the visuals in mind help your writing?
MN: Yeah, it expands it because sometimes when youâre writing one of the things youâre looking for is a proper way to express a particular emotion. So you might spend hours or days or quite a bit of time trying to find a word, a phrase or something that conveys some idea what you want to convey. When you put pictures into the equation, you can think, âAll right, I donât need to SAY this out loud. I donât need to put this in a word because, when I marry the picture to it, it will convey this.â So many times just the presence of the video in your mind, the picture in your creative processes will help you out. For one thing, âCruisinâ â was this odd rap record, OK? Go figure. And to me it was OK to just say poems over the top of a kind of simple bleat, you know, it was just bass and drums.
KS: Ahead of its time, when you think about it.
MN: Yeah, when you think about it. (laughs) But at the time no one was thinking that rap would become what it became. And so with âCruisinâ â it was a fairly clear poem â the challenge became how do you pictorially represent a phrase like âthe light behind their eyesâ? How do you do that? And when you write to the video form, sometimes youâll avoid a phrase like âthe light behind their eyesâ because itâs much more descriptive and evocative of a mental image than it is of an actual picture. And itâs very important for me to make sure that I steer clear of narrative interpretation of these things. So with âCruisinâ â I learned my way a lot and, yes, I did write it with the visual in mind, but I also drove myself into a ditch in several other instances, for instance âthe light behind their eyesâ, and what I was left with was a cheesy video effect. I mean, I had to do this thing that made this guyâs head blow up with light, you know, Well, OK, so that was fine, but still âŚ
KS: On âNezmusicâ the overall clips hold up so well â the humor in âRioâ and how current âCruisinâ â is â to look at it now.
MN: Well, you know, when we made âem a long time ago we were sort of on the cutting edge of the form and we didnât have the mandate to make a commercial for a record. What we were trying to do was really work on the form. And so the result was that we employed a lot of really basic values and basic values have a tendency to be basic (laughs), to be permanent.
KS: Itâs the 25th Anniversary of the Beatlesâ arriving in America âŚ
MN: When is that?
KS: Well, actually, it was February.
MN: Oh, it was?
KS: Yeah, Feb. 64. The song âIâll Remember Youâ exemplifies your love for the Beatles. I wanted to talk about that and ask you a few Beatles questions.Â
MN: Let me tell you about âIâll Remember Youâ. Have you heard this song? âIâll Remember Youâ I wrote while John was alive. I wrote it in â79 or â78 and I wrote it to send to him. I was just gonna give it. You know you write songs to friends sometimes. So it was just a message I was gonna send to him and I knew he was living with Yoko at the time in the Dakota taking care of Sean as a househusband, and I admired that in him. I thought it was good, you know, especially after his sort of sowing some oats there before and so I realized that I was quite fond of John and Iâd spent some time with him and I had never really, aside from âLady Madonnaâ, I had never really expressed a lot of appreciation for his music. One of the things that happens is that as a writer and a famous or celebrated individual you very seldom have your peers walk up to you and say, âSay, you know, I really like what you did,â Very seldom. I mean, most of the time youâre in some major competition. So I wrote that song specifically with that in mind, just to express a little gratitude. And then part of it I was trying to think from what dynamic does this thing that I feel about John and the music that he wrote come? And I realized that I had the same level of appreciation for the Fred and Ginger movies and I began to draw the parallels between the two of them to enhance the song âIâll Remember Youâ. But it was not posthumous to John.
KS: Did you send it to him before his death?
MN: Nope. Never got to it. I just kept it and I didnât send it and then the next thing I know, Howard Cosell says, âAt the end of the day, itâs only a football game âŚâ
KS: You stayed with John in 1967. What was that like? There are a lot of comparisons between you and a lot of talk of the rivalry between the Beatles and the Monkees.
MN: It was like, you know, staying with you or staying with anybody else. You just go over somebodyâs house and stay!
KS: Was John a fan of the Monkeesâ series?
MN: Donât know. Didnât talk about it. Like I say, itâs the sort of thing you donât talk about. They were recording âSgt. Pepperâ at the time and he played me some tracks for âSgt. Pepperâ and that was about as far as it went. We played a little bit. I mean, basically, thatâs what you do. Thatâs what I did with those guys. When you hung out, you played. You picked up a guitar and played.
KS: Thereâs a video for âA Day in the Lifeâ in the studio and youâre in it! What was that like, to be there for one of the greatest recording sessions? It must have been amazing.
MN: Well, I know, but you have the mists of myth around it. Whatever it is thatâs your current discipline, look at what youâre doing and think about the friends that are involved in that discipline with you and think about going out and having a hamburger with them. How big of a deal is it? Itâs not a big deal at all! But listen, I mean, it makes for great dinner stories and I can get anecdotal about it and I can tell you all sorts of things and create magical images and stuff but thatâs all nonsense. Basically itâs just John says, âWell, weâre going to be in the studio. You wanna come down? And is it OK that we take some pictures? Weâre going to have a camera crew there.â And I said, âSure.â It was good âcause there was a stack of people there, you know what Iâm saying, it was a party. âWell, Paulâs got this band together and weâre going to do this big orchestra thing and so maybe youâll sop by.â And I said, âHey, I wouldnât miss it.â
KS: What did you think about the comparisons? A lot of people said there was a rivalryâŚ
MN: What, between the Monkees and the Beatles? Well, it was lunacy. I mean, there was not only not a rivalry, itâs like the Beatles were the Green Bay Packers and we played tennis! You know, itâs just not the same game.
KS: Did you think they had an influence on you as a songwriter?
MN: Well, I didnât feel any, but thatâs not to say that they didnât. I mean, I was not really a product of those times. My musical roots went back more to hymns and movie music, some of the classics and R & B and country. That was sort of my musical mix. Itâs one of those things that makes me very comfortable with elevator music today. Thereâs such a thing as good elevator music. Iâs hidden to most people because everybody thinks of dentists when they hear it, but nonetheless, every once in a while Iâll be standing in an elevator and start tapping my foot and everybody in the elevator will look at me like, âWhat is wrong with this guy?â (laughs)
KS: âMagicâ was a great homage to the 1950âs era.Â
MN: Well, it kind of was, wasnât it? I didnât intend it to be but it sorta ended up that way, didnât it?
KS: Being on the Monkeesâ television show, did it plant some ideas in your head even back then about how far you could go with the visuals? Did you gain a lot from that?
MN: I think so, to a certain degree. There was a large amount of the technical and creative part that went on that I didnât pay any attention to. So I didnât get as much as you might think. What I learned from that was really how to work with a creative team. The musical dynamic, learning to put together the image with the music really came from watching musicals, âSinginâ in the Rainâ and âFantasiaâ and, you know, those musicals, those old, old musicals. You can rent them at the video store now. âWizard of Oz.â You know, these are tremendous musicals. So that was, and I guess Busby Berkeley as much as anybody. Do you know his stuff?
KS: In â83 you said you lost interest in music videos. You said it was like radio with pictures, whereas you saw it as an art form. I wanted to ask why you dropped out and why you didnât stay with it to bring it into new areas?
MN: Well, the idea of radio with pictures came because most music videos are like commercials for records and I was being asked to do videos for people and I didnât want to do that. Itâs the same thing if somebody called me up and asked me to do a commercial. I donât want to do a commercial. So I made a decision to do motion pictures which was where I felt like I could do the art form. I tried to put together music type of motion pictures â wasnât completely successful with it. âTapeheadsâ is the first time Iâve gotten even close. But it really was not an attempt to abandon the music video form but to get into an area where I could actually do it. And music videos werenât it.
KS: Do you think music video is healthier now or is it even worse than it was six years ago?
MN: Oh, itâs gotta be healthier than it was because thereâs just a certain law of progress that goes with everything. You gotta get smarter people. Youâre saying to me now as if you understand it â and I assume you do â that the current music video is a commercial for a record. You also say that to me as if thatâs a pejorative. You say it in a certain disparaging way, so I assume that you donât think itâs a good thing, that you think itâs as least not a fulfilling element of the form. So I can tell you from talking to literally dozens of other people like yourself that you echo a common sentiment, at least in my experience. So I think that what that common sentiment is bringing forward is that, well, weâll tolerate the radio with pictures things because at least it kind of pushes us along, but thereâs more here than meets the eye, thereâs a bigger bone buried in this backyard than weâve dug up, whatever metaphor you want to insert. At some point somebodyâs gonna come along, grab hold of the form and do it, whether itâs me or whether itâs somebody else, I donât know, but itâs gonna be somebody whoâs gonna come along and do it.
KS: And thereâs the occasional gems that do come through that make you still believe in the form.
MN: I think heavy metal is probably the most fertile ground right now for something to come along. Well, itâs Wagnerian. You have to look at it that way, number one. Iâm talking about heavy metal as a real point of departure. Heavy metal is a good example of music thatâs really taken a left turn somewhere along the line and you have to keep in mind that Hendrix was on the first Monkees tour, you know. Thatâs one of the great ironies of the 60âs. And it was Hendrix who infected me with a love for heavy metal and made it stay forever, which, you know, Iâm still a big heavy metal fan. I couldnât find much that I liked with heavy metal. I liked AC/DC and I liked some of the stuff, you know, from Aerosmith, Foghat, REO Speedwagon, and some of these things that werenât really heavy metal but kind of were heavy metal pop. It really wasnât until Eddie Van Halen came along. And Van Halen was the first time that I thought, âAh! Thereâs been some life breathed in here.â Of course, now, I donât know what heâs doing, heâs off in some other zone again, but where he was working with David and those guys, that was HOT. That was real Iwo Jima stuff. Eddie plays the guitar a lot better than Jimi played it. The difference is Hendrix didnât play the guitar, Hendrix WAS the guitar. Major difference. This guy, when he would touch the neck of his guitar, number one, it was upside down and backwards, or backside down and upwards, whatever you want to call it, but it was screwy. When he touched the neck of his guitar it was very hard to see where his fingers ended and the guitar started. I mean there was a kind of glow around the whole thing. I know this sounds all kind of cosmic, but itâs true! He really was an amazing dude. With Van Halen, I think what Eddieâs got is the same kind of wonderful sensibility that Jimi had but the guitar is a technical extension. Heâs very organized in the way he plays and very soulful but Hendrix wasâŚyou cannot compare those two. In terms of real crash/burn rockânâroll thereâs a band out there which is somewhere between my absolute favorite band, which is Z Z Top, to Metallica, which is from some other place. And then I sort of like but ignore the Bon Joviâs of the world, Poisons and Whitesnakes and stuff and Ratt. It doesnât work. I thought for a while Michael Schenkerâs group was gonna do it, right after he left the Scorpions and he did that one album that was just wow! This guy has flat got it. And then he just went nowhere. I think, drogas, el drogas.
KS: You stated recently that putting movies on videocassette was like driving an Indy 500 car to work, a major misuse of the medium. What do you feel can be done to rectify that, and is that where âOverviewâ comes in?
MN: Well, I think you have to look at the whole user event, yeah, and âOverviewâ is a part of that. âOverviewâ is information carrier, though. âOverviewâ was a magazine on videocassette that just brought previews and reviews and things of coming attraction and it was designed as kind of a video guide. I think that hews closer to the form. At the end of the day, I gotta tell you I think home video is an entertainment medium and I think itâs gonna occupy the same place in the minds of the future people that records kind of do now. Thatâs where I think itâs gonna extend from, not from motion pictures, do you know what I mean? So you have to think in terms of contemporary music, what records are, in order to get a handle on how to use the video medium. Thatâs me. Thatâs the way I think of it.
KS: The first version of âOverviewâ that you put out, about two years ago, it failed. Youâre doing something again with it. What will be different in terms of concept, marketing, distribution?
MN: You have to be careful about thinking that âOverviewâ failed. âOverviewâ did what it was intended to do, which was to provide me with a test market. The reason that it appears to have failed is because I thought that the test results would be more positive than they were and that I would go with it immediately. The test results were negative nit it wasnât a result of the magazine. The test results were the result of the distribution system not working. I had to redesign the distribution, redesign the marketing system, and once that was done I felt like I could go forward. Well, thatâs what I did. I went forward, redesigned the marketing system, redesigned my distribution system, and youâll see it this fall. Again with another test. It may not work again, but weâll try it again.
KS: Good. I think itâs a phenomenal idea. Just to have, like even on cable TV, the access of a library in front of you where you can just get any information you want, read the newspaper, do all thatâŚ
MN: Well, youâre talking about the Holy Grail right now and what that is is the interface of the computer with the video medium, movies on demand, pictures on demand.
KS: Does that interest you?
MN: Iâm into it up to my eyeballs! And as a matter of fact youâll see me come back through here in August with some announcements along this line. But with the availability to take the computer, interface it effectively with video, youâre very close to what you want and all of us want. All of us want to download. All of us want a couple of keystrokes, gimme the data. But you know the data stream in this thing is so dense. Do you have any idea of the technological mountain youâre trying to climb there? The data stream â and I may get this wrong â the data stream on a color video picture, one second, is 80 megabytes! If you know anything about computers you know that thatâs a lot of storage. And most people have a hard disc and maybe have 20 megabytes, 10 megabytes, 40 megabytes on a hard disc. By the time you get up to 80 megabytes youâre starting to get into some serious computing power and BIG BUCKS. Well, to get one second of color video with sound on a screen uses 80 megabytes. It uses all the storage space that you have on one 80 megabyte hard disc. So just figure out how many billions of bytes you have to have in order to get 90 minutes. Apple, Hypercard, some of these other computer programs are really blazing the trail with graphics based computer technology thatâs gonna make something of what you want. You might be having to live with black and white slides for a while or just somebody talking underneath it, but, hey, itâs a start. And thatâs gonna be there. Everybody wants this. Me, too.
KS: Itâs the 15th Anniversary â another anniversary â of the formation of your company, Pacific Arts. Being a musician for your whole life and moving into working as an executive and working on that level, was it a difficult transition?
MN: Well., let me answer it this way because itâs a question thatâs commonly asked, which is how do you manage to change hats so often and so easily and the answer is, which is a good answer, is that I donât change the hats. Itâs the same hat. The dynamic and the values that I employ to write a song, make a record, do a video, make âTapeheadsâ, is the same one that you use to run a company and itâs just different applications of the same values.
KS: Are you pleased with where the company is now? Is it beyond what you envisioned at the beginning?Â
MN: Well, itâs different. I donât know. Every morning I get up and I wonder is this the right place to be going? And a company is a very hard thing to project, you know, the best laid plans of mice and men⌠The important thing in a company is to be adaptable. U see a lot of people come to me with systems analysis, management systems, a way to control this, that, and the other thing, how to make 5-year projections, 2-year projections, 1-year projections. They all have their place, but none of them occupies as an important place in the hierarchy of things as being adaptable, being able to think fast, be quick on your feet so that when everything goes to hell in a handbasket you can make a decision and ether do something that either saves the day or gets you out of the mud. And when it comes to running a company itâs a question of getting up, assessing the day, and saying, âWell, am I stuck in the ditch?â Or am I on the road? Or is the ditch really the road?â It gets very subtle and curious out there sometimes. So you know one day I may wake up and there will be no Pacific Arts. One day I may wake up and Pacific Arts will be Warner Brothers. I donât know.
KS: Letâs talk about âTapeheadsâ. I loved it. What was it that attracted you to the project? Was it an almost instant affection for the story that made you feel it was right for Pacific Arts?
MN: Well, it was the Swanky Modes. I mean, you know, there was a script that had running through its core the heart and soul of 160âs R & B. Now I donât mean to indicate thatâs what the movieâs about, âcause clearly it isnât. But I thought, depending on who we cast for the Smoky Modes, this could be an unbelievable thing to see. Then when Same Moore and Junior Walker were cast, I was even more thrilled. Of course, all the musicians in the world began to say, âGee, can we come down and work?â and âCan we come down and play and do all this stuff?â And then when I started hearing the music that they were recording originally for the movie I was just blown away. So the first thing that appealed to me was the music and at the end of the day the thing that makes me the happiest with it is the music. I think âOrdinary Manâ is a hit!
KS: Is filmmaking the primary interest for you? Or is it one of many?
MN: Well, right now, I gotta save âTapeheadsâ. I gotta make âTapeheadsâ work and thatâs what Iâm talking to you and what Iâm talking to everybody I can talk to about right now âcause âTapeheadsâ has gotta get a shot. If people can understand what is at the root of âTapeheadsâ and it can grow, itâs a point of departure for me to make other musical movies and it has to be demonstrated that this is a valid form. I donât know whether itâs gonna make a lot of money. It may or may not. So far the video looks like itâs gonna do very well. But itâs the music part of this and the combination of movies and music is where I want to be, itâs where Iâm totally focused and where I want to ultimately be. And like I say, maybe the next one will be a heavy metal movie. Donât you think that would be cool? A heavy metal movie? Think of that. I mean, you go into a nice big theatre, Iâm not talking about some little squeezie 14-plex, Iâm talking about something with this humongoid screen where you can do all this major kill sound and you go in there and you get a couple of concert stacks. You donât use the speakers that theyâve got âcause theyâre kinda twinky, you know, you get some concert stacks and you put âem in there and you get some big sound and you just do it a little bit like a concert. Why canât the cinema experience be like a concert experience?
KS: Would it be something like a âSpinal Tapâ or a documentary type?
MN: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, something entirely of its own. You know thereâs a dynamic, thereâs a creative imperative inherent in heavy metal music. Itâs male adolescence, itâs cars and women â spelled W-I-M-M-I-N. Theyâre into it and it works!
KS: And you can identify with it, as well.
MN: You can identify with it. I mean, itâs not the way I lead my life, Iâm a fairly conservative guy. But as an art form, I mean, cripes, you canât ignore that and I think if youâre looking to put some power up on the screen, you know, these guys have got their hands on the trigger.
KS: Which part of the creative process do you enjoy the most? The ideas, the writing, the filming, the editing, or just sitting back and enjoying the end result?
MN: Itâs the end result. Yeah, sit back and watch it. I make movies âcause I want to see âem! Itâs the only reason. I donât know why else to make a movie. You make a movie âcause to want to see it. I donât like chopping the onions and dicing the carrots and standing over the stove much. I donât like that much.
KS: Same thing with music, as well?
MN: Yeah, you write music âcause you want to hear it. Thatâs why I started writing music. I couldnât play the guitar. So I couldnât sing and so anything anybody else was doing so I said, âOK, letâs all sing this song. I donât know how to play thatâ song.â So you make up a song you can sing.
KS: Itâs funny that you talked about âCruisinââ being early rap, because I wanted to ask you about Run DMCâs âMary Maryâ, which you wrote.
MN: Well, I donât know. My life has been nothing if not poetic. You know what I mean? (laughs) There are certain closed great parentheses is my life and I wonder what open parentheses Iâm in the middle of right now. You know, every once in a while, Iâll look at âMary Maryâ and I think, âMy Lord! Is this unusual or what?â And then to see this come back around! People say to me, âAre you surprised that the Monkees are doing so well in their reunion?â, and I say, âNo, Iâm surprised that Run DMC recorded âMary Maryâ as a rap single!â Thatâs the surprise.
KS: And they did a real good job, I thought.
MN: I thought so. Sure. I mean, if thatâs the rap dynamic. I thought when I was doing âCruisinââ that what I was doing was just reciting poetry over a very spare and simple musical bed. I like the concept of rap because it gives people who canât sing the ability to express themselves musically. I think thatâs cool. Iâm not sure what theyâre talking about a lot of the time. I suppose itâs OK to talk about âI like the way you look, babyâ, but, I mean, I donât know, it burns out pretty quick for me.
KS: It seems like youâve reconciled with your past with the Monkees, recognizing that youâll always be identified with that.Â
MN: Well, youâre right. The curious thing to me is that thereâs ever any question that I may or may not do that. I mean, why in the world wouldnât I do that> I donât have anything to reconcile. Itâs always been just fine with me. I knew when I got involved in the thing that IU was going to be a Monkee for the rest of my life. You donât get involved in things that hot and not have it stay around. Christopher Reeve knew when he took the Superman part that he was gonna be Superman so he better get peaceful with that before he does it. I was peaceful with it before I did it.
KS: Do you think if you did anything with the band, especially a movie, would it adversely affect you or would it fit into the scope of your company? Would you consider something like that?
MN: Sure. Weâve talked about it many times. The problem is not whether or not Iâd do it. Itâs whether or not anybody would make that movie. And there doesnât seem to be a whole lot of interest in it. I mean, I think it would make an interesting film. You wanna know my guess, I think of there was gonna be something on film it would probably end up on television. Television is the Monkeesâ medium. And I donât know whether or not we could pull it off â the four of us as adults could pull off â what we pulled off 25 years ago. Probably not. So that you have to look that pretty hard.
KS: Would you get involved in a Monkeesâ record, maybe contributing a couple of songs?
MN: Sure. Absolutely. All those things are up in the air and up in the wind and we talk about âem all the time. I wouldâve gone on tour, but I didnât have the time. I was just finishing âSquare Danceâ and just starting âTapeheadsâ and as a matter of fact I told 'em I would. We were gonna go out and just do half a dozen dates, you know, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, something like that. They called up and said, âListen, we went to get a drink of water and the faucet fell off in our hand and now itâs 280 dates.â I said, âWell, partners, I canât do that. Iâve got 25 employees here. I canât walk away from this.â
KS: On the follow-up tour in 1987 they did quite a few of your songs, âCircle Skyâ and âYou Just May Be The Oneâ. Was there any plan of your doing a few shows in 1987? It seemed thatâs why they had those songs in.
MN: That is constantly in our minds. I think theyâre gonna come back this year. Weâre trying right now to figure out how to make some dates work. We tried to make one work in Philadelphia. I couldnât get there. We tried to make one work in Chicago. I couldnât get there. You know, itâs a nightmare.
KS: Thereâs a video floating around of the Greek Theatre in 1986. It was just so heartwarming to see.
MN: Oh, you shouldâve been there! Oh, it was terrific, it was great. You know, we just tried to figure out the right way to do it and decided Iâd come on at the end. And so we put together a couple of numbers and, you know, he guys went through their whole show and it was like, âSo long, goodbye,â theyâre taking their final bows and then I walk out from the edge and hey hit me with the spotlight and Iâm telling you the place went up for grabs! It was unbelievable. It exploded!
KS: The big question is did you have to relearn âPleasant Valley Sundayâ and âListen to the Bandâ? You were playing that lick on âPleasant Valley Sundayâ pretty good.
MN: No, I donât think Iâll ever forget that. Number one, itâs not that hard. Like I say, itâs a big part of my life. I like that part of my life. I wish I could do it more and, if we can figure out a way to do it moreâŚyou know, we talk all the time, trying to figure out how to get me back un on the TV show. You know, theyâre off in Europe right now doing some big tours and Iâd love to be there. Iâd love it! Itâs be great! ButâŚwe gotta get people out there to see âTapeheadsâ. (laughs)
KS: The Monkees are receiving a Star this year on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. How do you feel about that and will you attend?
MN: Oh, yeah! You bet! I feel great!
KS: If you were watching TV and a Monkees episode came on, would you watch it?
MN: No. Iâve seen âem too many times. Iâve seen âem all dozens of times.
KS: You saw them as a spectator in â86 in Texas. What was that like?
MN: Well, that was real edifying. Iâve been asked about that before, too, and the one thing that was obvious to me was that Micky shouldâve been in front all along. You know, he is so good. Why we stuck him back on the drums, that was one of the dumber things we ever did. Between David and Micky up front, I mean, you got two power hitters up here, you know? I just stand there, I donât do anything. I go over and stand by my amp and play the guitar. And Peter probably could have been a better drummer than Micky because Peterâs a better musician than Micky. So I donât know, maybe we shouldâve given Micky a bass and let him play bass or something, but he was great. It was wonderful to see, too, Iâll tell you.
KS: âThe Girl I Knew Somewhereâ was the first song you guys all recorded together, which you wrote. The first session, was it a big relief or a lot of pressure?
MN: Well, there wasnât any pressure to it. You know, there wasnât a lot of support for us playing, because it was like, âCome on, guys, youâre actors,â and âHow are you gonna play and make the music? You know, itâs just too big of a workload, number one. Number two, what kind of material are you gonna play? What are you gonna do?â So it wasnât a question of âCan you play, can you make decent music?â It was a question of âIf you play, how are we gonna make all this fit into what weâre doing? âCause thereâs so much other stuff!â So the pressure was never really âCan you play and can you play well?â The question was âOK, we figure you can play and we figure you can play well enough and we know Nesmith writes and we know the rest of you guys write, so maybe this well all come about, but then what?â And that was the big question, because as they predicted it got tougher and tougher and tougher as we got busier and busier and busier.
KS: The âLive â67â album on Rhino is interesting to listen to because you guys were a great garage band.Â
MN: Thatâs exactly what we were. We were a garage band.
KS: Have you heard it?
MN: Well, I mean, I heard it when we made it. (laughs)
KS: It had electricity that blew away a lot of critics when they reviewed it, and it had an almost psychedelic version of âSteppinâ Stoneâ.
MN: It was a psychedelic version of âSteppinâ Stoneâ. Unequivocally.
KS: What direction do you think the Monkees would have gone if âHEADâ had been a success?
MN: We would have just continued to make films and records. Abandoned television. Probably have jumped into the video form about the time I did. Thatâs my guess. We wouldâve stayed right there.
KS: Would you have veered into a country direction, as âGood Clean Funâ and âNever Tell A Woman Yesâ indicated for you?
MN: No, I donât think so. Micky was always the voice and Davy was always the voice of the Monkees and they didnâtâŚMicky was never comfortable singing those country type songs. But you know Mickyâs got a terrific pop voice.
KS: Iâve interviewed him, but he seems very insecure and underestimated himself about how good he is and what a great showman he is.
MN: Yeah. Yeah, he does. Thatâs one of the reasons he ended up sticking back there on drums. I was like, âYeah, sure, Iâll play drums.â âMick, get up, get out here.â
KS: In 1969 you went to Nashville and recorded material for an album side of a Monkees LP. What happened with that?
MN: Well, nothing. By that time he show was off the air and there wasnât any place to put it. That band went on to become a band that had a little bit of success in their own right called Area Code 615 and they were a session band. One of those songs that we recorded was âListen to the Bandâ. And then there were some other songs in there that I canât remember what they were. âSaint Matthewâ, I think, was a song that we did. There was some other stuff. It just got stashed in a vault somewhere.
KS: Why was the live âCircle Skyâ replaced with a studio version? A lot of critics have said it was a fantastic live performance. In fact, Peter felt it was the best recorded example of the band.
MN: Well, that was done, and I think Peterâs right. I think, if you talk about the Monkees as a band, you have to look at âCircle Skyâ, number one, and âGirl I Knew Somewhereâ, number wo. I mean, thatâs basically a garage band. And thatâs the way garage bands play â loud and fast. (laughs)
KS: Were there any songs Davy or Micky sang that you were especially partial to, that you wish youâd sand? Like you did a demo of âDaddyâs Songâ first.
MN: No, I was always happy with the way the vocals went down. Every time Iâd sing a Monkeesâ song itâd sound like a country tuneâŚand at the time having it sound like a country tune wasnât a good idea. Maybe itâs different now, I donât know.
KS: Itâs interesting how critics hated the Monkees but the public loved them, while your solo career as a country rock pioneer was a hit with the critics but not with the public.
MN: Well, you have to let history write that chapter, Ken. I donât know what place I have in all of that and donât really much think about it one way or the other.
KS: One last question, if you could choose three Nesmith songs for a time capsule that would be discovered in a thousand years from nowâŚ
MN: Well, I wrote one like that, you know. Because I thought about that. Itâs called âCapsuleâ and itâs on the âInfinite Riderâ LPâŚ
[Transcribed from a PDF found on Monkees Live Almanac]
FNB Redux "Live at the Troubadourâ Album Liner Notes
I wrote most of the songs on this album while I was working with The MonkeesâŚnot that I was writing for The Monkees, because Iâve never been able to write for anything, but the job for the Monkees was my daily driver. Sadly, I had very little direction from the execs on the show, even less from the crew and writers and the parts of the creative work that fell under my desk were unformed â more precisely to say, uninformed and unclear.
At the time there was little to draw from in pop music â a situation that I was to learn was much more normal than not. The music I was hearing on my own stereo system and the music on my radio was dominated by The Beatles, and others like them. And auspicious beginning for sure, but not too much help for a TV show about a band.
Over time, the definition of a pop song had become mysterious to me. I couldnât tell what exactly was meant by a pop song. Down at the Monkees operation headquarters â in an effort to contribute â Iâd say, âWell, how about this?â and I would play them something like my demo for Different Drum. âWill this work?â and they said, âOh no, that wonât work, much too twangyâ and so early on I was flummoxed. I was stopped and I thought, âWellâŚâ I didnât really understand twangy as a musical element â perhaps affecting performance more than structure â but as I say, I didnât really have a handle on a design element of âno twangâ.
The various music producers said to me on many occasions, âDonât put any kind of twang in there because twang sounds ignorant to the Upper Northeast, while it might be appealing to the Lower Southeast. Most of our audience are U.S. Northeastern television watchers and they notoriously turn off twang if they hear it.â
The exec producers seemed to have this vague sense of regionality, and the kind of records and songs they could safely use to put the band together were, in essence, from the script for the show and the marketing push.
One guyâs from the Northeast, and one guyâs from Southern California, one guyâs from England and another guyâs from the South â from Texas â and all the characters were cut to fit into that mould [sic]âŚfrom bit parts to howling oratory. They all live together in a funky old house on the beach, rehearse there, and hatch schemes and ideas that are designed to fit the show.
As I began to express the character that I thought was playing with the character that I was naturally, I unsuspectingly pushed up against the edge of the entire concept itself.
At which point I started thinking. âWait, what is this thing?â Because weâre suddenly and surprisingly in the ring with The Stones and The Beatles â and by that Iâm talking about the size of the effort. The Beatles were international multi-million sellers and The Monkees were international multi-million sellers after their first record but not in the same league as The Beatles or The Stones, who were the referenced standard at the timeâŚthe 60s.
The whole music scene was burgeoning â mostly in England â and I was producing some of the best music of its time. And it was due to this rising English music sense that the notions first arose for me about just what defines a band. What creates it? What makes it turn into a band? Why is it even a band? All the questions that come into play in order to start a bandâŚoddly, but not surprisingly, none of those questions were asked and none of those questions were answered in the Monkees TV show.
All of them were asked, and all of them were answered by the music in the British InvasionâŚrevolution. To my mind, one must answer the question of not only how you are gonna do what youâre gonna do with the band but why are you doing it. Whatâs the focus? Why are you singing this song about this subject right now? Why is it performed in a certain way? The answer is obvious and easy â I guess itâs just assumed that everybody knowsâŚ
The answer is music.
But that answer requires a broad understanding of music outside technical, stylistic or regional constraints. The answer requires a spiritual understanding of music. I was surrounded by music all the time in my thinking. And after I discovered the roots music of Texas, I began to understand where that music was coming from â country blues â and it was out of the spirit of the Southeast, and out of Nashville, marrying there on the Texas Gulf Coast and traveling up through Houston, coming up through Austin, and making itself known in that way. By virtue of that journey, it had a personality. It had a raison dâetre. People danced to it, made love to it, made babies to itâŚthe music had its own presence. It was on every car radio â the only radio I knew was in the car. And it had that sort of DJ presence in there that was clatter and clutter to me. Twangy did not feel out of place there.
At the bottom line, it was â music with rhythm and tone and everything else. With all that to consider I realized, âIâm not understanding something here that maybe Iâm going to understand in times future. So just keep your eyes open and your ears open and listen and see what it is, but do NOT chase it. Let it unfold before you.â
It wasnât too long after The Monkees that I began to recognize what critical path is, and the reason to adhere to it. First, because itâs a good time â itâs an eveningâs noise, all that kind of thing. But for me, it was a deep spiritual sense that was unspoken and unsung unless you actually wrote it and sang it. I had to write it and sing it so that it was embedded in the songs that I wrote.
When I played all that music to the powers-that-be at The Monkees, they said, âWell, first of all we donât like it because it is twangy, and itâs country, and it sounds like youâre stupid, And second of all, we donât know what youâre singing about â this sounds like acid flashes, like youâre smoking a bunch of dope, and you donât really know what youâre talking about.â
But really what had happened was I has simply stepped off into the other world that these guys in the creative community had apparently avoided, so about all I could say was, âWait for me, wait for me, wait for me!â to no availâŚor perhaps more dire, âOk, leave without me. Iâll get a ride from someone somewhere.â
I was to distill that environment into song and sound and music in my head that I worked. I thought, âI gotta render this in poetry. And I donât know how to do that.â A lot of people made their way because they sang good, and a lot of people made their way because they played well, but mostly it was because they had something to say.
That will happen when a band coalesces. First, the coalesce around the music, so you have to start with the music â OK, whatâs the music about? Most of the time itâs about love songs. What about lost love? What about the death of a treasured parent or grandparent or child? What about death in general? What about sorrow? What about High Lonesome? What about all these things? Are they ever rendered in song? Well, yes they areâŚbut not so much in pop sings. I was watching The Beatles touch that and I was watching Dylan give us all a license to do it, and then it dawned on me as if it were a continuous sunrise, that this unfoldment is not only the reason to do it, itâs a critical path. One must do it if theyâre going to make music. You must have something to say.
You may say, âMy heart is broken.â âReally? So is mine. Why is yours broken? Why did yours break?â âBecause my girlfriend ran off with another guy.â
That was Garry Shandlingâs joke â I broke up with my girlfriend because she moved in with another guy.
There are these unspoken, unsung ideas that we live by, that when they are spoken and when they are sung, energize us and lift us up, make us laugh and make it possible to get it through the next fifteen minutes.
By the time however I was invested with the First National Band. The TV show was over and Iâm out of work and back to being just this guy â but I figure I got a lot of license here.
SomeoneâŚI canât remember whoâŚwhen wondering with me what the resistance to my music was, said, âMaybe it was the steel guitar?â My mother had pointed that out, too. She had said, âI donât like the way that guitar slides around, and swirls. Sounds like the lady behind me in church singing the hymns.â
And I understood that buy I also saw my own sense of it was, âWell, actually, there are things here that are a touch of the Infinite in this music.â: And when you expand that, youâre expanding the spiritual side of it â and that will leave the lady singing in church to find her own way, and most importantly, sounding better.
John Ware who was the drummer for the First National Band and John Kuehne â John London Kuehne, who was bass player for the First National; Band â and I were all friends, and we talked about this. âWell, what should the band be?â and they both said, âJust do what you do.â
But John, Johnny, and Red Rhodes were a little more specific. âWhat youâre doing here is different and itâs useful.â And I had a friend of mine who would drive me around from time to time. He would say, âThose songs that you sing are great.â He was English. âThose songs that you sing are fantastic.â Well, by the time I got to Nashville, the players there sure did think he songs were fantastic. I played them and they all said, âMan, this is good stuff. Who wrote this?â And I was happy to say, âMe.â
But at this point I was so far on the outside of the traditional record business and the Nashville business and anywhere the music centers were because I was seen as a rebel â seen as being opposed to the music of The Monkees â which wasnât true.
What was true was that I didnât enjoy it. It wasnât music that I liked, it wasnât music that I listened to, but it was all fairâŚand in any case that wasnât my job. My job was not like that. On the other hand it was also not my job to impress Stockhausen on an unsuspecting world. I wanted beautiful music wherever I could find it. If that was in a supermarket, that was OK with me. Or an elevator, I didnât care. But if I wanted to sing it myself and write it myself, I had to have an understanding of what that music was and how to get to it.
So, the first place I looked was in my own history, which was hillbilly country. And then I started looking at the other kind of influences⌠âWhere am I gonna find the stuff that I really love?â And as Iâve written in my book, where I found it was in Bo Diddley â his rhythms - and where I found it was in the blues and not so much in pure country music, except as it was rendered by guys like Hank Williams, Jerry Lee, Johnny Cash and so forth. The big guns⌠the lions⌠and I thought, âI can fly in that flock⌠not to compare myself to them⌠but theyâre not doing aerobatics that I canât do. I can do that. That sounds pretty good to me.â
And from that began to be, âWell, why donât we get country players?â âWhoâs the first guy you want to get?â âWell, Red Rhodes. Heâs he steel player down at the Palomino and heâs the guy that I want.â
And I talked to Red, and I realized Red was not anywhere on this page â he was a very conventional country steel player but he has these wild swings and when he had them they were a very clear touch of the Infinite. And once he got turned on, these wild swings became magnificently wild. They went crazy off the charts. And he was playing out loud what I was hearing in my head.
From Redâs excursions among the stars, the band slowly began to play. My band â First National Band â began trying to play what we were hearing in our heads as a collective.
Thatâs when a band really starts to come together â when everybody hears the same song in their head. We call it different thing, âWeâre on the same page, weâre playing the same songâ, so on and so forth, but everybody is of one mind about where one should be, what key it should be in, what instruments should play it, and so forth. Within this is a lot of room. ANs when I saw The Beatles venture far out into these extraordinary territories, I thought, âHey, I can do that, too.â It wasnât so much that I was inspired by The Beatles alone, but I was certainly inspired by the tenor of the times and the people who were doing itâŚeverybody from this side of the pond to that side of the pond. It was a great time to be in music, in a band, looking for some place to play.
But The Monkees had this appendage called Television that was starting to hang off me. This extra fame did give me an introduction wherever I went â whether it was a restaurant or a grocery store â but it was weird for me personally.
Nevertheless the four of us in the FNB â John, Red, me, and Johnny â kind of had a focus on saying, âSomethingâs coming out of this and letâs continue to play it. Letâs rehearse and rehearse and see how it will go.â RCA made us a deal, we got a tour together, but sadly it never got the commercial traction that I wanted it to. âJoanneâ went up the U.S. charts to the low twenties, but I was watching the Monkees records get huge commercial traction, and I thought, âWell, those producer guys know something I donât know.â
And always when that thought would come in to me, right behind it would be: âThatâs nothing you need to know right now. You need to know how to extinguish a cobalt fire. You need to know something very arcane. Youâre after something here that only certain people can find through this door. And if you donât know how to extinguish a cobalt fire, donât set it on fire until you do!â
So, I pulled back from that and moved on to another train of thought that was organically based. It came from someplace inside, not from someplace outside where you say, âOh, letâs play it like they play it. Letâs play it like he says. Letâs sing it like she sings it. Letâs dress like her. Letâs get a lead singer thatâs cute and short or cute and tall or black, white, or pink. Whatever it was, letâs do it.â But it was all coming from the outside.
And glancing on the inside, you turn back in on this question: Whatâs really pushing this music? For me, I wanted it to be my means of livelihood and so the idea that it would be named after the First National Bank â which was where I kept my money â and turn it into The First National Band, made perfect sense. Itâs a bit of a joke. Maybe not a good joke, but itâs a joke, a funny joke. Not quite enough to play and sing yet, but close.
If you have a clear, distinct point of view then youâve gathered elements that are combustible, and if you can render that point of view in your art â photography, painting, musicianship, whatever â blended with a touch of the Infinite, then put them altogether in a room, raise the temperature a little bit, and youâll have warmth all the rest of your life. Thatâs what The First National Band is to me. An attempt to express these infinite ideas as a band.
Now, Redux, well⌠thatâs a whole ânother thing. John London has passed, as has Red, so I needed to find some other inspired players.
Now, because Redux is 50 years after the first First National Band, it is the first First National Band with new players. People have come up, who can play better than I could ever play. And this new album that weâve just made, Redux, is possibly the best album Iâve ever made. I can say it unequivocally.
I donât know how to describe this process contained here in any other way than I have. And I donât think I want to spend too much more time trying to figure out how to describe it, because it takes me away from the focus. I can see a future for this band. I can see something really great waiting for us to go out and play a stadium and play a country and do that kind of stuff because the music has that kind of persistence to it. Whether that actually happens is nothing I can predictâŚ
All the Redux players are just outstanding and amazing to work with.
As you listen to it â thank you â let me say here⌠Iâve never been happier with a record. Iâve never been more proud and pleased to hey it put in front of people, and play it and leave it with the people in their core. Itâs at the top of my form. Itâs the best I can do.
So if I die now⌠that was it, guys.
Michael Nesmith
[Transcribed from a PDF found on Monkees Live Almanac]
Iâve gotten to know Davy Jones very well during his (and the other Monkeesâ) trips to London -- which is where I cover the action for FLIP.
As two Englishmen speaking casually and comfortably to each other about the pop world we both live in, Davy and I enjoy each otherâs company.
This is Davy Jones -- as I know him...
Davy Jones, as one young girl pop star here (Lulu) put it, âknows where itâs at.â And that rather simply sums him up. Davy is not a newcomer to showbusiness. He did not suddenly become a Monkee from nowhere!
You know of Davyâs early career as a boy actor playing bit parts on BBC-TV and working in the stage musical âOliver.â Davy started out early and learned fast.
âBy the time I was sixteen I had left school and was out earning a living,â Davy one told me. âYou learn fast at that age -- and you learn to fall on your feet.â
Davy is first and foremost an actor and in spite of his delight at finding himself a pop star he stresses the emphasis. âI started out acting a pop star in the Monkees -- suddenly the public decided to accept me as a pop star but I still feel Iâm an actor.â
Another of Davyâs less obvious assets is his ability to hold life in perspective. He is most unlikely to let success go to his head -- firstly because success is not entirely new to him and secondly because he has a built-in protection against conceit. His weapon is humor and he uses a laugh to put the world into shape. When someone comes up with the intentionally stupid question âDo you like tall girls?â he refrains from tearing his or the reporterâs hair out by the roots and letâs go with: âSure -- I like someone to look up toâ or talks about himself as âThat winkle-nosed little boy...â
Because his early experiences of showbusiness have given him a natural slant on life he is able to sum up his status and position with frankness and without fooling himself.
His reaction to that last paragraph would probably be to hold his sides with laughter. Davy possesses one other very important human stabilizer -- the ability to laugh at himself.
When I first met him in London he meant nothing in Britain -- neither did the Monkees. But in America they were already the new sensations.Â
âIâm nothing to you here, am I?â he smiled pleasantly over breakfast. âItâs funny, I canât explain to you what being a Monkee means in the States -- weâre enormous. In a way itâs nice to come back to England and find you are treated as a normal everyday bloke. Iâve got a feeling that things will be different in a couple of months, though.â
They were, but the refreshing thing was that Davy was not.
I think the sheer professionalism of Davyâs manner with the press is probably one of the most incredible things about him. I watched him reel off an interview with a TV team which had come for a five minute interview and wound up doing a half hour spot. I watched a radio DJ with a tape recorder meticulously arranging his equipment and preparing for a long chat find himself with a breezy narrative which never even necessitated him posing a question. I watched Davy trot out the room convinced that the long day was over and called back to do a further hourâs chat with me.
âIâm sorry, I thought you were the fellow with the tape,â he grinned. âIâll just take a keep-awake pill and be right back.â He did come back and did about two and a half hours straight chat with me.
Another thing which impressed me about the mini-Monkee was his refusal to be drawn into any kind of a slugging match with some misguided English pop stars who had slammed the Monkees as cheap fabrications.
âLook, man,â he said, âIâm here to entertain people. Iâm here to make people happy -- least thatâs what I hope we do. [W]eâre not anxious to put anybody down. Do you think I need that kind of publicity. Look around you -- I donât need to say bad things about someone to get in the papers.â And I think he was really sorry for those that seemed to have to resort to this kind of behavior.
I remember one other act -- simple but very Davy. A TV studio technician admired his cuff links. Davy was up fro his chair on the set off to the bedroom and he returned with an identical pair for the delighted cameraman!
Thatâs Davy Jones. A very special sort of person.
Where have all the jazzmen gone? And where are all the popmen headed?
The scene in one of Hollywoodâs biggest recording studios the other day provided a viable answer to both questions.
On the podium was Shorty Rogers, 43, the composer and trumpeter who in the 1950s was an umbilical figure in west coast jazz. Standing next to him, young enough to be his son but talented enough to be his collaborator, was Mike Nesmith of the Monkees.
Facing them was an orchestral colossus of more than half a hundred musicians: Among them was 16 strings, 18 brass, six woodwinds, five percussionists, three guitars. Scattered through the ranks were alumni of the Stan Kenton, Woody Herman and Duke Ellington bands, rubbing mutes with both pop and blues percussionists and a country and western banjo player.
The name of the ensemble was the Wichita Train Whistle. Nesmith had composed all the music, which included a number of songs recorded vocally by the Monkees, as well as a new extended instrumental work recorded in five sections. Rogers was hired as amanuensis, documentor and orchestrator. In effect, the was the creation of the first genuine rock ânâ roll symphony.
âAll right,â said Nesmith, âguitar, at bar 60 -- you should kinda get lost on that last run. It would be groovy if you didnât end up where youâre supposed to.â
Tommy Tedesco understood. t the end of the next take of âDonât Call on Me,â not even his guitar ended up where it was supposed to. He threw it into the center of the studio, like a candidateâs hat into the ring. As the band guffawed, Nesmith turned to engineer Hank Cicalo: âDonât turn off the tape. Keep the laughter in.â
Glancing through the conductorâs music sheets for some of the themes, I found not only conventional notes and chords, but such injunctions as âShearing bag,â âShearing thing with organ,â âArtie Shaw clarinet solo,â âGlenn Miller clarinet with saxes,â âas lib goofsâ and âfunky guitar run.â
âNesmith may not be a schooled arranger,â said Rogers later, âbut heâs a superior musician, and he knows about voicings, from Stravinsky to Charles Ives.
âStarting last June, we put this album together like a giant jigsaw puzzle. Mike sat and dedicated hours and hours of ideas into a tape recorder: âHereâs how I want the French horns to sound,â or âLetâs have some calculated mass goofing like this.â And heâd sing, or play piano or guitar or organ, to explain exactly what he wanted.â
The music of the Wichita Train Whistle reflected this mosaic of influences. A string introduction suggested the imminence of an Andy Williams ballad; instants later, the threshold of aural tolerance would be threatened by a stampeding brass tutti, with Bud Brisboisâ ad lib trumpet soaring an octave or two above the entire organized pandemonium. Just as suddenly, the gears would shift into a pseudo Shearing passage or a Glenn Miller glide.
Asked to analyze the motivation behind this unique enterprise, Mike Nesmith -- 6 feet 2 inches of Texas stringbean, 155 pounds of quiet intensity -- offered a lucid explanation.
âIâve been writing for a year and a half, and I didnât want to be blinded by dollar signs or tied down to whatâs considered âcommercially acceptableâ -- which means pimple music. I realized there are no new ideas in music -- only different combinations of the old ones. So I wanted to find some new combinations.â
âHow do you define what youâre doing?â
âFor one thing, Iâm putting big band ideas within the framework of rock ânâ roll. Rock is a very free form of music, and I want to free the big bands, give them something they can make their own statement with.â
Orally and musically, Mike Nesmith is one of the most articulate spokesmen for the new and literate breed of pop musicians who have sprung from the loins of primitive rock. The Wichita Train Whistle signals the advent of a new kind of locomotion. This train, with its carriage trade of symphony, rock, country, western and swing, and with jazz riding in the caboose, may well indicate where contemporary popular music will be situated in the early 1970s.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
â Live Streamingâ Interactive Chatâ Private Showsâ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch ⢠No registration required ⢠HD streaming
In September, 1959, Peter H. Thorkelson entered Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. Steve Pope was a member of that same freshman class, and was graduated from Carleton in June, 1963. Peter, of course, never graduated, having already decided that music meant more to him than anything else in the world. But, during the two years that Peter did attend Carleton, his best friend on campus was âPoperâ -- Steve Pope, who shared all of Peterâs happy and unhappy times. In an exclusive series beginning in this issue of FLIP, Steve will take you through these exciting years of Peterâs life.Â
Iâd just moved into Carletonâs freshman dorm, when I saw Peter for the first time. Wearing short hair, looking very puckish and plucking on one of his oldest banjos, there he was -- in one of his most familiar poses. I was to see Peter often like this. It seemed as if that banjo never left him!
We werenât introduced yet, but a couple of days later I found out that we were in the same math class together and that Peterâs room was just down the hall from mine. Soon, I was introduced to Peter H. Thorkelson, beginning a friendship with Peter which lasted even long after he eventually left Carleton.
Funny about that name. Youâd never think that there could be two Peter Thorkelsons in any one place at the same time. But there were actually two Peter Thorkselsons in my freshman class. The only difference was their middle initials and the fact that Peter pronounced the first part of his name âTORKâ while the other pronounced his âThork.â Peter usually used his middle initial to keep their identities separate.
Right away, I knew that Peter was OK. Sophomores at Carleton haze the freshmen, but Peter would have no part of it from the start. Like, for instance, he refused to wear the beanie that all freshmen were supposed to wear to show their inferior status. Then, as always, Peter kept his cool!
I got to know Peterâs room down the hall from mine very well. Banjos and guitars were hanging all over the walls. (But this room was nothing compared to the room Peter would have during his sophomore year! Which Iâll talk about when I get to that period of Peterâs life.)
The reason I got to know Peterâs room so well is that he loved to stay up all night to talk about philosophy and politics, and those of us who shared Peterâs thoughts usually did so in his room. There he would talk about anything that came to his crowded and creative mind. In old faded Levis, wearing a straight T-shirt (for some reason, during his freshman year, Peter always wore faded blue-and-white horizontally-striped T-shirts), with his banjo nearby, Peter would talk...and talk...and talk.
By the time Pete would be finished talking, you were convinced that what he was saying was right. He was (and still is) a very convincing talker whose arguments and thoughts would fall nicely together as he developed them.
When it came to girls, however, Peter would often let his banjo do the talking. Playing love songs and ballads, he was an outgoing and popular date. As I remember, he dated very sweet and pretty girls and he used to frequently fall in love. But thatâs a natural extension of Peter because heâs a very loving-type person. Yet, in his own way, he was shy...if you can imagine someone being shy and outgoing at the same time.
About the only place where Peter didnât take his banjo was class, when he went to class. When he did attend classes, he usually went barefooted. All the teachers and professors thought that he was tremendously intelligent, but they would get mad at him because he wouldnât study. Heâd get âAâsâ on all his papers, and then ruin all his brilliance by not studying for the final.
Peter was already beginning to feel that he wasnât getting anything out of his formal education. He believed that he was getting more knowledge from our conversations and bull sessions than he was getting from all his classes. But he promised himself that he wouldnât decide whether or not he would come back to Carleton until after the summer.
That summer, I worked in an orchard near my hometown of Downington, Pennsylvania, and Peter made the first of his many trips in Greenwich Village in New York. When school was over, we promised each other to keep in touch and meet again (maybe) in the fall up at Carleton.
So, you can imagine my surprise when one night in the middle of the summer, around 10 oâclock, the telephone rand and I heard a familiar voice:Â âIâm here, Poper...next to the Chevron station...in Paoli.â
When I got to the station, there was Pete, with a hamburger in one hand and a banjo in the other. And, for the next two days, we both got very little sleep.
We talked a lot, as ever, and set up a Dixieland band which played...and played...and played. Peter serenaded my little sister, Janet, who was 12 then, with all sorts of happy songs, like âInky Dinky Spider.â And we drove around a lot, enjoying the beautiful countryside, which Peter appreciated as much as I did.
He told me that he hadnât made up his mind about whether heâd come back to school. And he was restless and anxious to move on.
So, I took him to the Pennsylvania Turnpike entrance, from where he hoped to hitch-hike to the midwest. As I looked back, there stood Peter -- his shirt sticking out, a big old leather flight bag which was bulging in one hand, and his banjo in the other...
KS: Will you release any videos for the Rhino earlier material? Something like âJoanneâ that you never did a video for to promote it?
MN: Till you said it I hadnât thought of it. Maybe itâs a good idea. I donât know. Do you think it would be a good idea to go back and do old songs? Creatively, do you really? I donât know, because I think of the video as a form and there is such a thing as an audio-only record. Can you imagine a video of âJoanneâ, takes picture of a beautiful woman in a filmy dress living in a house by a pond? It starts to get kind of dumb. (laughs) The emotion that it evokes is different. When I wrote âRioâ I really had a picture in mind, although I didnât realize at the time that it was gonna father an entire way of life, but I did sort of have in mind that this would make something nice to put on film.
[...]
KS: Back to âNezmusicââŚon a song like âCruisinââ, did you have the idea for the video in mind and then come up with the song or did you write the song first and then create a video around that?
MN: Well, with âCruisinââ the video was very much in my mind and all of the songs since then have the pictures very much in mind and try to make them both work together.
KS: Do you enjoy working that way? Does having the visuals in mind help your writing?
MN: Yeah, it expands it because sometimes when youâre writing one of the things youâre looking for is a proper way to express a particular emotion. So you might spend hours or days or quite a bit of time trying to find a word, a phrase or something that conveys some idea that you want to convey. When you put pictures into the equation, you can think, âAll right, I donât need to SAY this out loud. I donât need to put this is a word because, when I marry the picture to it, it will convey this.â So many times just the presence of the video in your mind, the picture in your creative processes will help you out. For one thing, âCruisinââ was this odd record, OK? Go figure. And to me it was OK to just say poems over the top of a kind of simple bleat, you know, it was just bass and drums.
KS: Ahead of its time, when you think about it.
MN: Yeah, when you think about it (laughs) But at the time no one was thinking that rap would become what it became. And so with âCruisinââ it was a fairly clear poemâthe challenge became how do you pictorially represent a phrase like âthe light behind their eyesâ? How do you do that? And when you write to the video form, sometimes youâll avoid a phrase like âthe light behind their eyesâ because itâs much more descriptive and evocative of a mental image than it is of an actual picture/ And itâs very important to me to make sure that I steer clear of narrative interpretation of these things. So with âCruisinââ I learned my way a lot and, yes, I did write it with the visual in mind, but I also drove myself into a ditch in several other instances, for instance âthe light behind their eyesâ, and what I was left with was a cheesy video effect. I mean, I had to this thing that made this guyâs head blow up with light, you know. Well, OK, so that was fine, but stillâŚ
Mike Nesmith? Well, hang onto your âwool hatâ cats and kitties, because this album is good.
Mike Nesmith, you will remember, was one of the plastic Beatles, the Monkees, who can still be seen on Saturday morning TV, somewhere between The Archies and Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp. Besides being a Monkee, Mike was a composer of some talents -- âDifferent Drumâ was a strong enough song to bear the weight of Linda Ronstadt's entire career, and (though Iâve never been completely sure), Mike is often credited as composer of âMary, Mary,â first recorded by Paul Butterfield.
Well, no Monkeeshines here. Loose Salute shows that Mike is firmly planted in country-rock territory with his group, the First National Band, which features Red Rhodes on steel guitar, one of the better technicians of the instrument. The production is flawless (remember when Frank Zappa said that Monkees albums were put together better than most San Francisco acid-rock records?), the music is nice to listen to, and the boys all play their own instruments.
The album features a beautiful âhit singleâ than never was played on the radio, âSilver Moon,â a flashy rendition of Hank Cochran and Harlan Howardâs classic, âI Fall to Pieces,â a catchy rocker, âDedicated Friend,â and some pretty acoustic folk songs âConversationsâ and âThanx For The Ride.â âListen to the Band,â which features Red Rhodes, deserves to become a country and western standard, and the rest is good Hollywood cowboy music, fun to dance to, or eat enchiladas to.
Mikeâs straightforward, no-bullshit vocals are a welcome change from the usual Byrds-y, constipated singing style generally preferred by country hippie bands, and the nine Nesmith originals on Loose Salute radiate, if not genius, then a good, solid versatility. The flavor of the songs goes from country to Latin (âTengo Amore,â) to big band (âHello Ladyâ).
I have never considered myself a real Monkees fan, but I think Loose Salute by Mike Nesmith and the First National Band is one of the hippest country-rock albums in some time, certainly the most listenable. Mike Nesmith? Well, why the hell not?