Remembering Michael Nesmith

By Michael Lynch

“The one with the hat… “the one whose mother invented liquid paper”… “the one who didn’t do the reunion tours with the others”… “The one who pioneered country rock”… “the one who sowed the seeds for what became MTV”… “the one who led the fight for musical creative control for his band” are some of the ways he’ll be remembered. Or simply as the one directly responsible for a good-sized chunk of the Monkees’ musical pleasures and treasures.

The Monkees’ multi-talented singer songwriter and guitarist Michael Nesmith died of heart complications on December 10, 2021, a few weeks shy of his 79th birthday. Fellow Monkees Davy Jones and Peter Tork passed in 2012 and 2019 respectively. Only Micky Dolenz now survives.
All four Monkees had their unique traits, but right from the beginning, Nez stood out, both onscreen, with his signature wool hat, and cool collected demeanor displayed on their popular 1966 to 1968 TV series establishing him as the foursome’s leader, the smart one, and the one to take charge when the situation required, and offscreen, for Mike, who (like Davy) had already released a few singles released on Colpix Records, a branch of the Columbia and Screen Gems family tree, was writing and producing songs for the band’s records as early as the very first album, at the same time seeing his compositions recorded by other artists, notably “Mary Mary” being tackled by the Butterfield Blues Band and later “Different Drum” bringing Linda Ronstadt, by way of the Stone Poneys, her first visit to the upper regions of the charts.

The Monkees’ records sold millions, but Mike, horrified by some of the songs chosen by their musical supervisor Don Kirshner and resentful of the use of studio musicians providing the instrumentation instead of the Monkees (and smarting from the outcry and scorn once this became known to the public) sought to turn things around. He led his three bandmates in a bumpy, contentious but ultimately successful coup against the powers that be to give the Monkees musical control and have Kirshner dismissed. Fans can (and do) debate whether the Monkees were wise to rock the boat, but Nesmith followed his heart and creative instincts.
Traces of country influence could be detected as early as Mike’s songs on the Monkees’ first album, and as the years went on, Mike worked harder at balancing country with rock, improving as he went, by decade’s end all but providing the blueprint for ‘70s bands like Poco and Eagles (while Mike’s post-Monkees combo the First National Band continued down said course).

For decades Mike appeared reluctant to embrace his Monkee past, more keen on moving. Micky, Peter and Davy reunited in 1986 but Mike only appeared with them sporadically. He rejoined them to work as a foursome in 1996 for an album and a European tour the following year, but immediately jumped ship at that tour’s completion. The four never worked together again. Following Davy’s 2012 passing, Mike teamed up with Peter and Micky for a series of tours, and from then on right up to one month before his death, Mike was more often than not an active Monkee once again.

Close associates of Mike claim that in his final years Mike had achieved a fuller appreciation of what an impact the Monkees had made on so many. Perhaps in his mind he echoed his 1968 sentiments: “Here I stand, happy man.”

NOTABLE NEZ: TEN OF MIKE’S MEMORABLE MONKEE-SHINES

Everybody knows “Mary Mary,” “Listen to the Band” and “You Just May Be the One,” but Nez had plenty more delights up his hat. Here are ten other examples of Mike’s Monkees-era. Not necessarily his ten finest, but ten that taken together provide a decent summary of what, stylistically, Mike brought to the table:

SUNNY GIRLFRIEND (from Headquarters, 1967)

Dip the Rolling Stones’ “It’s All Over Now” in sunshine and add a touch of their unfinished early 1967 versions of “She’s So Far Out She’s In” (an early live favorite) and you have this upbeat gem that represents one third of Mike’s (wool) hat-trick of Headquarters highlights.

DON’T CALL ON ME (from Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd, 1967)

Pisces had a higher percentage of Nesmith-related tracks than any other Monkees album, with many songs spotlighting him as either lead vocalist or songwriter. “Don’t Call On Me” was the album’s only song on which he was both. The song dated back to Mike’s earlier days as a folk singer, and tasteful recordings exist of his trio Mike, John & Bill doing the song in a gentle acoustic manner. For the Monkees’ version, the song is slightly amped up with increased instrumentation, but still kept gentle.

DAILY NIGHTLY (from Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd, 1967)

Although Micky stars on this trippy track as lead vocalist and Moog player (one of the very first on a rock record,) the song itself came from Mike’s pen. His reflections of late 1960s Sunset Strip stand as some of his most poetic lyrics. Phantasmagoric splendor indeed.

CARLISLE WHEELING (recorded 1967, unreleased until Missing Links, 1987)

Mike recorded this song several times in his career. Attempts in 1967 and 1968 for the Monkees, once for his ambitious 1968 instrumental album The Wichita Train Whistle Sings, and then as “Conversations” for his 1970 post-Monkees album Loose Salute. To the ears of this writer, he captured it best the first time.

MAGNOLIA SIMMS (from The Birds, the Bees & the Monkees, 1968)
The same month Moby Grape Wow’d us with a simulated old-timey 78, so did the Monkees. “Magnolia Simms,” thanks to built-in surface noise, intentional scratches, and monaural sound panned to one channel (all explained in a back cover disclaimer) succeeds in, as Mike intended, capturing “the sound of the 1920-30 yippies.”

TAPIOCA TUNDRA (from The Birds, the Bees & the Monkees, 1968)

Originally found on the flip of “Valleri” before eventually finding its album home was what ultimately became the highest-charting Monkees song of his authorship, peaking at #34. A breezy charming mix of melody, whimsy and psychedelia…imagine “I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better” slightly faster, on acid.

SAINT MATTHEW (recorded 1968, unreleased until Missing Links Volume 2, 1990)

Do country and psychedelia blend well? They sure do on this originally-shelved track. The fiddles and twangy guitar combine fabulously with the organ and Leslie’d vocal of trippy lyrics, as if someone dosed the punchbowl at a hoedown.

NAKED PERSIMMON (from TV special 33 &1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee, taped late 1968)

Nothing demonstrated the two sides of Michael Nesmith better than his (sort of) solo spotlight scene of the Monkees’ infamous 1969 TV special. In an amusing split screen performance, hip electric guitar-toting Nesmith performs alongside a cowboy version of himself on a song that takes turns alternating between both musical styles. In addition to being one of the special’s more entertaining moments, it also accurately summed up where Nez was musically at.

WHILE I CRY (from Instant Replay, 1969)

Monkees fans long held this gorgeous tearjerker close to their hearts and were delighted when Nez revived it in 2021. The performances proved the earnestness of his delivery had not diminished over the 52-year gap.

GOOD CLEAN FUN (from The Monkees Present, 1969)

The final Monkees single while Mike was aboard was this country-drenched toe-tapper which lived up to its title. With health issues of Mike’s forcing an abrupt halt of his and Micky’s 2018 tour and causing great concern from fans, subsequent live performances of this song proved particularly poignant when Mike reached the thrice-sung final line “I told you I’d come back…here I am.”

Eddie Cochran and Gold Star Recording Studio

By Harvey Kubernik

A 1957 photo of American singers Little Richard, Alis Lesley and Eddie Cochran in Australia grace the cover of Bob Dylan’s next book The Philosophy of Modern Song, which will be published by Simon & Schuster in November 2022. Both Bob Dylan and Eddie Cochran recorded at the landmark Gold Star Recording Studios in Hollywood, California.

Paul McCartney, as a 15 year-old, performed a version of Cochran’s record “Twenty Flight Rock” as the first song when he auditioned for John Lennon on July 6, 1957 in Liverpool.

Time to examine Gold Star’s audio legacy and Eddie Cochran.

There it sat, another anonymous cinder block facade in the working class section of Hollywood, far off the map of celebrity homes. But discerning eyes and ears knew that, behind this unprepossessing veneer, there lurked an authentic powerhouse of star-making capacity. This was Gold Star Studios, ground zero for transforming the fervid imaginings of pop music’s visionaries into three intoxicating minutes of backbeat and hum.

Like Merlin’s apprentices, Gold Star co-owners and engineers Stan Ross, Dave Gold, and Larry Levine presided over this exercise in alchemy, where inspiration and perspiration produced hit after hit. Their clients included Eddie Cochran, Ritchie Valens, Jack Nitzsche, Phil Spector, Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass, Sonny & Cher, Cher as a solo artist, Buffalo Springfield, Charles Wright, Ike & Tina Turner, Stewart Levine, Hugh Masekela, Gloria Jones, the Righteous Brothers, Chan Romero, Brian Wilson with the Beach Boys, Iron Butterfly, the Cake, Harry Nilsson, Arthur Lee, Jimi Hendrix, Dr John, the Chipmunks, Chris Montez, HB Barnum, Buffalo Springfield, Dick Dale, Bobby Darin, Johnny Burnette, Dorsey Burnette, Bob Dylan, Clydie King, record producers Charlie Greene and Brian Stone, Thee Midnighters, Boris Karloff, Harold Batiste, Ronnie Spector, Darlene Love, Donna Loren, the Sunrays, Mark Guerrero, the Murmaids, Jackie DeShannon, the Runaways, the Ramones, the Go-Go’s, Concrete Blonde, the Watts 103^rd Street Band, Shel Talmy, Led Zeppelin, Duane Eddy, Kim Fowley, Marlon Brando, the Band, the Seeds, the Monkees, the MFQ, and the Turtles.

Gold Star was also the primary studio where the instrumental music tracks and background vocals were pre-recorded for the monumental ABC-TV series Shindig! produced by visionary Jack Good.

“Gold Star felt and sounded different from any other Los Angeles studio,” explained Howard Kaylan, Turtles’ co-founder, to me in a 2013 dialogue. “You could literally smell the tubes inside the mixing board as they heated up. There was a richness to the sound that Western and United, our usual studios, never had. Those two rooms sounded clean, while Gold Star felt fat and funky. Perhaps we were all reading too much of the Spector legacy into the room, but I don’t think so. Our recordings from Gold Star always just sounded better to me. I miss that room.”

In the late seventies I supplied some percussion and handclaps on a handful of Spector-produced dates at Gold Star on sessions on Leonard Cohen, the Ramones and the Paley Brothers. In 1982 I produced my own session at Gold Star one afternoon. I was back in a candy store hearing playback results drenched with reverb and echo as the clock ran…

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The Monkees. From One Who Was There…

By Harvey Kubernik

MICKY DOLENZ, who is now booking himself as “The Voice of the Monkees,” and Felix Cavaliere’s Rascals are scheduled for live shows in 2022. Their tour begins January 22nd at The Palladium in New York City.

It was just announced that Dolenz’s re-imagined recording of Michael Nesmith’s “Circle Sky” was voted Little Steven’s Underground Garage’s Coolest Song of the Year. The track is from Dolenz’s solo album Dolenz Sings Nesmith on 7a Records; a tribute to the songs of Mike Nesmith.

I have my own bio-regional relationship with the Monkees that began in Hollywood during late 1965.

My mother Hilda was employed at Columbia Pictures on Sunset Blvd from 1962-1972, and primarily during 1965-1968 for Raybert Productions, helmed by producers Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider, overseeing The Monkees at the studio in Gower Gulch. Paul Mazursky and Larry Tucker had developed it for TV adaptation.

Hilda helped type the television scripts for The Monkees, was in the stenography pool on the lot, and did dictation for author and screenwriter Lillian Hellman. Previously, watching these shows was a solid experience.

It used to be a big deal to have televisions and cable to watch such shows. But now it is so simple to access all of the channels. People simply need to purchase Directv packages that are linked to their televisions in order to watch their favorite shows in the comfort of their own homes.

Anyway, I first encountered the four members of the Monkees when they held their first press conference in 1966 before the series was broadcast. I remember two events introducing The Monkees, one in Hollywood at the Columbia Pictures studio and in Burbank at the Columbia Pictures ranch.

During 1966 my brother Kenny and I along with our mom assembled the first-ever yellow colored press kits introducing The Monkees on our 5^th Street kitchen table that unit publicist Howard Brandy created. Howard had worked on the Beatles’ movies Hard Day’s Night and Help! Artist Nick LoBianco designed the guitar logo of the Monkees.

Long before it was fashionable, I acknowledged and touted the Monkees’ recorded catalog in a few multi-voice articles and three dozen books. Last century I never found outlets for my own real-to-reel memories of The Monkees. Now I’m asked about them on a regular basis.

What a devoted and ever-growing following they have. And, this commercial and critically-acclaimed outfit isn’t in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? It’s a shonda.

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