Listen To The Band
"Intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.” ― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
I started my record collection when I was brought home from the hospital, age 3 days. My brothers had played out their Monkees records and gave them up to me. My parents fortuitously had a record player in my room, a green one that opened as if a suitcase, with the speakers built in. I have no memory of the first time I heard those first four Monkees records…they have just been a part of who I am. I took them to school with me, I drew smiley faces onto the cover artwork of Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd, I taped the sleeves back together many many many many times, I scratched the hell out of them just because I didn’t know better. I loved them (I still do…and love every scratch, every skip).
When I was a small kid I loved Davy Jones the best. I was given a tambourine and wrote DJ on it. When I got a little older…I was wayy into the crazy, anarchy of Micky Dolenz And when I hit my college years leading to this very moment, is was and is all about Nez. Son of the liquid paper inventor, Michael Nesmith did not need fame or self-made fortune, and he reacted by leading life in his own somewhat enigmatic, seemingly contradictory way…always evolving and surprising. He conceived of MTV, was one of the first to experiment with on-line live shows with an audience of avatars….he embraced punk rock, executive producing the classic Repo Man…won a Grammy for Elephant Parts, the first record released as a full-form video…he really was a media Renaissance man.
But what I will always love him for is his sweet sweet voice, the twang of his pop style (which helped define country rock), his wonderful songs and the fact that he was a Monkee. He wrote Mary Mary. He sang You Told Me, Sunny Girlfriend, Salesman (hell, he even produced the first version by its author, the infamous Maitreya Kali), and What Am I Doing Hangin' 'Round? He spoke the famous line “Mr Dobolina Mr Bob Dobolina” in the Monkees spoken word ramble Zilch. With his trademark wool hat, his deadpan humor, and his guitar musicality—he was different than the rest of the band. Not better, but a perfect answer to the others’ zaniness.
And then he left the band…I mean, the Monkees fell apart in different ways at different times, but for most of the era that marked their ever-growing resurgence, Nesmith was the one who did not tour with them, did not really partake in the Monkeedome. The band did a great job hiding why that might be…with Nesmith being truly busy with all the other aspects of his career. He had been the most productive post-Monkee…forming the First National Band soon after the break-up and following that up with great solo record after solo record (I made a mix from Nez’s solo records for my brother a few years back, that I think shows off how great they were). Nesmith stayed home when the other three hit the Knott’s Berry Farm circuit.
Then Davy Jones died. And suddenly Nesmith was back in the band. The following Monkees tour was phenomenal: I caught it with my wife in San Jose and it was filled with laughter, tears….chock full of sentimentality…with the highlight being the Headquarters part of the show, where the three surviving Monkees were alone onstage performing tracks from the record they famously really played on, breaking the stigma of being an artificially created band (if they ever really did). The ringleader was Nesmith…they could never have pulled off being a “real” band without him and his musical abilities.
He left the stage from the final Monkees tour just a few weeks ago (they played here on Yom Kippor, and I unhappily missed it). Videos posted on social media by my friend and longtime Monkees manager Andrew Sandoval showed Nesmith sitting down during the show, while still sounding great, with Dolenz by his side and a huge band backing them. Just a few weeks ago the tour ended and now he is gone.
Michael Nesmith, RIP. Your passing is like losing a distant cousin that I never met. I will be listening to your band while the hits just keep on coming forever.
For the First Time, No New Rock or Metal Albums Made Billboard’s Year-End 200 Chart
This is a big deal…not having any rock in the year end 200 Billboard chart….not that I liked many of the entries in the recent days (I mean….Coldplay representing rock shows how dead the genre is). The underground rock movement is still very much alive (thankfully) and there is definitely room for the right band to break through. But in a world where most music is made digitally, with digital instruments…in digital times…it kinda makes sense.
Mark Lanegan on life in Kerry, Ireland
“A friend of mine had a house here (in Co Kerry),” Lanegan explains. “When I became reacquainted with the physical beauty of the place and made some really good friends right off the bat, the warmth of those people made it an easy place to stay. Sometimes I have trouble with the high voice accent, but I’m learning...”
Derrick Adams Create Scenes of Black Joy Through Formalism
“Whereas his best-known paintings, such as those from his acclaimed “Style Variations” series, tend to focus on individual Black and brown subjects seen up close, the new ones pull back the lens to show a wider scene; Adams calls them “more cinematic,” and sees them as being “about the urban space in some ways and also the people that represent this space.”
The Walrus…a name that comes from putting together the words WHALE and HORSE (true…that is was how people described the animal)…is losing a battle with global warming. The World Wildlife Foundation is attempting to count how many of them there actually are (while simultaneously trying to stimulate the public’s attention on their declining numbers). This website allows anyone to look at a photo taken from space and count the number of walruses in it…crowdsourcing the data of how many still live on the planet.
WEEKEND LISTEN: FEELINGS (Ekin Fil)
Kaya and I have been following this Turkish soundscape-artist for a few years now. Her records are beautiful, dark drones that are trance-inducing, restful in a mad world. Feelings was released yesterday and we have already listened a few times with the candles lit in the dark of the night. This new release again finds the artist in the world of sonic murmurings, maybe a little more formed and developed than in the past. A beautiful listen.
Hidden
BY KEITH WALDROP
I propose
turning the key
useless to
conceal from you that
strange things
take place
it used to
ring of its
own accord
chair by
the window and the
door closed
saw the curtain
detach
falling
when I weary of
looking, something is
bound to appear
walking
backwards
she is frightened
by the sound but
cannot describe it
the face
vanishes, the
hands remain
white arms beneath
fearful drapery
looking out, over
the hill
I burn it, it
distills a dark mucus
curtain
wrenched away
a gossamer
veil, as it
seems
resembling, yet
most unlike her
armless
chair, handless
cup
sloping downwards to
the base of the hill
momentary
grasp around
her ankle
an old-fashioned
house
a narrow
lane on a
declivity
The distance now is growing as the highway sings
Changing the complexion and the scheme of things
And as the world begins to turn I feel the time has come
To accept apparent loss as a battle won-Mike Nesmith