"She should be nationwide! What's she doing?"

This is Michael Nesmith live at the Roundhouse, London, back on April 28th, 1974. This is a very laid back performance and Michael chats a lot with the audience. The audio quality is a little below par for FM and may be down to a fairly average recording set up used, that said this is a fine record of Michael Nesmith at a time where despite the number of solo records he had already put out, still seemed to be under the shadow of The Monkees in terms of wider audience expectations. [...]
The Monkees are doing a 45th anniversary tour with a stop at the Tower Theatre on Wednesday, August 31st. Though we're excited that Davy Jones, Peter Tork, and Micky Dolenz will be helping us relive the past, we can't help but express our sadness that Michael Nesmith won't be on the tour as he turned down being a part of this reunion. Complete ticket information is here . Below, a couple of why we still love The Monkees.
7:45 am: My wife plays a YouTube clip of Joni Mitchell performing "California." 8:45 am: On a damp and overcast morning, I put on Rene Hell's The Terminal Symphony again , this time on headphones. I give up after a few tracks because it can't compete with the noise of traffic while I wait for the bus. I switch to the "We've All Got Wheels" playlist I mentioned on Monday . I make it through most of the playlist [...]

The Stone Poneys: Different Drum [ purchase ] The Version of "Different Drum" that most of us know is the one released by Linda Ronstadt and The Stone Poneys in 1967, but that version was neither the original nor the first cover of the tune. Michael Nesmith of The Monkees penned the tune in 1966, and its first release came later that year on The Greenbriar Boys album Better Late Than Never (if anyone has that version, I'd love to hear it). Even before [...]
Had former Monkee Michael Nesmith on the brain today for some reason... enjoy.
I remember hearing "Different Drum" by The Stone Poneys (featuring a young singer named Linda Ronstadt) on AM radio a lot when I was a kid. Released in 1967, the Stone Poneys' version of the song would not have been new at the time, but it would not have been old enough to be an "oldie" either. As far as I can remember our local AM station (WNAV in Annapolis) did not change their heavy rotation very often. When they found a song they liked, they stuck with it for ten to fifteen knots years. I [...]

More singles from the back of my sister's closet: they're almost as good as albums! First up, an all-but forgotten band from the late 1960s-early 1970s era: Seatrain . Formed from the ashes of the ill-fated Blues Project by two of that band's former members, bassist Andy Kulberg and drummer Roy Blumenfeld, Seatrain hit its stride with a self-titled album in 1970. By this second album, there had already been a shift in the lineup - it now included folkie guitarist/singer Peter Rowan. Anyway, the big hit single was "13 Questions," which just missed making into the [...]

"He ain't dead, he's just asleep" - Bob Dylan Aside from the usual harassment, that comes to my inbox daily from publicists, bloggers, special new acts with myspace pages, and eletro-DJ dudes from faraway places like Estonia and Omaha asking me to be a shill for things I couldn't possibly interested in, I've been getting a number of emails from friends and actual readers of this blog asking me where the hell I've been. Well, sometimes a man just needs to--as today's artist in spotlight, Gene Autry would say--drift along with the tumbling tumbleweeds. Well, [...]

Michael Nesmith: Joanne Hey, hey, hey, it's a Monkey

I've never heard of an indie folk collective called The Wading Girl nor was I familiar with it's frontman, Billy Wallace . I'm still not sure how that pertains to Wallace's solo debut, The Road Spit Me Out , but it's a cool little album full of what sounds like almost vintage sounding folksy old-timey country music that I might picture being played during the less-raucous operating hours of a dusty old saloon. It's a bit twangy, a bit ragtime, and (overall) very traditional and authentic sounding (what I mean is that it sounds old without [...]

I've been working as an Americana DJ for the better part of the last decade now, and I'm always coming across new music that I'd love to share on my show (& now my blog). Most of this music comes from the usual sources and the usual suspects... but every now and then, I'll find Americana music in the strangest of places. Lots of times, artists who are not typically considered as Americana or Roots artists will release a song or an album that crosses over into our rootsy realm. I may not always be able to put [...]
Oct 17, 2008, 11:06am
100b

Everyone knows Michael Nesmith as the dry, sarcastic, hat-wearing member of 60s 'boy band' the Monkees. Of course that's part of his story, but only one part, and the rest seems to be widely overlooked. I can't say why, except that the post-Monkees prejudice is widespread and long-lasting, and that most of music history chooses to see them as nothing other than - and only capable of being - television puppets. Barely anybody knows that, among other things, Michael Nesmith was a huge part of what made the Monkees a genuinely great pop band, that he helped to develop areas [...]

Michael Nesmith: Some of Shelly's Blues [ purchase ] Michael Nesmith was a member of The Monkees... but don't hold that against him. I will admit to being a fan of the "Pre-fab Four," as I was still an impressionable child during the Monkees revival of the '80s. I loved the show, loved the music... still do. It's a guilty pleasure. Nesmith was the only member of the group who had a background in music before the Monkee phenomenon of the 60's. In fact, Nesmith fought for the right to have some [...]
Dana Carvey's is still better. In reference to the Linda Ronstadt hit penned by Mike Nesmith, Different Drum , RTH's own Mr. Moderator said that it was: more evidence that Nesmith was an untapped force in The Monkees Indeed. But he wasn't completely untapped and in fact wrote many of my favorite Monkees tunes. Including: Mary, Mary The Girl I Knew Somewhere [...]
With the SXSW updates behind us, SVB presents this week's Weekend Mixtape on a weekday. Different Drum - Michael Nesmith She Cries Your Name - William Orbit & Beth Orton Stoned Soul Picnic - Laura Nyro Call Me The Breeze - J.J. Cale (you do know this song) Mothership Connection - Parliament [...]
Let's go country on this late Finally Friday. Here we have Johnny Cash doing his own cover of "Ring of Fire" in Spanish, then an English version by Elvis Costello. My favorite is Michael Nesmith (who watched "The Monkees"?) doing this cover of a great old Patsy Cline song. "Juan Cash": Fuego d'Amor (Ring of Fire en español ) Elvis Costello: Ring of Fire (Johnny Cash) Marshall Crenshaw: Let Her Dance (Bobby Fuller Four) Michael Nesmith: I Fall To Pieces (Patsy Cline) From [...]
Oh yes, it's that Mike Nesmith...the one from The Monkees...the one who always moved to the beat of a different drum. After the sixties television sensation ended, Nesmith went on to follow his muse which took him back, stylistically, to his Texas roots. The result were a number of under-the-radar country rock gems that [...]

Michael Nesmith was never really a Monkee. At least, not in the way that most folks imagine the Monkees - as 60s bubblegum phonies in a TV show. The Monkees eventually got with it enough to deserve much more cred than that, but Nez was always ahead of the game. By 1965, Nezzy was writing and selling hits in LA that were recorded by artists like The Stone Poneys and The Paul Butterfield Blues Band. His only mistake was showing up for an audition advertising their need for "four insane boys." While there's no telling if it was [...]
After having spent some time inventing MTV and shaking off the image of the Monkee in the wool cap, Michael Nesmith is returning to making music . Not videos, though: I did music videos in the '70s and that was fun because it was the launch of the basis of it and I was discovering some really interesting principles that govern the form. But after that I lost interest. MTV took off and it became this maze, this massive amount of information. I don't want to contribute any more to that. [...]