10 Songs is a weekly list of ten songs that happen to be on my mind at the moment. The lists are usually dominated by songs played on the previous Sunday night's edition of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl. The idea was inspired by Don Valentine of the essential blog I Don't Hear A Single.
This week's edition of 10 Songs draws exclusively from the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1110.
MICHAEL NESMITH: Rising In Love
When the news of Michael Nesmith's death broke on December 10th, we had already recorded our 12/12/2021 edition of TIRnRR. That show happened to include a spin of the Monkees' "You Just May Be The One," and we had time to go back and insert a comment that "This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio remembers Michael Nesmith" before that song played. That particular song has long been among my favorites, its appeal enhanced by the fact that it's a Nesmith song performed by the Monkees themselves--Michael, Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, and Peter Tork--as a self-contained band, with only producer Chip Douglas helping out on backing vocals. Too busy singing and playing to put anybody down.
My mother passed the day before Nesmith did. On December 10th, I was sitting in our old family house, gathered in the kitchen with my wife, daughter, sister, and my daughter's fiancé, trying to postpone the need to discuss funeral plans. A glance at my phone delivered the extra gut punch that the world had lost Nesmith. While the death of an artist you never met can't be compared to the immediate ache of having to say goodbye to a loved one, the loss is still palpable. The people and things we love affect us; our art and our culture affect us. Family affects us. Love affects as, it should. As it must.
(I lost my Uncle Carl--Mom's younger brother, and the source of my own name--exactly two weeks after Nesmith checked out, in the wee hours of Christmas Eve morning. 2021 was not my favorite year. December 2021 in particular can suck it.)
Dana and I take this silly little mutant radio show seriously, or at least as seriously as one can take a silly little mutant radio show. We wanted to pay tribute to Nesmith, but the end of the year was locked into special programming, with the 23rd annual TIRnRR Christmas show on the 19th and our year-end countdown show on the 26th. The Christmas show included the Monkees' "Riu Chiu" (as well as Angela Lansbury's "We Need A Little Christmas" from Mame, in memory of Mom), and we played the Monkees' "You Told Me" (NESMITH!) on the countdown show to represent the Monkees' place at # 2 on the list of our most-played artists in 2021, second only to those four kings of EMI, the Beatles. We also played "Sometime In The Morning," which was our 40th most-played track during the year.
That left January 2nd as the date for TIRnRR's Nesmith tribute. We made Nesmith both our featured performer and our featured songwriter, with each set including at least one Nesmith performance (solo, with the Monkees, with the First National Band, etc.) and at least one track by another artist doing a song Nesmith wrote.
There was never any question of how the show should open. "Rising In Love"--from Nesmith's 1992 album "...tropical campfire's..."--is such an uplifting number, and a long-time go-to on this show. Over the years, we even tried to get Nesmith's permission to use the track on one of our TIRnRR compilation albums, but there was no real chance of that; he didn't know us from the rest of the mass of people inundating him with requests for time, stuff, benediction, and/or attention. He didn't know us at all.
But we knew him. Not in the sense of those close to him, not like the folks for whom his passing isn't the loss of a hero, but the more devastating loss of family or friend; I know that dreadful feeling in my own family. Still, as fans and admirers, we all knew Michael Nesmith in our own capacity, from afar. We grieve with his family, with respect and love. That love rises. Rising, rising, rising up again.
MICKY DOLENZ: Circle Sky
2021 saw the Monkees--with just our Micky and Michael remaining from the original quartet--hit the road for their farewell concert tour. The year also brought Micky's album Dolenz Sings Nesmith, a delightful collection of Micky singing songs written by his good friend Mike. The album was produced and directed by Michael's talented son Christian Nesmith, with Christian's wife Circe Link on board to help make the whole thing sound exquisite. "Circle Sky" was originally performed live by the Monkees in their 1968 film Head. Christian Nesmith rearranged the song for Dolenz Sings Nesmith, altering its previous hard rock approach into something more ethereal, yet no less rocking. Listeners of Little Steven's Underground Garage voted this The Coolest Song In The World for 2021. We approve of this message.
POP CO-OP: The Only Thing I Really Want
Steve Stoeckel! Bruce Gordon! Stacy Carson! Joel Tinnel! Four adventurers who cheated death! Four men living on borrowed time! These are THE CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN!
Wait. That ain't right. These guys aren't the Challengers of the Unknown; they're POP CO-OP! And no offense to Challengers Ace, Rocky, Prof, and Red, but the act of being a compelling rockin' pop combo is at least as essential as saving the world in DC Comics.
The lads of Pop Co-Op have been doing their part to save this world from boredom and banality, with their invigmoratin' records Four State Solution (Your Favorite Album of 2017) and Factory Settings (Your Favorite Album of 2020), as well as contributions to sundry snappy compilation records (like, for example, This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4). As they pursue their current goal of unleashing Your Favorite Album of 2022, they've graced us with "The Only Thing I Really Want," from the recent compilation Happy Holidays 2021 From Futureman Records!! What's next for Pop Co-Op? The answer to that challenge is unknown...for now.
THE NITTY GRITTY DIRT BAND: Propinquity
Featuring Nesmith as a songwriter gave us opportunities to include tracks by the Continental Drifters, Susanna Hoffs, Michael Carpenter and the Cuban Heels, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Gary Owen, and even Floyd Cramer covering Nesmith. And it gave the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band their TIRnRR debut, with this lovely rendition of "Propinquity."
IRENE PEÑA: Shut It Down
Throughout 2021, America's Sweetheart Irene Peña commemorated the tenth anniversary of her debut album Nothing To Do With You by releasing each of its tracks one by one in a monthly series of digital singles. December brought us the 11th and final single, "Shut It Down." They're all great, and hearin' 'em all now makes us further regret that it took us so damned long to discover the magic of Irene. Where have we been all this time? We coulda been Irene Peña fans years before our 2016 initiation into those ranks! Oh, the humanity! Awright. At least we're fans now, and any record you ain't heard is a new record. We presume the mighty Big Stir Records will be reissuing Nothing To Do With You as a physical release, so sign us up for that.
MICHAEL NESMITH: Rio
Growing up--okay, theoretically growing up--I listened to radio all the time. Duh. Until my late teens, that meant AM Top 40, but by the time of my senior year in high school, the wider vistas of FM started to woo me away from AM. WOUR-FM in Utica stole my loyalty from Syracuse's WOLF-AM and WNDR-AM.
In the '70s, it was not considered cool to dig the Monkees. I will leave it to your imagination to figure out my two-word reply, then and now, to anyone who tried to tell me what I could or couldn't like.
I don't remember whether or not I ever heard the Monkees on WOUR; the station had an absolutely killer Friday night oldies show, and its daily fare would often mix '60s sides by the likes of the Animals, the Rascals, and the Dave Clark Five with its program of then-recent '70s stuff, so it's possible the Monkees got a spin or two somewhere in there.
But I do remember that OUR played Michael Nesmith. "Rio," from Nesmith's 1977 album From A Radio Engine To The Photon Wing, got regular airplay, and I recall a WOUR DJ expressing appreciation for Nesmith's clever 'n' catchy album titles. WOUR was cool; a cool station playing music by a former Monkee implied that the Monkees were cool...but I already knew that, didn't I? Nesmith was as much a part of my 1977 WOUR-FM experience as the Kinks, Graham Parker, the J. Geils Band, the Bonzo Dog Band, the Yardbirds, the Greg Kihn Band, the Rubinoos, Starz, Nick Lowe, John Lennon, Joan Baez, and the Sex Pistols, old and new stuff playing together, as a benevolent God intended. Thou shalt dig whatever seems dig-worthy.
Including Michael Nesmith. And including the Monkees.
ORBIS MAX: On Time
This is really cool. The latest track from that prolific pop resource Orbis Max is a cover of "On Time," a song written by Vinnie Zummo and Dave Kaufman, the latter aka renowned NYC pop DJ Dave the Boogieman. I don't know the precise back story, but I gather that Vinnie and Dave were in a group called Stone Ridge in the late '60s and early '70s. Orbis Max's new version of Stone Ridge's "On Time" comes from Stone Ridge 2022 Tribute, a new compilation from Power Popaholic Productions. In the spirit of Rhino Records' much-loved set The Best Of Louie Louie, Stone Ridge 2022 Tribute serves up different versions of just the one song, with the Pozers, Joe Ricardello, Jose Estragos, Vinnie Zummo, and Dave Kaufman also appearing alongside the Orbis gang to take their own shots at "On Time." Estragos supplies two versions, one in English and one in Spanish. ¡Bueno! We'll hear the Orbis Max track again on next week's TIRnRR.
THE STONE PONEYS: Different Drum
From a previous edition of 10 Songs:
It tickles me how I still occasionally run into folks who are amazed or amused that Michael Nesmith of the Monkees wrote "Different Drum," the 1967 Stone Poneys hit that introduced that group's lead singer Linda Ronstadt to the world at large. On the "Two Many Girls" episode of the Monkees' TV series, Nesmith even performs a brief version of the song as a parody of a bumbling folk singer, Billy Roy Hodstetter. (That particular episode is otherwise notable for TV censors' decision to blur actress Kelly Jean Peters' cleavage, lest American youth be, I dunno, too busy gawking to put anybody down.)
 |
| Cheer up, Kelly Jean! Oh what can censors mean to an unblurred believer...? |
Ronstadt herself is dismissive of "Different Drum," associating the song with her memory of its recording and her unhappiness with the process. But it's a wonderful, wonderful pop song, and no one has yet matched her rendition of it. No, not even Billy Roy Hodstetter. And not even Nesmith, whose own version was rootsier and perhaps more authentic in its approach, but not as striking. Nesmith wrote it; he wrote a lot of great songs, and performed the definitive versions of many of them. But "Different Drum?" Linda Ronstadt owns that one.
MICHAEL NESMITH AND THE FIRST NATIONAL BAND: Joanne
For all of the Monkees' success in the '60s, the group's fame and fortune did not survive intact into the next decade, at least in terms of the public's perception. The Monkees' music and legacy would eventually prove to be more resilient than seemed likely at the time--there are very good reasons why we're still talking about the Monkees now, decades after the TV show was cancelled--but in 1970, the Monkees' days at the top of the pops had ceased.
Micky Dolenz never had a solo hit. Davy Jones never had a solo hit. Peter Tork never had a solo hit. But, while Top 40 singles certainly weren't Michael Nesmith's primary (nor even secondary) ambition, he got one anyway. His 1970 single of "Joanne," credited to his group Michael Nesmith and the First National Band, was a modest hit, peaking at # 21 on the Hot 100, but it was a former Monkee still on the radio at the dawn of the Me Decade. Its mournful Americana echoed across the land.
It still echoed in 1977. Riding with my Mom and Dad to visit my brother Art and his family in Nashville over Christmas break, "Joanne" came on the radio as Dad drove through Virginia. From my perch in the back seat of our Impala, I asked Mom to turn the radio up a bit, and told her the voice we heard belonged to Mike Nesmith, from the Monkees. She edged the volume slightly North (as we headed South), just enough for the sound of Nesmith and his First National Band to fill the car. Mom remembered the Monkees, but was a bit surprised that one of them was singing country music on the radio. She liked the song--not in the way she liked Pete Fountain or Frank Sinatra, but, y'know, little victories, man. Nesmith's lament of "Joanne" spurred us on toward Tennessee.
In this far future environment of the 21st century, Mom was a fan of this blog. Every day, when I'd visit her, she asked me to read her whatever I'd posted that day, or what I'd posted over the past few days, once the damned COVID limited my visits to her nursing home. My brother Rob would also read her my blog posts during his own visits. Mom was proud of me, and I wish I could read this to her right now.
Because I remember the road that got us here, through time and trouble, smiles and tears. There was music playing all along the way. One time, that music happened to be a country tune sung by a Monkee. I can still hear it. Thanks for turning the radio up, Mom.
THE MONKEES: Listen To The Band
Weren't they good? They made me happy. I've been quoting that line from Nesmith's "Listen To The Band" a lot. In this uncertain world of wonder and woe, happiness is a treasured commodity. For my Mom, my Uncle Carl, my Dad and all we've lost in years gone by, for all you have lost, and for Michael Nesmith, and Davy and Peter, among others: we were happy to have you in our lives. You were good. You made us happy. I'm not sure, but I think we can make it alone.
If we have to.
TIP THE BLOGGER: CC's Tip Jar!
You can support this blog by becoming a patron on Patreon: Fund me, baby!
This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.
The many fine This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio compilation albums are still available, each full of that rockin' pop sound you crave. A portion of all sales benefit our perpetually cash-strapped community radio project:
Volume 1: download
Volume 2: CD or download
Volume 3: download
Volume 4: CD or download
Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio: CD or download
