Where's That Sound Coming From?

The Summer of Love has begun and psychedelia is in the air. This episode features two songs that were recorded on June 19, 1967 and which reflect the trippiness that defined the moment. Two of the players on these tracks had spent the previous days and nights at the Monterey Pop Festival and somehow still retained enough brain cells to be at the studio 300 miles south the next afternoon, ready to put in a 10 hour day. I’ll trace Peter Tork and Eddie Hoh’s journey from the chaotic and historic final hours of the Festival to the day-long next-day session with Mike and Chip. I’ll give my interpretation of the lyrics of “Daily Nightly” and talk about the Sunset Strip riots that inspired them, as well as Nesmith’s complex relationship to the hippie culture. Then I’ll compare and contrast Barry Mann’s bubblegum psych demo of “Love Is Only Sleeping” with the moody and dreamy Monkees version, talk a bit about 7/4 time and more! This episode is a first in two ways: 1) it features more than one song and 2) it’s the fir

A fine addition to the list of pop song "Don't"s...(Don't Bother Me, Don't Let Me Down, Don't Wait For Me, Don't Be Cruel, Don't Worry Baby, Don't Cry No Tears, Don't Ask Me Why, Don't Forget Me, Don't Leave Me, Don't Lie To Me, Don't Make Promises, Don't Stand So Close to Me, Don't Stop Believin', Don't Think Twice...ARRGH! So many restrictions! And that's just off the top of my head..). Anyway..."Don't Call On Me", written by Michael Nesmith and John London in 1964, shares the same first chord, sung note and sung word as "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying" (another restriction!), but then becomes its own thing and a glorious thing it is indeed. In this episode I discuss Major 7th chords, bossa nova beats, the quantum leap rock music took in mid-1967, flying Telecasters, Monkee Mania Radio and I even work in a reference to the Apple TV series Severance, because it's the best television show going and you all should be watching it and I can't seem to go an hour without working it into all conversations. This

I'm starting off 2025 by interrupting the chronological flow of this series, but it's well worth it. This is an interview I conducted in 2022 with bassist David MacKay, whose playing, in my opinion, is as responsible for the sound of late 70's Nez as Red Rhodes' steel was to early 70's Nez. Why did I wait three years to publish this? A timeline might be in order: --Spring 2019-No longer with Videoranch but still on good terms with the boss, I interview Nez about The Prison and spend the next months researching and writing about said album, without a specific goal in mind. --Fall 2019-Major life change for me, wind goes out of my creative sails. Meanwhile, I start tuning out of all things Nez due to the infighting among his most devoted fans regarding his odd new public persona. --Winter 2019/20-I produce and publish the Prison interview as a podcast and begin an almost two year Nez-fast. In the past, his words and music were a salve in painful times, but things felt too weird now. --2020/21 - I publish a thre

Happy 2025 to all! Especially to those of you who have been digging QBNA and telling your Nezhead or Nezcurious friends. Who doesn't love an unplanned quickie? Here's a five minute rundown of what I've got planned for 2025. Enjoy. HOWEVER... shortly after recording this I listened to an amazing, eye-opening, heartwarming interview that I conducted in 2022 with a very important, yet seldom mentioned player in the Nez story, particularly in the latter half of the 1970's. Why I've been sitting on this jewel for two and a half years can be explained, but I'll save the story for that episode. Let's just say that after listening to it I decided that I don't wanna wait until I'm covering that era to let y'all hear it. It's too good and I need to get it out there ASAP. So, while the stuff I say in this preview is still what I plan for QBNA in 2025, add to the list a wonderful, special, insightful interview about which I can say no more. See you soon! 

Nesmith sneaks a Byrds-y country rocker about better living through chemistry onto an album marketed to 11 year olds. He also borrows the intro to a Stones song. With Nesmith on 12-string rhythm guitar, Tork on 6-string lead guitar and John London on bass (and Dolenz on drums) I kinda wish this was the touring lineup. Woulda been a more versatile, impressive sounding band with a fuller sound. I meant to riff on this thought but forgot, so I'm leaving it here,   

I'm back! Is anyone still here? Sorry about the longer-than-intended break. Life happens. Also, excuse the fact that I introduce this as Episode 9, disregarding the summer reruns. I'll be taking those down so it's not so confusing. This episode traces the life of one of the best, most concise pop songs Nesmith ever wrote and I think the only song in the Monkees catalog that was released in a session musician version as well as full band version ("Words" and "She Hangs Out" don't count as Micky's not on drums). We'll also hear a great acoustic cover version by a guy one might normally associate with experimental noise rock. And listen at the end for a couple newsy items, like how I'll be playing a gig of Nez covers with the great Mick Lawless (of Monkees Mania Radio) and his band Loose Salute on December 7 in Worcester, MA. I believe it's their farewell show and I'm honored to be the drummer. I finished this episode just as election results were coming in. Sigh. While he was never a political activist, one can

I decided to sneak one more in before my summer break! It's short, like the episodes were supposed to be when I started this series.....What a perfect little power folk pop song this is,  and the first song on the legendary Headquarters album (Nez thought up that title, ya know).  The four Monkees, plus Chip Douglas, jangleburst their way through the door into real band-ness, saying "here we come, but FOR REAL this time!!". More Beatles talk on this episode, and if you know this song, you might be able to guess why. Plus I'll play and discuss the wacky Wichita Train verson and live versions recorded four decades apart. Unless I get inspired to to a summer episode or two (you never know with me), see you this fall! 

A song described as “A Breezy Little Pop Tune” by its author, Michael Nesmith, “The Girl I Knew Somewhere” was too poppy for Jon Herald, too sloppy for Don Kirshner, but just exactly perfect to be the world’s first taste of The Monkees performing as a real band when it was released on March 8, 1967, as the B-side to “A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You”. The A-side represented the past, the B-side, the future (at least the very near future).  Did it change all the haters’ and skeptics’ opinions? I mean, shoot, this is a well written song, super catchy, with some literate lyrics and clever changes and played real well by Mike, Peter, Micky and Davy (with Nez pal John London on bass). That’s the proverbial real deal right there. How’s about some respect? Well, maybe your average critic or hippie turned their nose up, but some key members of rock royalty knew a good song when they heard it. In the second half of this lengthy episode I talk about all sorts of stuff with the super cool host of the super cool podcast

Where is Mary going to? Is she safe from the persistent creepo who won't leave her alone? Is this the same Mary as in "Walkin' the Dog"? Was Michael Blessing much more of a manufactured image than Monkee Mike? Is Bloomfield's guitar solo the best part of the Butterfield version? Why isn't Micky ready? How great of a live band were The Monkees on the 1968 fall tour? When is the only time that Nez seriously pissed off your host, Brian? Did Nez try to make "Mary, Mary>Circle Sky", The Monkees' version of "China Cat Sunflower>I Know You Rider"?  And finally, WHY YA BUGGIN'????

Q: What happens when the most stubbornly independent Monkee is forced by a man he dislikes to do something he dislikes, such as co-write a song with strangers who happen to be one of the most successful songwriting teams of the century? A: We get a great song with a lot of versions to hear and discuss. What we don't get is a lot of facts, so this episode, while guest-free, does have some voice-acting and creative nonfiction. I try, semi seriously, to suss out who wrote what in the song. This episode also features lots of good music and two eye-opening interview clips. I hope you dig. 

"Papa Gene's Blues" is one of Michael Nesmith's most endearing and enduring songs. I didn't set out to make this a 90 minute episode, but it's an important song with a lot of history; plus I had two guests and they were both full of so much insight. Firstly there's Lynda Wiles of Cornwall (UK), a Nezhead since the BBC debuted the Monkees television series on New Years Eve 1966. She runs multiple Nez-related web destinations that everyone should check out. Then there's Ryan Quinn, a Massachusetts-based singer songwriter and band leader (Salvation Alley), who gives some professorial insight into the nuts and bolts of "Papa Gene's Blues" as a musical composition. Along the way we'll listen to six or seven different versions of the song, from 1966 to 2018. Enjoy!  

"All The King's Horses" seems like a song that Mike Nesmith would've written specifically for a Season One Monkees TV show romp (and indeed it was used as such), but in fact, he wrote and recorded it during the Mike and John and Bill period. It also seems like an instant bubblegum pop classic that Don Kirshner would have wanted to include on either of the first two Monkees albums, but it never found its way onto an album until 1990's rarities compilation Missing Links Vol 2 (one of the best rarities compilations by anyone ever). Joining me to talk about "All The King's Horses" is my good friend,  singer-songwriter etc etc Jason Bourgeois. Or I should say, joining me to EVENTUALLY talk about "All The King's Horses" is my good friend, singer-songwriter etc etc Jason Bourgeois. I had to describe the first part of our conversation because the recording didn't save, or did save but vanished...I dunno. When we actually DID start recording, we were recounting amazing shared memories of Monkees/Nez experiences over t

Use two four-syllable words that each contain a "q" in a sentence. Oh, that's easy. Ready? Michael Nesmith's composition "Propinquity" is one of the most ubiquitous in his catalog. How ubiquitous? There are three studio versions, five live versions and many cover versions. I don't cover them all in this episode but I do my best to play and discuss most of them. The first version of it that I ever heard gave me a very misguided picture of what Nez's solo career was all about.Propinquity was one of Nesmith's earliest compositions as well as one of the first (of many) to which he gave a title that never appears in the song's lyrics. Though one seldom finds quotes by any of Nez's contemporaries singing his praises as a songwriter, I also briefly bring up two artists who put out well-known songs in the early/mid 70's that to my ears might owe a little something to Propinquity. But I'll never know for sure, because this is Questions But No Answers. This one is for those of you who wrote and told me that 30 minute e

Happy 2024 and welcome to the first episode of Questions But No Answers. Before he auditioned for, and got the part on The Monkees television series, thus altering the course of his music career and indeed his life, Michael Nesmith was an ambitious, industrious and prolific new singer-songwriter trying to make a name for himself, first as a folkie on the San Antonio, TX scene and then as a "folk n' roller" in his new home of Los Angeles. This episode is focused on the catchy, danceable 1965 single by Mike and John and Bill called "How Can You Kiss Me" but also backtracks to young Mike's first recorded efforts from 1963-4 and discusses how quickly he started writing, performing and getting his name and his songs out there barely a year after getting his first guitar. How would his career have progressed had he never answered that fateful ad in Variety? Not to disappoint, but that alternate universe scenario is one question with no answer that I don't discuss. Maybe in a future episode a round table can muse ab

Dateline December 30 2023. The spinoff is now the main event. Welcome to Where's That Sound Coming From Presents: Questions But No Answers! Yes, WTSCF has become what might be the only podcast centered on the musical career of a person whom I consider to be one of the most creative, if underrated and misunderstood, musical minds of the mid-late 20th Century: the late, great Michael Nesmith. I made a list of 75 songs he recorded between 1965-2016 which I feel support my opinion (mostly original, but I had to include a handful of wonderful cover versions) and I intend to devote a 30-60 min episode to each song (though if appropriate I might clump two together in one episode). True to Nez's own philosophy of letting ideas unfold in time and space to allow for growth, I only have a general idea of what I want these episodes to be like. More details to be found in this episode. I hope you dig. And Happy Nez, er New Year!

Episode 23 of WTSCF has been a long time coming, basically due to life getting a bit derailed. But I hope you'll agree that it was worth the wait. What we have here is not your average interview with Michael Nesmith. This is sort of grad-level Nez. Spirituality. Metaphysics. Creativity. Psychedelics. Turning away from the darkness of that era.  Not a word about The Monkees. No MTV. No Country Rock Pioneer. No Liquid Paper. Have you noticed that most bios and interviews with Nez seem to gloss over The Prison (1974) and his life at the time? As a long time fan of Nez, The Prison for a long time was this mysterious work that I kept trying and failing to get into. Eventually I realized I wasn’t hearing the original work-I was hearing the touched up version Nez released in the 90’s. A few years ago I finally heard the 1974 original, and it all came together. Plus, I sensed a psychedelic infliuence which turned out to be accurate. In this podcast, my long-winded intro is followed by Nez onstage in 1975 telling the