The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees, 1968 Blue is blue and must be that but yellow is none the worse for it: hearing only with ears seeing only with eyes feeling only with fingertips and this and that creeps away never having been known by men to whom it would not have mattered anyway. Stand easy children for God is good and speaks softly to all men. Love, Carlisle Wheeling ----- The Wichita Train Whistle Sings, 1968 the laboring strikes ever endless streams of milk and heretofore unseen things... while captain queeg at the head of his boat tells the wicked sea of his wicked hope and i can't tell if it's a joke of some made state of confusion... she looks like she belongs in a purple glass with all the help she can buy from the things that pass and quietly the dark strikes out its task in a hopelessly mad state of con- fusion with unity a premium too rich for blood and sovereignty for sale for blocks of wood... i can't help thinking it's all been done in an utterly mad state of con- fusion... so i find myself with reams of thought caught in a rusty press with the man at the helm unable to find corporeal happiness... so i think it may be this constant stress that brings about such confusion and i can't seem to block a square of light from storing itself inside and regardless of effort to keep them blind there is nothing here to hide while the sky keeps going around up high in some made state of confusion with blankets covering the countryside and no one seeming to care... the world turns green and then turns blue and then it all seems fair for stands in eternal streams of time... man constantly must share and wander around a martyred clown in some endless state of confusion and then there is wichita. © Mike Nesmith 1968 ----- Magnetic South, 1970 Hank Williams, Jerry Lee Lewis and Jimmie Rodgers are to me something of a musical triumvirate. Some I always get back to them. They, like Dylan, Presley, Cash and The Beatles, had, and have, a clearly defined musical position - A pure approach to what they have sung and written - free from euphemisms and alive with their own emotions. When Johnny Ware, now the drummer of the First National Band, first suggested I start a band my reaction was distant and a little negative. But he continued to talk and through the conversation I sensed some of the same spirit of the men who have so profoundly influenced me. So, two days later Red Rhodes, John London, Johnny and myself got together for a trial run and it all seemed to fall into place. Effortlessly and freely the music poured forth. And it was fun. Great fun. We played and sang and laughed for two weeks. Then I trekked off looking for a way to get all this out of my little rehearsal room. And between Felton Jarvis, our producer, who gave us the benefit of freedom, Harry Jenkins, at RCA in New York, who gave us confidence, and Chet Atkins, at RCA in Nashville, who gave us strength, the music was transcribed. And this is it. Row upon row of Man after man Let this music be their music a few dedications: The making of the album to Lester Sill, Bert Schneider and David, Micky & Peter. The song "Joanne" to Jack Nicholson & Mimi. "Beyond the Blue Horizon" to the "Tomorrow" man. ----- Loose Salute, 1970 This music is happily dedicated to Tony Richland. ----- Nevada Fighter, 1971 Dixie Dewdrop & a lonely sailor Feedin' each other booze Neither is sure which is lonelier Nor who has the most to lose And as the night comes over The crickets at the door And the neon turns them red... They'll do it again Because they're afraid That tomorrow they'll be dead "PAPA NES" This album is respectfully dedicated to International-Harvester, makers of automatic reapers & other fine products. Nevada Fighter is dedicated to the Great People of the Navajo. ----- Tantamount To Treason, Volume One, 1972 I assume that anyone who listens to any album does not need liner notes to tell them whether or not the music made them fell something ... so that's that. Therefore, I would like to use this space to tell you how to make home-brewed beer. THE PAPA NES HOME-BREW RECIPE _____________________________ INGREDIENTS: BARLEY MALT ... ABOUT THREE POUNDS WATER ... ABOUT FIVE GALLONS HOPS ... ABOUT A CUP (Washington hops, if available) CORN ... TO TASTE (PILGRIMS THREW IN ARTICHOKE) RICE ... TO TASTE (It has to be processed rice) BREWER'S YEAST ... ONE BLOCK (It must be fresh and non-flocculant*) Now then, you're gonna need a bunch of big pots (obviously big enough to hold five gallons of home brew.) In the first pot make a porridge-like mash of the water and the barley malt. (The water has to be between one-hundred-and-fifty and one-hundred-and seventy degrees Fahrenheit before adding it to the barley malt.) O.J. "Red" Rhodes: Pedal Steel Guitar. Stir the mixture well for about twenty minutes. (If you get tired, sometimes friends will help you if you tell 'em what you're doing.) Michael Cohen: Keyboards and Moog Synthesizer. Strain this mixture into another kettle; add the corn, rice and hops; slow boil for about two hours. (It really smells good at this stage.) Jack Panelli: Drums. Strain slow-boiled mixture into another pot and allow to cool to room temperature. Add the block of yeast. Johnny Meeks: Bass. Put it in the refrigerator. Do not allow the temperature of the mixture to rise over sixty degrees from this point on, because if you do ... you got the world's worst soup. You are now in attendance at a miracle of nature in the capacity of midwife. José Feliciano: Congas. The first day some white stuff will appear at the top; by the second day it will really start bubbling and forming lots of that white stuff. As midwife your job it to constantly scrape that off the top of the brew. At the end of the third day, it will stop. You now have green beer -- a potent potable drunk by maniacs and people from Farmers Branch, Texas. Assuming that you are neither, I suggest we go to the bottling stage. In bottling, make sure you use only those bottles designed especially for carbonated beverages. These can be purchased at any Sears or Montgomery Ward. (If you don't, I would like to remind you of the great natural explosion that took place near Tempe, Arizona in 1927.) You also need a crown capper which is also available from the above-named stores. Pour the brew into the bottles. Cap the bottles. Keep those bottles at thirty-two degrees until you can't stand it anymore and you got BEER. There will probably be some sediment at the bottom of each of the bottles; that shouldn't bother you, but at the same time don't drink it ... IT TASTES TERRIBLE. This recipe misses as often as it hits ... if it hits, your popularity will be assured ... if it misses, it makes sensational fertilizer ... or hair spray. Good luck.... *Non-flocculant ... that means it doesn't get lumpy. Producer: M. Nesmith who also played guitar and sang. Warning: Michael Nesmith's Home-Brewed Beer may be hazardous to your health. ________________________________________________________________________________ Autoclaving turns this line brown. ----- And The Hits Just Keep On Comin', 1972 This album is dedicated to Annalee Huffaker who taught me the joys of song. One of the great advantages of being an artist is that I am able to utilize my craft periodically to write messages to myself. Basically that it what this album is all about. I have tried to be as skillful as I could in the hopes that you as a listener would not feel left out. I have tried to make music as honest and beautiful, as harmonious and graceful, as I know how to make music ... But I am afraid that I must admit, and somewhat unabashedly, that I did it for me. I hope that on whatever level of unfoldment this music may find you that it will reward your attention and contribute something to your consciousness. I personally enjoy singing along to it all... But then it's very easy for me. I know all the words. Papa Nes ----- Pretty Much Your Standard Ranch Stash, 1973 The point just may be that it doesn't make any difference... This is my sixth album since the whole Monkees trip went down, and I think I'm begin- ning to finally understand that it doesn't make any difference at all. It's because of the framework... Once that superstructure is built, it's very difficult to get past it and into substance... the framework that it's all relative to. Mine has been built on logic, which is probably one of the subtlest traps going... that whole 2+2 trip... the logical development that leads to fear of anything outside itself... "If it doesn't compute, man, then it can't be good." How many times have I told myself that? And if there was never anything there to base everything on, then it was instant dip- into-the-past time... Pull out some obscure, meaningless piece of a foundation, and use it to prop things up. Music was always the gum in those works... All that thinking went to hell when the music came. I'd be sitting around, immersed in this bubble-bath serenity of having figured something out... put right into its nice little orderly spot, and then - WHAMO - I've got to deal with music... no reason... no basis other than just its purest expression. And it always came right out of left field... tapping me on the shoulder. There was a long period of time when I used to respond very positively... or at least it seemed positive at the time... by being super- responsible... really getting out and putting everything together behind it. Lots of study and quiet muse. Com- munion of some sorts. I never could understand why, just about the time I would get it together, all of a sudden the whole thing would vanish... just disappear... leaving me exactly where it found me... peering out from a column of numbers. Looking for the 6 that followed the 5 that followed the... Finally I bailed. Just packed it in. No more fuss. Simple. That's when it began to take on a whole different complexion. It began to be its own thing... have its own identity. Instead of shadows dancing on the wall, it became an old friend, always greeted with a warm embrace and a certain casualness that wasn't usually a part of it. Me and the music ...we began to talk... Hey, man, how you doin'...? You O.K.? What you been up to... that kind of talk. Pal talk. Trouble was, I wasn't sure how much I liked this new guy that walked in... I couldn't put my finger on it... maybe that was the problem ... The music was just the music. Not really earthshattering, mind- blowing, brilliant... none of that. Just music. This whole album was one of those conversations me and the music had. Don't get fooled by the lyrics... Lyrics aren't really the com- municative part... Lyrics are just the logical part for people who are into that... Seem to always be there, the lyrics... but they aren't really the meat. The real stuff is what makes it different from a fire bell, or an air- conditioner hum, or sleep, or whatever ... bust down the framework, the incarnation, and it is still music... Urging one on to places only hinted at ... no ending, no beginning... so you can really see past the car payment, and the laundry, and the other paper claims. I'm not that good about paying attention yet. Fortunately, there is the band. Six or seven people conversing within a medium unlike any other... Pushing at the walls all the time... trying to break the barriers of harmony and melody... examining that other dimension beyond the senses that peeks out from the cracks through the plain musicalness of it all. We'd be playing along... wandering in and out, and someone would shout, "hey, look over here, man; check out the color; dig the texture." Taking only a piece at a time... and finally realizing that each piece was not part of a puz- zle... but that each piece was all there was... Each one was whole... and uniquely different from the other ... And based around the oneness was the music. It really freaked me out a little. I kept waiting for the song which would correct our foreign problems with Paraguay, cure cancer, or make everybody dress and talk like me. Instead I got love songs... I love you, loved you, will love you, was to have loved you, maybe won't love you... Couple a nice country tunes. I was sure this would be the album that would catapult me right up there with Dylan and Cole Porter... or at least right in there with the ethno- musicologists saying things about my beautiful poetry, sensitivity... intensely personal, blah, blah, blah. Nope... just music... and an expres- sion of the joy... pure exuberance at having encountered it. What fun... what a total gas to have such an ex- perience, and what peace when I finally realized that it didn't make any difference... Of course there was always the why... I was always a good one for that... Yeah, I can see it man; I can observe the phenomena as well as the next... but why...? I mean there must be a reason. A reason. What the hell is a reason... a goal, an achieved end... that point in logic that will accept at least the existence of music. Very dangerous, this whole point... good excuse for doing one of those... Well, what the heck, if there's no reason and it doesn't make any difference, then just don't do it ... get a job, make something of your- self... as if yourself weren't some- thing... Why go through the thou- sands of dollars and aggravation of making a record to sell. I've thought about that a lot... I'm sure there's an answer, but it beats me. At least I'm prepared to accept anything... waxed fruit, tree surgery, whatever. And if I come to a fork in the road, I don't panic anymore, I just assume that one is the road and the other is a road off to the side. Michael Nesmith, ©1973 After two or three months this album may lose potency although some aroma may linger. ----- Compilation, 1973 The last thing Michael would want us to do in these liner notes would be to take this album, him, his music or for that matter any of you or ourselves too seriously. That's too bad, because we could go on for pages about how Nesmith was pioneering progressive country before Gram Parsons joined the Byrds, or before the Flying Burrito Brothers (not to mention the Eagles) were even a gleam in Bernie Leadon's eye. Or we could write a thesis on how the Monkees were way ahead of their time in terms of pure pop entertainment (we'll take the songs of Neil Diamond, Boyce & Hart, Carole King, John Stewart and Nesmith himself over the mindless pap that pervades today's top 40 any time). Or we could detail the progression in Michael's own brand of country music from simple, straight-forward love songs to those whose lyrics reflect concerns of a more metaphysical nature. We could even go on a name-dropping spree and mention all the people Nesmith has worked with, produced, or written songs for, such as Linda Ronstadt, Lynn Anderson, Jack Nicholson (who wrote the script for the Monkees' underground film classic Head), Baba Ram Dass, Chet Atkins, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, John Waterhouse and the entire Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Bert Jansch, Linda Hargrove and Dean Torrance, not to speak of Ralph Waldo Emerson or his strong filial ties to the inventor of Liquid Paper. But if we went off on any of those tangents it would leave us with very little space to write about this album. The truth is, there's very little point in writing about this album... If you have any sense at all you already know that none of these things -- this album, Michael, his music or for that matter any of you or any of us -- really exist (or maybe we do*). But since it's all an illusion anyway, you might as well add this record to your collection. No one will ever know the difference (or maybe they will*). *Michael says we should cover our bases. ----- The Prison, 1974 a book with a sound track INTRODUCTION Art is not mere portrayal of an event -- even though some events can be portrayed artistically. Art is an event itself. It is the change of consciousness which occurs that is signal. This movement of thought is the cause, not the result of the work before us. So it is with "The Prison." A very good friend of mine expressed some concern about access. The words were something like, "Well, I like it well enough, but as a rule I don't like music playing while I'm reading." I use that reaction as an example because it was the first in a chain of similar reactions. If you should find yourself stumbling through the piece at first, perhaps knowing that you're not alone will help to incline you to persevere through a few more reading/listenings. Read slowly and carefully and listen the same way. I have found that attending to two simultaneously occurring ideas takes some getting used to. At first it seems that I would attend to one and let the other figure as ambience and then the next time reverse the roles. Until finally after three or four listening/readings I was able to see both occurring distinctly and equally. It was that state of consciousness that provided thought with a new vista. I am grateful to share this work with you and would like to point out that the source from which it is flowing has the splendid quality of being available to all. Michael Nesmith The Prison (Compact Disc Reissue, 1990) I wrote and recorded The Prison in 1974. Much has happened since then. The concept embodied here of a "soundtrack to a movie which plays out in your mindseye" still seems a bit out of reach but not as much as it once was. The advent of the music video has further shown, to an impressive degree, the power of the marriage of two media. Perhaps the times are better for the understanding of these notions. As I listen now to the record I still very much like the music, and the ideas contained in the book still have, to me, the ring of truth to them. I am grateful for the since it might not have been the case. I have wondered many times how the future would treat this pro- ject. I am surprised to be able to get a small sense of that now. I am most interested in the acceptance of some of the loose use of the language. I guess in the great scheme of things the use of the nonword "fastly" as a modifier counts for little in the way of crime. I have watched, after all, as "impact" became a verb. Still, I find it curious to see how much I am concerned about the trivial sins and forget the enormous ones, how the subtlest moments are the most resonant, while the travail of birth is a dim echo, and how, indeed, the tiniest morsels are the sweetest. It brings to mind stories I have heard of people at the threshold of death thinking back upon and giving weight to the most improbable ponderables. I think it is true that "God is in the details", or more eloquently "...All-in-all". There is more to The Prison. I have been writing The Garden for some time. In it more of the ideas explored in The Prison emerge. I think there is more after The Garden as well but it is still a faint and distant light, so it's minutiae is unexplored. All of this is a way of saying that the life of a work seems to have an overarching impulse which we find in the smallest things; things which marry in the strangest ways, produce their off- spring with their own language, rhythm, and purpose, and whose aims come into view only a little at a time. It gives me great joy to have another release of The Prison to give me a peek at that. ----- From A Radio Engine To The Photon Wing, 1976 This album is dedicated to God, good. ----- Live At The Palais, 1978 Live albums are tough. I suppose the ultimate is capturing on tape that magic night in the magic arena where wrong notes and poor time have vanished like darkness before the light of clear high music just coming through. Those nights and performances happen often enough. They are the eternal hope of the concertphile who sits through show after show of super stars missing the high notes and players losing their place . . . always waiting for the magic. Because recording these days is such a major undertaking, the chances of having a recording set-up there on that super-night are slim. One of the ways to hedge your bet is to record every concert on a tour. That runs into mega-bucks of course and there's no guarantee even then that that magic night will happen on that tour. I've recorded several concerts, some with just me and my guitar (which is one of my favorite ways to work) and some with a band, but I've never been satisfied. After a while I began to see that I was trying to apply the same standards that I use in the studio as far as technical excellence was concerned as well as waiting for that magic night. Finally I just decided to pick a date at random and take what I got. My wife Kathryn suggested we record one of the concert dates in Australia. The date turned out to be November 10, 1977, in Melbourne, on a tour promoted by Australian Concert Entertainments. The promoters set the tour up and it was without a doubt the best organized and smoothest running to I've ever been on. The Palais, like almost all of the venues we played was an excellent theatre, tho' no theatre that old can contain rock and roll without some strain. The inevitable echo was there and everything had that strange outerspace feel to it. Backstage before a performance is like that anyway, but older houses accentuate the feeling because of all the walls have absorbed. Being committed to recording one show one night added even more intensity. After the show we all sat outside in the recording truck and listened back to what we had done. It was better than we had hoped ...and worse. When I got back to the States I listened several times to a crudely mixed cassette of the original 24 track recording and convinced myself that it was right to release it. But some of the things were just too awful to let go by. For instance, on the last verse of Shelly's Blues I sang so terribly off pitch that I couldn't stand it. And the very last note I sang on that song just crawled right out of the woodwork. So I re-did that live in a studio so it's at least listenable. Also I changed two of my guitar parts. One was on the end of Calico Girlfriend, when three of the fingers on my left hand mutinied against my thumb and proceeded to play something entirely unauthorized by me and subsequently having no bearing on the tune; and the other was on the beginning of Propinquity, where my guitar rebelled and decided too hang out about a quarter tone flat to the rest of the band during the into. Other than those "repairs" everything is just as it was. Incidentally, I know these liner notes are just a little mundane by Dylan's standards, but I'm working on it and am hopeful that by my next album I'll be able to write something not only succinct but para- hip. Now for the thanks.... To Kathryn for coordinating the recording To Al Perkins for mixing the album To John Ware for suggesting that we go on tour To David MacKay for his short guitar cords To James Trumbo for teaching me to walk around a golf course. To the crew for a superb job of organization and set-up. ----- Infinite Rider On The Big Dogma, 1979 ----- The Newer Stuff, 1989 What you have here is a record which contains most of the music I have recorded over the last decade. Some of it has never been heard outside of my own circle of friends and loved ones. So, it is with great joy that I watch the romantic and goofy notions contained in these songs once again get their share of the sunlight. There are those of you who will always have my heartfelt thanks for sticking with me and this music. It has meant more than I can say to hear of your searches through the recycled record bins and the thousands of flea markets and swap meets to find these songs. Now here they are, all dressed up in their new CD or Tape or Whatever, ready to play again, not only for you but for new listeners. Of course, these are not all the songs I have recorded. I chose these because ...well, just because I did. They certainly aren't the "greatest hits" because none of them ever really were. They aren't my "favorites" since I never really think of them that way. I suppose they just seem more appropriate to the times. Whatever the reason, I offer them with the greatest of gratitude and will be satisfied if they will return to you just a portion of the good you have given me over the years. There are a few tunes which have never been previously released. "Tanya," "I'll Remember You," and "Formosa Diner" were all written and recorded around 1980 or '81 as part of Video Ranch, which was, and is, a movie musical that so far has not gotten beyond the script stage. I'm not sure if it ever will. Maybe if enough of you write in to...ah, well there's the problem. I don't know who you should write to. Me, I guess, since I always love to hear from you. Is it possible to start a petition to get yourself to do something? You will note there are no songs from The Prison included on this record. None of them really stand alone from that LP so I thought it best to wait until, and if, I re-release The Prison for those songs to come back out as they were intended. One other thing, over the years I have made music videos of seven of these songs and have just put them all together on a video cassette. If you want it and can't find it at the store send me a letter or call me at Pacific Arts in L.A. ----- Nezmusic, 1989 The music videos on this cassette represent about five years of work, going back to the very first one, "Rio," which we created in 1977. I say "we" because these videos are really a collective effort by myself and my good friends Bill Dear and Bill Martin. Over the years the videos were released in scattered form on TV and video cassette. Due to repeated requests, however, I have assembled them all on this one tape. There has been some talk of these music videos being the first of their kind. True, our creative endeavours did begin at the start of the "new" music video's popularity, but that was more our good fortune than our design. In reality, the form dates back to the early days of film and has flourished since, especially during the era of the Hollywood musical, and later with Walt Disney in Saludos Amigos and Fantasia. The two Bills and I have gone our separate ways but the work we did then has blessed me greatly. As I watch these videos, all spruced up with their new digital re-mixed stereo tracks, I can't help feeling like I'm at a family reunion. It's good to see them all together again. ----- "...tropical campfire's...", 1992 Somewhere in the great desert ocean the mighty bird stretches her wings. Night is falling and the horizon slowly disappears into the stars. Now she must navigate by the southwestern tropical campfire's mambo raga songs, their sounds rising from the desert floor up with the winds lifting her higher and higher and finally giving her a dead reckon, eastward, to the oasis and her home. Off to her right she sees the faint glimmer of ----- Complete, 1993 This complete set of the songs from The First National Band comes in answer to many requests. My own desire has been to preserve these songs as a collection since they were conceived and executed during a unique period in my life, a period of two years of shifting perspective, from a storm of media and fashion and fame to one of quiet introspection and removal from the conventions of the time. During this time I sought to capture, through these songs, something of the moment and the culture that was forcing itself forward. I felt empowered with an objective sensibility toward this culture and this nation because the social role I occupied at the time was that of a television actor whose star was thankfully fading. This fame, this recognizable- ness, isolated me from the normal activities of everyday life in a way nothing else could have. Museums, fairs, sporting events, even popular restaurants all were off limits unless I wanted to deal with the peculiar proceedings of being a minor celebrity in a group of strangers. I sought to turn this isolation to my advantage and began to examine America from a corner of the room. I was determined not to engage the phenomena of my own experience (one song slipped out, "Thanx For The Ride," which was my polite "no thank you" to the recent offerings of the show business machine) but to echo the cries I heard about me and to give voice to the songs of the people I observed and the nation they inherited. The three First National Band records are not a trilogy except that the three of them are united by a common theme in the cover art of the album jackets and by a common thread of my own rendition of Americana. I would have liked to have released these songs all on one album when I first finished them, but the technology of the time made it impossible. Now, with the storage power of the CD, I can almost get all of the songs on that one medium. In this set I made the decision to put as much music on one CD as possible rather than splitting the music evenly between the two discs. With the cassette I can finally achieve the aim of grouping all the songs together on one medium and those of you with auto-reversing cassette decks can hear the songs as one listening experience. A final note. It has been said that The First National Band was one of the pioneers of Country Rock and was partly responsible for a shift in popular music. I count this as nonsense for two reasons. First, the classification of music by genre it silly and meaningless. Arbitrary categories such as Country Rock or R&B is fostered by schools, perpetuated by fools, creates havoc in the business of arts and tends to oppress artists. Even legitimate dis- tinctions, such as opera from ballet serve only a limited purpose. The only way to understand a musical form is to listen to it, not talk about it. Second, I was not using Country music or Rock music as forms, but was learning from artists who had a clear resonance with my own poetry and then playing this music in the most natural way. However you ultimately classify this music, I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it. I offer it here with my continuing appreciation for all the support I have received from you over the years. Nez. August 16, 1993 ----- The Garden, 1994 The Garden is the second part of a work I started in 1974 which was titled The Prison, and like The Prison, is a book and music designed to be experienced simultaneously. The basic idea is that as the two media converge one tends to charge the other with meaning. In The Garden I have used music without lyrics for the most part. This seems to help push the phenomenon along a bit by leaving the music simpler and more accessible. The notion is to settle down in a comfortable spot, turn the stereo on at a moderate volume and read the book while the music plays, starting both at the same time. (Headphones are good but it is even better if you have a Surround system since the music was mixed in Dolby Surround.) You will find many connection points between the two media. As your use of the piece matures you will find these points changing, and after you have come to know the story better, you will be able to sculpt, in some degree, your own experience, pausing to ponder a passage or thought and letting the music play on to lift the thought higher, or perhaps skipping ahead in the story to read a section with a specific piece of music and enjoy the synchronized effect of a soundtrack. Of course, it is perfectly find to appreciate one medium all by itself. The Garden is not a sequel in the strict sense of the word and there is no critical continuity of narrative you will need to know. However some familiarity with The Prison is helpful to fully understand the development of ideas which have their roots there. The Garden is dedicated to my children: Christian, Jason, Jessica, and Jonathan. Michael Nesmith Santa Fe, New Mexico December 1993 ----- Justus, 1996 "The fish eat my furniture" ...an old mariachi song