Mike Nesmith - Elephant Parts (1981) **UPDATE**

While reading the obituaries for the late, great Mike Nesmith I saw mention of a film that he produced in 1981 called 'Elephant Parts', which was apparently a precursor of what was to become MTV in the future, combining as it did music videos of some of his songs with comedy sketches and parodies of adverts. The most notable sketches are 'Elvis Drugs', 'Neighborhood Nuclear Superiority', 'Mariachi Translations', and some bits with a lounge singer, as well as a game show called 'Name That Drug'. The musical videos include 'Magic', 'Cruisin'', 'Light', 'Tonight'. and 'Rio', and director Bill Dear and Nesmith were doing music videos before people even knew what they were, approaching them as mini-movies. 'Elephant Parts' won the first Grammy in the Music Video category, with Billboard's review saying it was "the cleverest exercise in original video programming to date." I tried to find a copy online with no success, but most of the individual parts had been uploaded to Youtube, so I've pieced it all back together so that we can see that Nesmith had lost none of his comic timing or musical genius even later in his career. The final video was a little bit shorter than the advertised running time, as there seemed to be sketch or two missing, so I owe eternal thanks to Mike Solof for providing me with a VHS rip of the complete video, so you can now enjoy the whole thing. 

The title 'Elephant Parts' refers to the parable of the blind men and an elephant where each man comes to a different conclusion about what an elephant is due to them touching only one part. 

Mike Nesmith R.I.P.

 

https://albumsiwishexisted2.blogspot.com/2019/01/mike-nesmith-papa-gene-blues-1969.html

https://albumsiwishexisted2.blogspot.com/2019/02/mike-nesmith-good-clean-fun-1970.html

Mike Nesmith - Papa Gene's Blues (1969)

Mike Nesmith was already a singer/songwriter before he was recruited to become one of The Monkees, having written 'Different Drum' in 1965, later to be recorded to great effect by Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys, and become a Top 20 hit for them in 1967. His talent was obviously recognised by the producers of the show as he was allowed to sing his own 'Papa Gene's Blues' on The Monkees' first album, when the other songs were written by such stalwarts of the Brill Building as Boyce & Hart, David Gates and Goffin & King. From that point on he managed to get at least one of his songs on every Monkees album, often singing them himself, until by the time of 'The Monkees Present' in 1969 he was contributing a quarter of the material. Although he had the greatest solo success with the country-rock of his First National Band, not all his songs were in that style, and included pop, rock and ballads as well. I wondered what an album of just Nesmith songs would sound like, and so chose all the songs that he either wrote and sang, or had a hand in composing, from The Monkees' albums between 1966 and 1969, and it's actually pretty good. 'Listen To The Band' was the first time he was allowed to sing on the A-side of a single, although his 'The Girl I Knew Somewhere' was deemed good enough to appear as the b-side of 'A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You' in 1967, and by the time that the band made their film 'Head' he was coming up with songs of the calibre of 'Circle Sky'. Mike was always my favourite Monkee, mainly for his laid-back, don't-give-a-shit attitude, but as the TV series and the albums wore on I realised that he was also the most musically talented, which was a big plus for me. While collecting these tracks I found that he actually wrote a number of other songs which were recorded by The Monkees but which were shelved by the record company, and which only recently surfaced on the three CD 'Missing Links' set, and so they will be the basis for a second volume later. 

Track listing

01 Papa Gene's Blues
02 Sweet Young Thing
03 The Kind Of Girl I Could Love
04 Mary, Mary
05 You Told Me
06 The Girl I Knew Somewhere
07 Sunny Girlfriend
08 You Just May Be The One
09 Don't Call On Me
10 Daily Nightly
11 Auntie's Municipal Court
12 Writing Wrongs
13 Magnolia Sims
14 Tapioca Tundra
15 Circle Sky
16 Listen To The Band

Mike Nesmith - Good Clean Fun (1970)

The second of my Mike Nesmith posts collects songs from the Monkees later albums 'Instant Replay' and 'The Monkees Present', when they lost Peter Tork to become a three-piece, as well as some songs that Nesmith wrote for earlier Monkees albums but which were left off the final track listings, although some of them did turn up on the TV shows. Added to those are a few out-takes and demos from the 'Headquarters' sessions, such as his take on 'Zilch', which all of the group had a go at before they were all blended together for the final album cut, and his contribution to the '33 ⅓ Revolutions Per Monkee' television special of 1969, with 'Naked Persimmon'. To flow nicely on from the last post I've started this one with the country version of 'Listen To The Band', which closed the 'Papa Gene's Blues' album. 

Track listing

01 Listen To The Band
02 All The King's Horses
03 Some Of Shelly's Blues
04 Nine Times Blue
05 Where Has It All Gone
06 Zilch
07 My Share Of The Sidewalk
08 St Matthew
09 Six-String Improvisation
10 Carlisle Wheeling
11 Propinquity (I've Just Begun To Care)
12 Of You
13 The Crippled Lion
14 Naked Persimmon
15 Don't Wait For Me
16 While I Cry
17 Good Clean Fun
18 Calico Girlfriend Samba
19 Never Tell A Woman Yes