January 30, 2017
Nesmith may be most remembered for his role as the stoic guitarist in the Monkees, but his brilliant, candid, and humorous new autobiographical musings give readers a much clearer picture of his originality and inventiveness. In a breezy, conversational tone, he invites readers to join him as he looks back over his life to see how he’s come to this point. Nesmith doesn’t move chronologically through his life; instead, he riffs, letting one topic lead into another, building layer on layer of a life in music, television, and movies. He riffs on his deep friendships with Douglas Adams (from whom he gets the title of the book), Jack Nicholson, and Johnny Cash, among others. He tells his side of the now-well-known contentious backstory of the Monkees and the roles that the musicians played on the set of the television show, and the ways that his ceaseless creative drive led him to form his first post-Monkees band, the First National Band. Later Nesmith shot a video for his song “Rio” and tried to convince others, over 10 years before MTV came along, that there should be a broadcast outlet for music videos. Eventually, Nesmith started up Videoranch, where he developed a technique for hosting live shows and streaming them in the virtual world. Nesmith’s entertaining memoir reveals his creative genius, his canny ability never to take himself too seriously, and his restless questions about the value of spirituality.
Starred review from February 15, 2017
This selectively revealing, insightful memoir casts the cerebral Monkee as a spiritual seeker and self-deprecating visionary.Popular culture has barely revealed the tip of the iceberg that is Nesmith. The author has a droll, ironic sense of humor, which has helped him connect with like-minded spirits and which readers should find engaging. He's also an eccentric who describes the aftermath of Monkeedom as "the detritus of a collective dream we were all waking from, each in our own room, and each afflicted with our own case of Celebrity Psychosis informing us about the furniture in that room." This "Celebrity Psychosis" ultimately figures more heavily in the book than the Monkees do, a demon that haunted him for decades after that 1960s fluke of fame. As much as he resented those who treated him as a puppet or a "pariah...pummeled by opprobrium and ridicule and reviled among my peers," he eventually came to consider his Monkees experience "a gift, an odd gift to be sure but with a deep message for me that I am still parsing and for which I am never less than thankful." As for the rest of his fascinating life, Nesmith was raised in Dallas by a single mother, a devout Christian Scientist who became wealthy as the inventor of Liquid Paper. If he didn't invent country rock, he was there at the beginning, and he did invent the music video and had the vision for what would become MTV. More recently, the author has been involved with virtual reality and received a patent "for the embedding of real time video into a virtual environment." Along the way, he was influenced by both hippie mystics and a Christian Science teacher, and he bonded with Jack Nicholson, Timothy Leary, Douglas Adams, and John Lennon. Nesmith doesn't even bother to mention that Linda Ronstadt enjoyed her breakout hit with his "Different Drum" or that the Monkees have experienced a series of comeback reunions (with and without him). A book--and a life--unlike any other in rock.
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March 1, 2017
Mike Nesmith, best known as a member of the Monkees, has also been involved in music videos, film, virtual reality technology, and writing. In his memoir, which he describes as an "autobiographical riff," he highlights a fascinating and varied career and life in assorted forms of the arts and technology. Nesmith describes his youth and his musical beginnings and influences, moving on to the daze of celebrity with the Monkees during the Sixties. The narrative continues with his solo musician years in the Seventies, friendships with people ranging from actor Jack Nicholson to author Douglas Adams, and his pioneering work with music videos, film, and video producing, and later with virtual reality--with an emphasis on the business aspects as he sought to bring these forms to a wider public. This book also describes a spiritual journey as Nesmith explores different forms of religion and philosophy over the decades, eventually finding involvement within an intellectual foundation. VERDICT Those seeking a detailed portrait of the Monkees will have to look elsewhere, and sometimes Nesmith's narrative becomes somewhat discursive; however, he is a gifted writer who has entertainingly documented his renaissance life.--James Collins, Morristown-Morris Twp. P.L., NJ
Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
March 1, 2017
Nesmith recounts how he moved to L.A. and started playing music despite having limited ability and nothing to say. He drifted into a part on The Monkees, a TV series loosely based on A Hard Day's Night, about an out-of-work rock band. Flabbergasted by its success, he suffered from a condition he calls Celebrity Psychosis, meaning he was often stupid, mean-spirited, entitled, and loutish. Nesmith was surprised to learn that the show's music was produced elsewhere, with little to no input from the band. After the show's cancellation, Nesmith had to deal with being a pariah as the Monkees were considered incredibly unhip, manufactured, and a fraud. He relates how he later was instrumental in the advent of the nascent music video industry as well as the up-and-coming home video business. Nesmith reveals a droll sense of humor along with a spirituality informed by 1960s psychedelia and his Christian Science family. This thoughtful and entertaining memoir is reminiscent of Shep Gordon's They Call Me Supermensch (2016), with its account of '60s indulgence replaced by spirituality, entrepreneurship, and philanthropy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)