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Today Mike Nesmeth one of the only two surviving members of the Monkees passed away from natural causes at age 78. Previously Peter Tork and Davy Smith previously had gone to the big banana tree in the sky. This leaves now only Mickey Dolenz as the sole survivor of the comedy music group.
R.I.P. Thanks for the laughs, til I catch yr act again.....Quote:
Originally Posted by ftpjesus
:whocares
wasn't it Davey Jones, not Smith--sorry, don't mean to sharp shoot as it's not really importantQuote:
Originally Posted by ftpjesus
Yep I fucked ip it was Davy Jones. He passed in 2012 from a heart attack. Tork passed in 2019 and now Nesmeth in 2021. Dolenz is 75 himself so who knows. He could live forever like Betty White or just drop dead without warning tomorrow. But clearly he won the last longest bet among them.Quote:
Originally Posted by GrenadaRogerwasn't it Davey Jones, not Smith--sorry, don't mean to sharp shoot as it's not really importantQuote:
Originally Posted by ftpjesus
Thank you Jesus for starting this thread!! I loved the Monkey's show when I was a little kid. Those guys were always up to something!! I think it was on right before or right after the banana splits.
I just checked to see if they were touring, like, with a full entourage of non-original Monkees like so many Motown acts seem to these days.
Nope, on Ticketmaster, this was their only upcoming show...
So like now is Mickey Dolenz gonna come out on April 1st and sing "Hey Hey I'm the Monkee!"
:wtf
Nesmith was an interesting guy -- by far the most interesting of the four Monkees.
He wasn't particularly nice or easy to get along with, but he was the most talented, and he led the most interesting life. The nicest Monkee was the one who's still alive -- Mickey Dolenz, who is known to be very accessible and friendly with fans.
Nesmith was the only one of the Monkees with an actual background in music at the time. It frustrated him how fabricated the entire act was, and how little control they were given over their own music.
He somewhat resented his Monkees years in the decades following, as he felt it held his serious music career back. In reality, the Monkees gave him the break he needed. Otherwise, despite having some talent, he probably would have remained an unknown.
The most interesting Nesmith story has nothing to do with music. I'm going to talk about it on radio tonight. It appears that PBS (yes, that PBS) outright scammed him in the early 1990s.
He started a videotape distribution company called Pacific Arts, which in early 1990 agreed to work with PBS to distribute home videos of some of their popular programs.
This worked out tremendously well, and the videos were selling like hotcakes. However, Pacific Arts was mismanaged, and didn't have the operating capital to both churn out videos and pay the licensing fees to the content producers. PBS kept saying they might terminate the agreement if this continued, but Nesmith kept begging them to put their own money into it and keep the whole thing afloat.
The problem came in 1993, when PBS finally was fed up with Pacific Arts' cashflow problems, and wanted to move to the much more stable Turner Home Video (yes, THAT Turner), but wanted a more orderly transition. They were terrified that Pacific Arts would file for bankruptcy, and thus throw a wrench into the entire process, so they allegedly bullshitted Nesmith, told him not to file for bankruptcy, and to continue everything as normal while they figured out a solution. Nesmith believed them, and PBS quietly got the content producers to move to Turner, eventually leaving Nesmith and Pacific Arts holding the bag. The company then crashed down.
Pacific Arts still owed back licensing fees, at was sued by PBS and the licensers. In a counterclaim, Nesmith asserted that PBS intentionally tricked him and destroyed his company, pretending that they were continuing their relationship, and convincing him not to file for bankruptcy.
In 1999, Nesmith won the massive suit, and was awarded over $40 million. Some of that went to pay the back licensing fees, most of it went to Pacific Arts, which revived itself after getting paid. Nesmith was awarded $3.5 million personally. It's unclear what was actually received, as PBS made an out-of-court settlement to pay less, with an agreement not to appeal or reveal the final number.
Anyway, while Nesmith and Pacific Arts were somewhat at fault here, PBS acted really scummy, basically deciding to lie to Nesmith and fuck his company over, just so they could make an orderly transition to Turner Home Video.
Here's a not-very-well-written but detailed article from 1999 about it: https://current.org/1999/02/michael-...t-against-pbs/
Yes. And that’s why the other David Jones had to change his last name to Bowie.Quote:
Originally Posted by GrenadaRogerwasn't it Davey Jones, not Smith--sorry, don't mean to sharp shoot as it's not really importantQuote:
Originally Posted by ftpjesus