Month: December 2021

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a tribute to mike nesmith (1942–2021)

by theresa kereakes

The very existence of Mike Nesmith inspired me my entire life, whether I was aware of it or not, from the time I first heard “Different Drum” until I took an early retirement from PBS.

Mike Nesmith was a fearless visionary. He was not afraid to follow his whims, and he was not afraid to defend himself.  If all he had done was compose “Different Drum,” he’d still be lauded, but for decades after writing the song that would put Linda Ronstadt on all our radar, he continued to experiment and invent delightful escapes into storytelling, whether through book, song, or visuals.

Little did I know in 1966, when I was 8 years old, I was completely swept up in boy-band-mania because of the excellent job NBC-TV’s PR team did when they launched The Monkees television show. TV Guide first introduced me to The Monkees and in short order, a magazine called Tiger Beat appeared out of nowhere and featured them all the time. I also didn’t realize that the publishers of Tiger Beat had a stranglehold on the teen “consumer” market and worked in lockstep with the television networks and record companies for mutual benefit.  It makes sense now, and it also doesn’t matter because it was through the pop culture mill that I discovered the Monkees, the Brill Building songwriters, and Mike Nesmith, who passed away on December 10, 2021, just 20 days shy of his 79th birthday. 

The TV Guide introduction to The Monkees set them up as a parallel to The Beatles, whose own image was turned into a cartoon series debuting on television one year earlier. The story had brief bios on each band member/actor, and to this kid, they all seemed bonafide. Clearly, the TV Guide writer and editor were copying the NBC press releases as they identified Nesmith as “Wool Hat,” which was not only a stupid nickname, but never caught on. Again, I realize this 50+ years later.

During my childhood and adolescence, all things Mike Nesmith slowly seeped into my consciousness and formed my artistic preferences. It was no mystery why I liked his Monkees songs the best. He wrote “Different Drum,” a hit song for the Stone Poneys that I cranked whenever it came on the radio. When I bought Monkees’ singles, I always preferred the Nesmith-penned B-sides, particularly “The Girl I Knew Somewhere” over the hit A-side, Neil Diamond’s “A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You.” And from this, I also learned about songwriters and the Brill Building, for in addition to Neil Diamond, Carole King and Gerry Goffin were supplying songs for The Monkees.

In the situation comedy itself, while we’ll never know if the screenwriters crafted the TV Monkees’ personalities to match the real-life Monkees’ personalities, Mike always came across as the normal one and the one true musician.  Mike Nesmith set the bar for 8-year-old me and how I would evaluate musicians in the future.

During the year I started working at PBS, the organization made a deal with Nesmith’s prescient video production and distribution company, Pacific Arts, to distribute PBS produced programs (most notably Ken Burns’ The Civil War, as well as a slew of other less noteworthy bulk). At a point in the relationship, things soured, and my employer was so clearly in the wrong. When you work in law firms or corporate legal departments, you work to develop a clear separation of how you feel versus the job you must do.  But this one was impossible to rationalize. My relationship with PBS lasted as long as Nesmith’s. While his relationship was filled with lawsuits and trials (in which he prevailed, and gloriously), mine was an easy exit. As a government-funded entity that must have its operating budget reauthorized by Congress every three years, many of the stations made attractive early retirement packages for employees.  I took one the year that the Pacific Arts relationship crashed. Although I was a member of the legal department, I was not involved in the Pacific Arts deal. But due to my membership on this team, I was peripherally part of the ruination of Mike Nesmith – my childhood idol – and his pioneering media company.

However, by also seeing peripherally into what Mike Nesmith had forged in the media landscape brought me back to punk rock and DIY. Mike didn’t invent punk rock, but he most certainly took DIY to new heights at a parallel time. I’m sorry I never saw a Monkees reunion show, but I cherish my old 7-inch singles and will continue to travel to the beat of a different drum.  I thank Mike Nesmith for putting a name on it.

Learn more about Theresa Kereakes here in our interview.

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punk photographer theresa kereakes’ 2021 list

It is December 30, 2021, but it feels like just yesterday, and also a decade ago that the Years of the Pandemic began dividing our time into manipulated managed segments with the end result being that I have no idea what day, month, year, or decade it is. I had to verify that the following entries on my list were all from 2021. I could have sworn I’ve seen many more movies, but that was 2020, when I was still a film fest juror and screened perhaps 200 films in 6 weeks, and then never “attended” the festival (online) because by October, after 7 months at home, in front of the computer, I longed to be watching films from anywhere but there.  

In 2020, I strived to maintain some semblance of emotional normalcy during the lockdown and post-tornado recovery, and invited people over on Sundays during the summer for cookouts and listening to music in the backyard. But in 2021, I embraced the solitude and devoted my leisure time to headphone listening and viewing. The records and movies I took in were for comfort more than entertainment. Comfort AND familiarity (I’ve watched TWISTER a half dozen times this year, on cable; HARRY POTTER too) were the criteria. In some cases, confirmation bias just made me feel better regardless of the quality of the programming.  I attended maybe 5 concerts in person but enjoyed countless live-streamed shows.

The theme for my 2021 in life and culture was “swaddle self in comfort; believe the women; support POC and science.”

ANALOG LISTENING

  • Aimee Mann- Queens of the Summer Hotel
  • Sleater-Kinney – Path of Wellness
  • Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit – Georgia Blue
  • Nick Cave & Warren Ellis – Carnage 
  • Reigning Sound – A Little More Time With Reigning Sound
  • Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Barn

ANALOG ATTENDANCE

Movies

  • Summer of Soul – documentary, director: Questlove

Concerts

Movie theatres can get away with selling fewer seats to maintain a safe distance between viewers, but concert promoters cannot.  I took few chances with congregate settings this year.  I chose iconoclasts and I believe I chose well.

  • Elvis Costello & the Imposters – Atlanta, GA
  • Bob Dylan – Rough & Rowdy Ways tour – Beacon Theatre, NYC      
  • Squirrel Nut Zippers Holiday Show – City Winery, Nashville, TN

INTERNET LISTENING/VIEWING

  • Mondays – Instragram to Table – Alice Carbone Tench (Instagram Live)
  • Wednesdays – Sweet Home Quarantine /Live From Tubby’s – Robyn Hitchcock & Emma Swift (Mandoline)
  • Thursdays – Post-Apocalyptic Malone – Bryan Malone (FB and YouTube)

BOOKS

  • Dracula – Bram Stoker with illustrations by Edward Gorey (Sterling)
  • Crime & Punishment – new (2014) translation by Oliver Ready (Penguin Classics)

SMUG CONFIRMATION BIAS CONSUMPTION FOR PASSING THE TIME

  • Don’t Look Up – director Adam McKay
  • Being the Ricardos – director Aaron Sorkin (watched on Prime, not in theatre)
  • State of Terror – novel by Hillary Clinton & Louise Penny

Learn more about Theresa Kereakes here in our 2020 interview with her.

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rob pursey from catenary wires’ top ten things about starting a label

The most exciting thing for me in 2021 was that Amelia and I started a record label (Skep Wax). We first talked about it 30 years ago, so it’s had quite a long gestation.

I guess lockdown is to blame. Prior to this we’d never had enough spare time, and suddenly we had loads of it. We only released our own records to start with, partly because we couldn’t face the idea of messing up other people’s. But it’s gone pretty well, so in 2022 we will be ‘expanding our roster’. 

Rob and Amelia from Catenary Wires, Swansea Sound, European Sun & Skep Wax (courtesy Rob)

Anyway, I thought I’d share my ten best things about starting a label.

  1. The local post office.  Despite the Tories’ best efforts, there are still elements of the state’s architecture that still function. The postal service is one of them. Things arrive on time.  You don’t worry about your item being chucked around.  The couple who run our local post office are really friendly. Occasionally other customers can get irked – it probably is annoying trying to collect your pension if the person in front is mailing fifty cassette singles to various parts of the world. But the British like queueing, and even more than that they like grumbling about the people in front of them in the queue, so this isn’t such a massive problem.
  2. Having a song played on the radio. This was always the most exciting thing about being in a band, but it’s doubly exciting now, especially as DJs tend to be quite good about naming the record label.
  3. Seeing your record in a shop. Again, this was always exciting but now it’s even better.  There’s the thing that you have made, waiting patiently in the rack for someone to fall in love with it.
  4. Getting to know the community of writers, bloggers, online DJs. Just under the radar of the mainstream, there are hundreds of people keeping the independent music scene alive by sharing their enthusiasm. There’s some really good writing out there too.  It’s a good gang to be part of.
  5. Getting to know people who run cool record stores. Those places were the conduit to a better world when I was a teenager (in my case, Revolver Records in Bristol) and I’m probably still a bit starstruck when I go into them.  Now that we are adults and have records to sell, it’s like getting permission to go behind the scenes at the theatre. You’ve been in the audience for years, wondering who’s doing the lighting, putting the props on stage, directing the actors – and now you are backstage chatting with those people. They are immensely knowledgeable and generally very supportive.  
  6. Rubber stamps. We’ve got a ‘Skep Wax’ rubber stamp that gets applied to the envelopes for the records we mail out personally. It’s the most analogue object in the world and creates a pleasingly imperfect image every time.
  7. Co-releasing with other indie labels. There is a very strong sense of solidarity amongst people who are working really hard to do something good without any expectation of making a lot of money.  
  8. Being local and global at the same time. Everything we do happens on the dining table, or in the spare room (with occasional trips up the road to the post office). And then, a few months later, people in Brazil, Indonesia and America get to hear the results.
  9. Choosing which medium to release on. There are so many options – cassette, CD, vinyl, download, streaming. You don’t have to do all of them. You can choose the one that’s best for the release in question. If you want to do a 3” CD, you can. If you want to do a one-sided 7” single with a 50-page book, you can.
  10. ‘Expanding our roster…’  The fact that other bands are prepared to trust us with their art is a good feeling, if a little nerve-wracking.  But it does mean that 2022 won’t be boring.

Skep Wax will soon announce Under the Bridge, a compilation album that will be very exciting for anyone who liked Sarah Records.

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The Umbrellas’ Top 10 list of San Francisco’s Best Taquerias

Photo by Ezra Gonzalez

1) La Corneta As 3/4th of the members of The Umbrellas are vegetarians, our criteria stems from the quality of: the beans, rice, salsa & tortilla (chip quality is also taken into account). The rice in a La Corneta burrito is what really elevates this place to the top; two ingredients unseen in any other SF Taqueria: peas & carrots. The Glen Park location is walking distance from where Morgan lives, and we’ve had so many fond memories eating there before and after gigs. 

2) El Burrito Express Both the Divisadero location and the Taraval location are great (and anyone who thinks the quality differs from one location to another has their head up their ass). They by far have the largest selection of veggie burritos, and an option to add french fries to any of them. All members of The Umbrellas have lived within walking distance to the Taraval location and would eat here on a regular basis. Matt and Nick in particular ate here every Thursday from 2016-2018.

3) El Buen Sabor Located on 18th and Valencia, this is the spot of choice for employees of the Chapel (where Keith works). Partially due to convenience, partially due to quality… but overall, just a consistent option. They have a great “Veg. California Burrito” chock full of vegetables.

4) El Pancho Villa Hands down one of the finest salsa bars the city has to offer (the chipotle salsa being a favorite of ours). The employees are always super accommodating (and have the spiffiest uniforms of any taqueria). When you’re on the main strip of Mission and 16th, this would be our pick. 

5) Mi Familia Once known as Zona Rosa, this Haight Street staple has maintained their quality even after a branding change. This is the closest burrito spot to where Morgan and Nick work and has been a great option when hungover on the clock. Some of the absolute sweetest folks own this establishment and are nothing but kind. The real kicker is their salsas (which they used to have squeeze bottles of on their tables pre-covid).

6) Taqueria Los Mayas This Richmond taqueria is the go-to spot of your favorite fog rockers (members of The Telephone Numbers, April Magazine & The Reds, Pinks & Purples all live a few blocks away). Their focus is on Mayan fare, so they have quite unique options you can’t find elsewhere. They have a wonderful plantain burrito and excellent tortas that are both highly recommended. Their mango salsa is also some of the best in the city. Make sure to get the burrito “Dorado Style” when you stop in… You won’t regret it.

7) Taqueria Cancun How many times have we played or gone to a show at the Knockout and stopped at El Cancun as well? Too many times to count… You can never go wrong with this beloved taqueria. Their bright yellow sign and interior attracts burrito-lovers like bees to a flower. While their chips and salsa are subpar, they are free. You can never go wrong getting a little something in your stomach before a night of drinking Hamm’s next door at the KO.  

8) Los Coyotes This is another taqueria on that main strip of 16th Street between Mission and Valencia. Sometimes this taqueria feels more in the vein of fast food, as they have french fries that closely resemble that of McDonald’s fries. They have an incredible Veggie-California burrito, which incorporates these McDonald’s-esque fries. They have a stunning selection of salsa and El Yucateco hot sauce bottles on every table! There are lots of extra accoutrements like: grilled poblano chiles and onions, pickled carrots, and extra spicy peppers. This is probably the most fun you’ll have at a taqueria, given the amount of space their restaurant has and all of their options. 

9) El Farolito Often cited as the best and most popular taqueria in San Francisco, there is a reason there are five locations throughout SF and South SF… The burritos are GOOD. El Farolito embodies what every taqueria should aspire to be: filling, cheapish & consistent burritos. They are the least stingy when it comes to stuffing a burrito to the brim (this is especially appreciated with the amount of avocado they manage to pack in). Most of their locations are open until the wee hours of the morning and is a must before catching the OWL bus home. Many folks have their opinion of El Farolito, but we felt we couldn’t have a list of “Best San Francisco Taquerias” without at least mentioning El Farolito. 

10) Taqueria Zorro (Voted Worst) For fun, we included our most despised burrito of San Francisco… Zorro’s burritos should not be consumed under ANY circumstances. Even if we were stuck on a desert island and it was the only viable option for sustenance, we STILL would not go anywhere near one! Located in the heart of North Beach, right next door to The Hungry I gentlemen’s club, we don’t know why we were expecting a decent burrito from a neighborhood that’s known for its exceptional Italian fare. The burrito was dry, the atmosphere was strange, and we were lamenting on the fact that Golden Boy Pizza was right up the road. Next time you’re in North Beach, please don’t be adventurous… Just go get pizza and eat it at Vesuvio like a normal person. 

you probably already have but listen to the umbrellas here!

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vim + lene from punk girl diaries’ 2021 best of list!

We are two grown up English punk girls. We write a blog and make a print zine called punkgirldiaries, so people often assume that we’re forever harking back to 1976 with Siouxsie and Poly Styrene. But that’s only part of it; we try to trace a line of women in innovative rock-based music that probably starts with Suzi Quatro and Fanny and continues through punk, no-wave, indie-pop, shoegaze, riot grrrl, pop-punk and we also love to promote some of the music that women and girls are making now. 

So here’s our list of a few great 2021 songs, with links to the videos — mostly women musicians — that caught our attention and that will live on in punkgirldiaries playlists:

 Voice Of The Ages – Piney Gir

Like something that you’d have seen on Top of the Pops in 1973, this song from Kansas-born Piney has that electric piano stomp and cleverness that just endears her to us. 

 Primrose Hill- Rachel Love

It’s the dreamy voice of ex-Dolly Mixture Rachel emerging from an expansive timeless soundtrack that means that we have this on repeat, and then even more repeat.

ARXX – Not Alone But Not With You ( Official Video)

We love how this starts with the lo-fi demo version from the duo and then bursts into the urgent poppy anthem. Arxx are a great live band, too.

 Self Esteem – I Do This All The Time (Official Video)

In the middle of lockdown wilderness, this release was a smart commentary on modern British girl-angst and a great groove too.

 Coach Party – ‘Can’t Talk, Won’t’ – (Official Video)

The way the chorus swells up to a higher octave is cracking! We interviewed Jess and Steph from the Isle of Wight band and now want to hear more of their desperate pop-punk.

 ĠENN – Feel (Official Music Video)

From the album Liminal, this dreamy but slightly menacing song has the earthbeaty feel of early postpunk Raincoats/Slits whilst still being a solid 20s vibe.

 Peaness – What’s The Use?

All-female trio Peaness are great musicians who got together at uni. Their most recent song has that melodic stop-start thing, the gorgeous harmonies and a wiseness beyond their years. It was really fun interviewing Peaness for our Blogzine 8. 

 Wet Leg – Chaise Longue (Official Video)

An endearing deadpan spoken track that captured our Little House on the Prairie interest with a cool video this year. Another band from the Isle of Wight.

We hope you have a great 2022,
Luv, Vim and Lene 
(get their issues here!)