Michael Nesmith & The First National Band Redux have announced that they will return to the road this September to play a dozen concerts. This past January during a 5-date jaunt throughout California, Nez brought new life to his initial post-Monkees outfit. Originally consisting of Nez, Red Rhodes, John London, and John Ware, the group released three albums between 1970 and 1971, but their live performance history was fairly limited. Ignored and almost shunned by audiences and peers during their heyday, the music of the First National Band has since been cited by critics and contemporaries as a pioneering influence in the country rock genre.

In one of the more unexpected moves of Michael's career, a reconstituted First National Band hit the road in early 2018 with Christian Nesmith (guitar), Jonathan Nesmith (piano/guitar/vocals), Circe Link (vocals), Christopher Allis (drums), Jason Chesney (bass), Amy Spear (vocals), and Pete Finney (pedal steel). Sadly, original members Rhodes and London have passed away, but Ware gave his blessing to the project and wished everyone well. The limited run of concerts by the First National Band Redux, as they were dubbed, were ultimately a critical and commercial triumph.

Here are the dates for the group's September tour. Half of the shows go on sale this Friday, June 8. Stay tuned to the Live Almanac for future on sale dates as they are made available.

Micky Dolenz will appear at Philadelphia's Citizens Bank Park on July 1, 2018 to sing the "Star Spangled Banner" before the start of the Phillies-Nationals game at 1:35pm that day. Tickets are now on sale, and Jodi Ritzen is offering a special package where you can spend the game with Micky and family inside the Bill Giles suite, complete with food and drink and autograph opportunities. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

The Live Almanac first reported about Peter's involvement with the movie in December 2013.

On Friday July 6, Micky will also be appearing at a 50th Anniversary screening of The Monkees' 1968 feature film Head at the Regent Theatre in Arlington, Massachusetts.

It's official! Michael Nesmith and Micky Dolenz will commence a 16-city concert tour on June 1 in Chandler, Arizona. Produced by Monkees archivist and author Andrew Sandoval, here is the complete list of dates (which arrived first via Rolling Stone) for "The Monkees Present: The Mike Nesmith & Micky Dolenz Show." 

June 1: Chandler Center For The Arts / Chandler, Arizona
June 2: The Orpheum / Los Angeles, California
June 3: Humphreys Concerts by the Bay / San Diego, California
June 5: The Grove / Anaheim, California
June 6: The Mountain Winery / Saratoga, California
June 8: Bob Hope Theatre / Stockton, California
June 9: Harrah's Lake Tahoe / Stateline, Nevada
June 12: The Paramount / Denver, Colorado
June 14: Copernicus Center / Chicago, Illinois
June 15: Rose Music Center / Huber Heights, Ohio
June 16: Cain Park / Cleveland, Ohio
June 18: Sony Center for the Performing Arts / Toronto, Ontario, Canada
June 19: Centre in the Square / Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
June 21: Keswick Theatre / Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
June 22: Beacon Theatre / New York, New York
June 23: The Paramount / Huntington, New York​
June 25: Count Basie Theatre / Red Bank, New Jersey

Tickets and VIP packages will go on sale February 23 at Monkees.com. VIP Packages include access to soundcheck, a signed, hardbound copy of the tour book, early entry to the show, and a commemorative VIP laminate. (UPDATE 2/26/2018: A concert in Huntington, New York has been added to the tour schedule. The link to purchase tickets now appears above.)

"These 16 special performances will feature songs that span the group's entire career – from its 1966 eponymous debut to 2016’s Good Times," reads the press release, which appears in full below. "The shows will highlight many of Nesmith's compositions, including some that have never been performed live."

Both Michael and Micky also issued statements about the upcoming performances. "I love being onstage with Micky," Nesmith says. "We've been collaborating for over 50 years, so it's hard to believe it’s never been just the two of us. I'm excited to dust off some tunes that I haven’t played for a long time too." Dolenz agreed, adding: "Right from the get-go, I admired Mike's songs," he said. "When we used to get together around the campfire to sing in the early days, we were always doing his songs. We always had such a great a vocal blend; he was the one who encouraged me to write songs of my own. I've always been a big fan and now we finally get to do the Mike & Micky show that we riffed on back when we were shooting The Monkees."

The press release also discusses Peter Tork's absence from the tour. "Original Monkee Peter Tork will not take part in the tour," it reads. "Instead, he’s focusing on Relax Your Mind,  a new album by Peter Tork and Shoe Suede Blues that honors the music of Lead Belly. The album is available now via CD Baby and Bandcamp. “I have in general made no secret of the fact that all these recent years of Monkees-related projects, as fun as they’ve been, have taken up a lot of my time and energy. Moving forward, I have blues projects that I want to give my attention to, hence Relax Your Mind. So, I’m shifting gears for now, but I wish the boys well, and I’ve learned to never say never on things further down the line.”

​LOS ANGELES – Michael Nesmith and Micky Dolenz of The Monkees will hit the road in June for their first-ever national tour as a duo. Billed as “The Monkees Present: The Mike & Micky Show,” these 16 special performances will feature songs that span the group’s entire career – from its 1966 eponymous debut to 2016’s Good Times. The shows will highlight many of Nesmith’s compositions, including some that have never been performed live. The tour also includes two shows in Canada, which represent Nesmith’s first “Monkees” concerts since the band played there in 1969.
 
Tickets and VIP packages will go on sale February 23 at Monkees.com. VIP Packages include access to soundcheck, a signed, hardbound copy of the tour book, early entry to the show and a commemorative VIP laminate.
 
"I love being on stage with Micky,” says Nesmith. “We’ve been collaborating for over 50 years, so it’s hard to believe it’s never been just the two of us. I’m excited to dust off some tunes that I haven’t played for a long time too. These are going to be some fun shows.”
 
"Right from the get-go, I admired Mike's songs. When we used to get together around the campfire to sing in the early days, we were always doing his songs,” says Dolenz. “We always had such a great a vocal blend; he was the one who encouraged me to write songs of my own. I've always been a big fan and now we finally get to do the Mike & Micky show that we riffed on back when we were shooting The Monkees."
 
Original Monkee Peter Tork will not take part in the tour. Instead, he’s focusing on Relax Your Mind,  a new album by  Peter Tork and Shoe Suede Blues that honors the music of Lead Belly. The album is available now via CD Baby and Bandcamp.
 
“I have in general made no secret of the fact that all these recent years of Monkees-related projects, as fun as they’ve been, have taken up a lot of my time and energy. Moving forward, I have blues projects that I want to give my attention to, hence Relax Your Mind. So, I’m shifting gears for now, but I wish the boys well, and I’ve learned to never say never on things further down the line.”
 
“The Monkees Present: The Mike & Micky Show” is the latest chapter in Monkee-mania, a saga that began in 1965 when four young men were cast in a television show about a struggling rock band that was inspired by the Beatles’  A Hard Day’s Night.  Few could have predicted the impact the Monkees would have on music and pop culture at large, one that still reverberates more than 50 years later.
 
Formed in Los Angeles for the eponymous television series, the quartet of Dolenz, Nesmith, Tork and the late Davy Jones brought a singular mix of pop, rock, psychedelia, Broadway and country to their music. The Monkees’ first single, “Last Train to Clarksville,” was released in 1966 and quickly headed for the top spot of the Billboard charts, where it would ultimately sit for 13 of the 78 weeks it remained in the Top 200. (Two decades later, in the midst of a new burst of Monkee-mania, The Monkees  popped back onto the charts, bringing the total number of weeks to 102.) 
 
By the time the series aired its final new episode on March 25, 1968, the Monkees had seen three further albums top the charts --More of the Monkees,  Headquarters, and Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd.  All were released in 1967, staggeringly enough, racking up several more hit singles, with “I’m A Believer,” “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone,” “A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You,” “The Girl I Knew Somewhere,” “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” “Words,” “Daydream Believer,” “Valleri,” and “Tapioca Tundra” all finding their way into the Billboard Top 40. The final tally: 16 million albums and 7.5 million singles sold in a mere 2 1/2 years.
 
After the series’ two-season run, the group went on to star in the cult feature film  Head (co-written by Jack Nicholson) and a TV special (33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee) while also continuing to record new material. But as the ’60s gave way to the ’70s, the members of the Monkees eventually gave in to their individual musical interests and went their separate ways . . . for awhile.
 
In February 1986, after MTV broadcast a marathon of The Monkees, Dolenz, Jones, and Tork reunited for a 20th anniversary tour, with Nesmith joining them onstage for the Los Angeles date of the tour. In 1996, all four members of the group reunited for a new album (Justus) and TV special (Hey, Hey, It’s the Monkees).
 
In the wake of Jones’s death on February 29, 2012, the surviving members of the Monkees reunited and performed a series of concerts. The shows were received so triumphantly that Dolenz, Nesmith and Tork returned the following summer for a tour dubbed, “A Midsummer’s Night With the Monkees.”
 
To celebrate the Monkees’ 50th anniversary in 2016, the surviving members of the band recorded the critically acclaimed album Good Times. Much like the Monkees’ early albums, it featured tracks written for the band by a group of gifted songwriters, including Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie), Rivers Cuomo (Weezer), Andy Partridge (XTC) and more. To support the album, Dolenz and Tork launched a successful tour that featured Nesmith on four shows.

Last night at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, California, Micky Dolenz participated in a benefit concert for the Autism Think Tank. The show was presented by the Wild Honey Foundation and spotlighted the music of Buffalo Springfield. Richie Furay, Buffalo Springfield co-founder, was also part of the event, and Monkees archivist and producer Andrew Sandoval played in the band.

 The Glorious Corner: Eric Clapton, Kingsman, Richie Sambora, Micky Dolenz and More!

UPDATE 5/26/2018: Here's a preview of Micky's appearance. Check your local listings at www.PBS.org or watch it on the brand new Ray Stevens Roku Channel.

In an interview with Rolling Stone associate editor Andy Greene published a short while ago on the magazine’s website, Michael Nesmith discussed his overwhelming pleasure concerning the revival of the First National Band's music in concert. He also reflected on his solo career in the early 1970s as country rock began to take form in bands like The Eagles while, much to his dismay, The First National Band crumbled. "I wanted it to be one of the great bands in the world playing some of the great music in the world with some of the great people in the world," Nez told Greene. "Nothing less than that. I thought, 'Well, why can't I play stadiums with the First National Band?'"

The article also confirms what has been rumored for the last several months that both Nesmith and Micky Dolenz are likely to conduct a tour as "The Monkees" at some point in 2018. “So the idea of us going out and doing something under the banner of the Monkees is under discussion," according to Michael. "The agents are standing there with a stack of offers. I think they are running through June, but we have not accepted anything." Nez had previously announced, albeit casually, that he was planning to work with Micky at some point this year. "This isn't Monkee Michael and Monkee Micky going out," he continued. "If we go out on another tour and we do it and use the Monkees logo and name to promote it, it will be very different than a Monkees show. I mean, it'll be Monkees music, but there's no pretense there about Micky and I being the Monkees. We're not. We're the remnants, but we'll have a good time if we do it." Greene also directly addresses questions surrounding Peter Tork’s position in The Monkees with a quote from Peter himself. “I’m shifting gears for now, but I wish the boys well,” Peter said, noting his desire to focus on current projects with Shoe Suede Blues. “And I’ve learned to never say never on things further down the line."

Follow the link at the top of this post for the entire Rolling Stone interview with Nez and more from Peter, or read it in full below. And stay tuned to the Live Almanac for further updates!

Michael Nesmith couldn't believe what he was seeing when he walked onstage at the San Bernardino, California, club Pappy & Harriet's Palace earlier this month. It was his first gig with his early-Seventies country-rock group the First National Band since they split 46 years ago amid raging public disinterest, yet here was a capacity crowd euphorically singing along to songs drawn from a trio of albums that never went higher than Number 143 on the Billboard album chart.

"This is something I've dreamed about, but it's never actually happened to me," says Nesmith. "The audience, before I start singing each song, began singing them back to me. Usually I just get ignored and nobody plays attention to me. On this tour, audiences have actually been weeping and saying, 'This is the greatest music that never got heard.' It's getting me verklempt."

Of course, playing to rapturous audiences is nothing new to Michael Nesmith. As the Monkee in the green wool hat, he performed for throngs of shrieking teenage fans in the 1960s. In recent years, he's periodically toured with his surviving bandmates Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork. But to him, playing with the First National Band is a wildly different experience. "It's qualitatively different because Monkees crowds are there because of the television show," he says. "They are remembering that time that we did this funny thing in the haunted house with the hillbillies and Mr. Schneider. This is pure, unadulterated, romantic and spiritual love that happens when great music is sung. And I never expected it. Not in my life."

Nesmith formed the First National Band right around the time he walked away from the Monkees in 1970. Working with pedal-steel guitarist O.J. Rhodes, bassist John London and drummer John Ware, he fused country and rock in a way that had never been heard before. "It was an amalgam of something that happened in the countercultural revolution of the 1960s and 1970s," he says, "between television and phonograph records, live bands and live studio acts." Lead single "Joanne" reached Number 21 on the Hot 100, but the band's debut, 1970's Magnetic South, was a complete bomb. Follow-up efforts Loose Salute and Nevada Fighter did no better and the group split just two years after it all began.

It was a crushing experience for Nesmith, especially since he started the group with stratospheric dreams. "I wanted it to be one of the great bands in the world playing some of the great music in the world with some of the great people in the world," he says. "Nothing less than that. I thought, 'Well, why can't I play stadiums with the First National Band?'"

The agony grew worse just months after they split when Linda Ronstadt's live backing band named themselves the Eagles and began landing massive radio hits with country-rock songs like "Take It Easy" and "Peaceful Easy Feeling." "I was heartbroken beyond speech," says Nesmith. "I couldn't even utter the words 'the Eagles' and I loved Hotel California and I love the Eagles, the Flying Burrito Brothers and the Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo, all that stuff. That was right in my wheelhouse and I was agonized, Van Gogh–agonized, not to compare myself to him, but I wanted to cut something off because I was like, 'Why is this happening?' The Eagles now have the biggest selling album of all time and mine is sitting in the closet of a closed record company?"

Through the rest of 1970s he continued to record solo albums that were somehow even less popular than his First National Band work – including the ironically titled And the Hits Just Keep on Comin' – but his attention gradually turned toward business ventures. (His mother invented Liquid Paper and left him a substantial fortune when she passed away in 1980.) A 1996 Monkees reunion fizzled out after a brief U.K. tour, but in 2012 he returned to the band for a series of highly successful tours. He eventually left the touring unit, but he participated in the group's 2016 comeback album Good Times! That year, he played with the group at the Pantages Theater in Los Angeles at a show that was billed as his final appearance with the band.

Around that time, urged on by his sons Christian and Jonathan along with some California-based concert promoters, he began thinking about resurrecting the First National Band. Despite selling virtually no records, the group slowly developed a passionate, cult following over the years as fans stumbled upon the old albums.  A legitimate reunion was out of the question since Rhodes and London have passed away and Ware, at age 73, told Nesmith that he's simply too old to go back on the road. That allowed Christian Nesmith – an accomplished musician in his own right, who was recently part of the Monkees' touring band – to assemble a new lineup of the First National Band that includes bassist Jason Chesney, pedal-steel guitarist Pete Finney, drummer Christopher Allis, and vocalists Amy Spear and Circe Link. Christian Nesmith plays guitar and Jonathan Nesmith is on piano, guitar and vocals.

Completely unsure if there was an audience, they put a single show at the 500-seat Troubadour on sale and watched in amazement when it sold out in 42 minutes. "That sent a shockwave through the promotion company," says Nesmith. Four dates were added at clubs around California, which wrapped up January 28th at the the Chapel in San Francisco with special guest Ben Gibbard. The set list focuses on songs from the three First National Band albums but also features later tunes like 1977's "Rio" along with "Different Drum," a tune Nesmith wrote right before he joined the Monkees in 1965 that Linda Ronstadt turned into a big hit. There are no firm plans for other shows, but Nesmith says they are seriously looking into playing at least a few more gigs in markets outside California sometime later this year.

The only Monkees song in the First National Band repertoire is "Papa Gene's Blues," but that doesn't mean Nesmith has completely turned his back on his original band. He's deep into talks with promoters about a summer tour where he'd share the stage with Micky Dolenz. "Mick is a great performer," says Nesmith. "I love working with him. He's a wonderful guy. So the idea of us going out and doing something under the banner of the Monkees is under discussion. The agents are standing there with a stack of offers. I think they are running through June, but we have not accepted anything."

If such a tour does happen, it won't mean, at least to Nesmith, that he's going back on his 2016 pledge that Monkee Michael walked offstage forever at the 2016 Pantages Theater show. "This isn't Monkee Michael and Monkee Micky going out," he says. "If we go out on another tour and we do it and use the Monkees logo and name to promote it, it will be very different than a Monkees show. I mean, it'll be Monkees music, but there's no pretense there about Micky and I being the Monkees. We're not. We're the remnants, but we'll have a good time if we do it."

This proposed tour begs a very obvious question: Why isn't Peter Tork involved? Nez picked his words very carefully when we posed this to him. "Well, you'd have to ask Peter," he says. "I'm afraid I would betray a confidence if I said any more than, 'This is not a right time for him.' I don't think it would untoward for you to give him a call and just launch the question. He has his reasons. They are very private. If he's willing to share them with you, so be it."

We reached out to Peter Tork and got this response via email: "Nez's comment sounds oddly worded," he wrote. "Although he and I have not been in touch for more than a year (which is not unusual in our history), I have in general made no secret of the fact that all these recent years of Monkees-related projects, as fun as they’ve been, have taken up a lot of my time and energy. Moving forward I have blues projects that I want to give my attention to and focused on putting together some shows with my band, Shoe Suede Blues in support of our new CD Relax Your Mind, a Lead Belly tribute project that's very dear to my heart. So, I’m shifting gears for now, but I wish the boys well, and I’ve learned to never say never on things further down the line."

Whatever happens going forward, right now Nez is focused on the future of the First National Band and figuring out exactly why it's suddenly become so popular. "Dare I say it became hipster music?" he asked. "No. I don't say that. But dare I say that it's music whose time has come? I'm pretty confident in saying something like that. I never thought it would happen."

Click on the image below to purchase tickets!

Michael Nesmith previously announced that a revamped First National Band would return to the concert stage this January, and now three more shows have been added to the itinerary. Click each poster below for more information and to purchase tickets. 

Hot on the heels of yesterday's announcement of the More Of The Monkees super deluxe edition by Rhino Records, Michael Nesmith has unveiled his first concert engagements for 2018 with a brand new lineup of The First National Band. 

The First National Band was Nesmith's initial post-Monkees outfit that consisted of Red Rhodes, John London, and John Ware. The group released three acclaimed albums between 1970 and 1971, but their live performance history was fairly limited. Sadly, both Rhodes and London have passed away. The 2018 edition of the First National Band will consist of Christian Nesmith (guitar), Jonathan Nesmith (piano/guitar/vocals), Circe Link (vocals), Christopher Allis (drums), Jason Chesney (bass), Amy Spear (vocals), and Pete Finney (pedal steel). 

In January, for two dates in California, Nesmith will bring the music of The First National Band back to the live arena with a series of shows focused on his early 1970s RCA recordings, including a concert on January 25th at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, where he debuted the First National Band in March 1970. A press release on Monkees.com reported the following: "Songs like 'Different Drum' (a Top 20 hit for Linda Ronstadt & The Stone Poneys), 'Listen to the Band' (re-recorded by the FNB in 1970), 'Some of Shelly’s Blues' (covered by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band), and 'Silver Moon' will join lesser-known but equally transcendent album sides in a rebirth of what was labeled by critics as 'the greatest music that you never heard.'" It is expected that dates will be added nationwide. 

Monkees archivist Andrew Sandoval confirmed on Twitter that he will be involved in these concerts, and that he hopes live recordings will become a reality. "For me personally, this is the music of Michael's that I always come back to - revelatory, heartfelt and transcendent," Sandoval wrote on Facebook. "The albums - Magnetic South, Loose Salute, Nevada Fighter, Hits Keeps Coming, Ranch Stash & Tantamount - are brimming with brilliance. Those of you who have followed his story know that 'Papa Nes' became Nez, and went in new directions after this phase of his solo career. For these shows he will at long last call back to these records with full-blown country-rock backing and I am so excited to hear the results.​" Sandoval also noted on Facebook that John Ware is contemplating a cameo appearance.
​
Tickets for the California shows will go on sale on Friday:

​January 23, 2018: The Coach House / San Juan Capistrano, California
January 25, 2018: The Troubadour / West Hollywood, California

Here is the full press release about the new activities surrounding the First National Band, courtesy of Monkees.com:

Almost fifty years ago, in May 1968, Michael Nesmith ventured to Nashville to record a series of groundbreaking sessions with local musicians. What they produced is now recognized as the foundation of the country-rock and alt-country movements.

"I could just feel this happening, that there was this 'thing,'" recalled Nez. "So, I headed off to Nashville to see if I couldn't get some of the Nashville country thing into the rock'n'roll or vice versa."

Nez's intuition was correct; he was on the leading edge of a new genre. His exploratory work caught the attention of legendary RCA A&R man Felton Jarvis who had produced the Nashville sessions with Nez. In February 1970, Jarvis signed Nez and his new band, the First National Band (pedal steel virtuoso Red Rhodes, bassist John London, and drummer John Ware), to a deal with the venerable imprint and produced their first record, Magnetic South.

Despite the eight innovative country-rock LP's Nesmith created between 1970 and 1978, he is one of the less heralded architects of the genre. The First National Band's three classic albums -- Magnetic South, Loose Salute, and Nevada Fighter -- spawned four charting singles, including "Joanne" which reached #21 on the Billboard Top 100. However, live success for the fledgling band was harder to come by and the musicians Nez collected to bring his country-rock dream to market soon scattered. Nez played out his remaining RCA albums with Red Rhodes and toured with him throughout the '70s. Yet the full-blown sounds of the First National Band were never to be heard on the concert stage again.

In January 2018, Michael Nesmith will bring this music back to the live arena with a series of shows focused on his RCA recordings, including a show on January 25th at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, where he debuted the First National Band in March 1970. Songs like "Different Drum" (a Top 20 hit for Linda Ronstadt & The Stone Poneys), "Listen to the Band", "Some of Shelly's Blues" (covered by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band), and "Silver Moon" will join lesser-known but equally transcendent album sides in a rebirth of what was labeled by critics as "the greatest music that you never heard."

UPDATE 11/8/2017: Michael's Videoranch3D website has taken a moment to look back at the First National Band:

The Original Band

"[John] Ware wisely pointed out that if he and John [London] were my band, we could not only record but could tour in support of the records we made, something the Nashville first-call session guys seldom did for a new band. We would be a real band rather than a pure studio effort. ... [John] wondered who I might like to approach, and my first choice was Red Rhodes. I had no hope of him accepting, but he was my first choice. A pedal steel guitar player -- especially a magical-reality player like Red -- was critical-path for the music in my head."

-Michael Nesmith, Infinite Tuesday: An Autobiographical Riff

Red Rhodes
Pedal Steel Guitar
Nez first came across Red at The Palomino Club, a popular country western spot in North Hollywood, where Red was in the house band. Red played with Nez throughout the 1970s. It is impossible to imagine Nez's music without Red's playing. Red's final performances before his death were with Nez on his ...tropical campfires... album and tour in 1992.

John London
Bass
John began working with Nez as a duo before they left San Antonio for Hollywood in the mid-60s. After joining The Survivors with Nez, he was Nez's stand-in on The Monkees. He met John Ware while working as a bass player for Linda Ronstadt.
​
John Ware
Drums
Prior to joining the First National Band, John attended Pomona College in Claremont, CA, and met John London while playing in Linda Ronstadt's touring band. Years after the First National Band dissolved, he joined Nez for Live at the Palais, recorded at the Palais Theatre, Melbourne, Australia, in 1977.

UPDATE 11/21/2017: The concert at the Troubadour in Hollywood sold out in less than an hour, and as of November 21, there are no longer tickets available for the performance at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano.

UPDATE 11/28/2017:

Three more shows added for First National Band in California

UPDATE 12/16/2017:

Meet & Greets with Nez announced for string of First National Band shows