This Lovin' Time

An appreciation of Peter Tork. | Frequently used tags | Curated by @harrisonarchive. "We’ve all got to stick together or we’re all going to come unglued. Without community, the individual is dead." - Peter Tork, The Life, May 3, 1996

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Micky and Peter interviewed at the Hard Rock Cafe in NYC on May 28, 1986.

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Backstage in Salt Lake City on May 17, 1968. Photo by Henry Diltz.

“Can You Dig It started off as a chart, I mean, the basic signature chord change I wrote in college and didn’t knew what to do with it, and then a couple years later — and I’d always wondered what to do with it — and the a couple of years later, I just… I was daydreaming on the subject of esoteric reading I’d been doing and the lyric just popped out. And I was sitting int he dressing room… I was not in front of the microphone, and suddenly it just all fell out of me on paper, and I said, ‘Oh, here it is!’ and I circled it, and it matches the chords and everything, and that was that.” - Peter Tork, interviewed by Jack Garrett, 2004 “I wrote a set of chords once [in college] and thought, 'Gosh, this is great.’ I couldn’t think of anything to do with them. A couple years later I wrote 'Can You Dig It,’ to those chords. They were… let’s see: D-minor to B-flat major 7th to an E diminished 9th chord. That’s a really interesting way to set it up to the V chord. Or to look at it another way: we’re in A — Arab scale, which is— I don’t want to get too heavy. But it’s an unusual scale in Western music, in pop music. And it worked fine for me. I was just really glad. It just fell out of my hands again. It really felt good.” - Peter Tork, Shanley On Music, 2014 “‘Can You Dig It’ is about the Tao. The hook line I wrote in my dressing room on the set [of the television series in 1967]. The chords for the chorus I’d written in college, and [they] had just stuck with me. I hadn’t been able to do a thing with them until I was sittin’ there, just writin’ on a scrap of paper with ideas, and I wrote, 'Can you dig it?/Do you know/Would you care to let it show?’ Those three as a triplet — as opposed to a couplet. I just looked at them and [went], 'Wow!’ I grabbed a pencil and circled those three. They were part of a quatrain. I said, ‘Wait a minute. No, this works best as a little three-line chorus.’” - Peter Tork, Head box set liner notes “When I recorded ‘Can You Dig It,’ the guitar solo originally ran about three or four minutes all by itself. We cut that back to a minute and a half. Bob Rafelson took a pair of scissors and snipped off the end of it. He didn’t ask me to shorten it, which I would have been glad to do. He just chopped it off. Son of a bitch! I have a lot of gripes about that, but that’s neither here nor there.” - Peter Tork, Blitz!, May/June 1980 ("Can You Dig It" (demo) | You can watch Peter perform the song live during The Monkees' 1987 tour.)

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From Peter Tork’s MTV guest VJ spot on May 4, 1986: The Tork Touch Method of Semi-Professional Banjo Playing.

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Some of “Cruisin’” (at the Universal Amphitheater in 1989).

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Peter Tork at Monterey Pop Festival, June 1967.

“I don’t know that [David] Crosby was talking about drugs when he was talking about my innocence. I am absolutely of the optimistic believer in the better angels of our nature type of guy, and I absolutely was then. Being that way, you tend to overlook the harder realities. The British have this expression, gobsmacked, which is a great expression — it’s like being hit with a big wet fish. As reality hit me, I was gobsmacked at every turn, and years and years later, now, as we’re talking, I think I’ve had my education and I’m not stupid about the way things are, but I still believe in the sunnier angels of our nature. I’ve just become less sanguine about how we were going to fix the world by tomorrow. That’s clearly not going to happen, because too many people have too much of a stake in what’s wrong with the world, as far as I’m concerned, and I believe it’s all fear. I don’t believe anybody, given the full choice — except for sociopaths — would prefer to be operating on a basis of greed and acquisition, because everybody knows that the actual possession of things themselves does not generate any longterm satisfaction. Everybody knows this, and yet people keep chasing the carrot, even though they sort of know that it’s tied to their own heads and they’ll never get it, they still keep chasing it because they don’t know how to.” - Peter Tork, 2007 interview, published by Rolling Stone in 2019

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Peter Tork, late 1966.

“[On] April, 3, 1966, [Peter] Tork opened for blues legend Muddy Waters at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. […] [Tork] remembers the 1966 nightclub show well. ‘I learned a valuable lesson there,’ he said in an interview from his home in Connecticut. ‘Folks came to hear Muddy Waters sing the blues. The opening act should play the blues.’ Tork, 64, said he played pop music until the last song, when he played a blues number. Afterward, Waters’ famous harmonica player, James Cotton, came up to him and said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me you did the blues? I would have come up and played the harp with you!’ Tork realized he missed the opportunity of a lifetime to play with Cotton, as well as to give the audience members what they came for.” - Toledo Blade, July 2008

“In a casual conversation with Monkee Peter Tork recently, I discovered that not only did he perform at Hollywood’s Troubadour, but I was actually at his opening there, April 3, 1966. Unfortunately, while Pete was making his début, I was backstage interviewing Muddy Waters, who was headlining! However, I did find the review of the show in the April 4 ‘Daily Variety,’ which described Peter as ‘a youthful folkster with a rock look.’ (Little did they know!) Though the overall program including Peter’s spot, was called excellent, he himself was declared ‘less successful and apparently new. He’s uneven, shows vocal insecurities in ballads, but hits a nice stride in what he calls a terror song, “Broken In The Dust Again,” and in a social message, “I Truly Understand.”’” - Tracy Thomas, NME, March 18, 1967

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The Monkees in Chicago, 1966.

“The first time [Tork] realized the show was going to make him a star was even before it had been screened.  ‘There was this time when we were doing a publicity tour before the show had aired and we were looking over this balcony at a few girls waiting outside. What we didn’t see was a huge group of girls standing under the balcony.  ‘I went downstairs to get something and was almost crushed to death by these girls. I had to be rescued by the security guards. Right then and there I realized we had been accepted as pop stars. That’s when I first had an idea of how big this was going to be. They were really good times.’” - Lancashire Telegraph (May 23, 2008)

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Monkee Mail from Peter's stint as guest VJ on MTV, 1986.

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Peter Tork onstage and backstage with Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Coco Dolenz, Rodney Bingenheimer and members of the Elton John band at the Starwood Club in Hollywood on March 24, 1977. Photo 3 by Henry Diltz; photo 4 from the collection of Rodney Bingenheimer, published in Monkees Tale (1985).

“In the mid-seventies, Tork’s place in the human scheme of things was anything but clear. ‘I was kind of half wanting to get my career back together again, but not doing a great deal about it,’ he said. ‘I was playing odds and ends here and there and not making out terribly well. The woman I was living with, who would later become my wife, was teaching at a school on the beach in southern California. Through the grapevine we heard that there was a job open at a small private school in Santa Monica.’ Another ego might have found the shift in rank disastrous, a falling from grace to mere mortalhood, with the screams of the crowds – instead of the alarm clock – still ringing in your ears. ‘I believe I’m meant to do whatever it is I do,’ Tork stated. ‘I don’t want to say it was easy, but sometimes getting up at eleven o'clock is not easy for me now.’ The two professions were not entirely dissimilar. ‘You try to be of use,’ he said. ‘You try not to just while away the empty hours, either as an entertainer or a teacher. The long-term relationship that you build up in teaching with what could be compared to an audience has a dynamic of its own – that I found to be very interesting. But the thrill of a good job of entertaining, when you know you’re hot and everybody else thinks you’re hot, is really unmatched for me.’ Tork taught English at this school for a year until its director died and the school collapsed. He found another teaching job at a different school, one that had a much more restrictive atmosphere. ‘What had gotten me out of organized show business in the first place,’ said Tork, ‘were the tensions involved with having to deal with power-hungry people. I thought, if this is what show business is like, I don’t want to have any part of it. Then, when I worked at this highly autocratic school, I found exactly the same things going on. It was at that point that I finally decided to make my push for show business again. I thought I might as well do what I like to do, where there’s a chance for the big bucks. Even if I don’t have them, at least I’ll be doing what I enjoy.’” - When The Music Mattered (1984)

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Happy Spring!

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With journalist Joie Gould. Photos courtesy of Joie Gould Gati, presumably (via Tomorrow Never Knows).

“So I got to hang out with them, and I became really friendly more with, I think, Peter Tork and Mike Nesmith were my really close buddies. I hung out with them a lot. I think [Peter and Mike] were much more mature. They were into music and you could really sit and talk to them. Peter was really very, very sweet, very spiritual, very sweet, and I would just often go to his [home] to have lunch. In fact, one day, I was — I went up there to have lunch with him and there was a guy sleeping on his couch that night. And he said, ‘Oh, Stephen’s going to join us for lunch.’ And I said, ‘Oh, great.’ It was Stephen Stills… He was telling me he was a guitarist and he was a songwriter, And I said, ‘You know, I have a column, I’m going to put you in my column because on day you might be famous.’ (Laughs) I thought I was doing him a favor. And then he went on very quickly after that to become really huge… He was sleeping on Peter’s couch when I first met him.” - Joie Gould Gati, Plastic EP Live TV, May 2021 “Mike and Peter, they were just really super, super kind, super nice.” - Joie Gould Gati, Tomorrow Never Knows, Warren Brown - The Beatles Kingdom, October 2020 And revisiting this excerpt: “I wandered into the studio, and watched Peter testing all the instruments for sound. He was completely engrossed, so I just sat and watched him in fascination. When my presence was realized, he stopped, and came over to give me my usual ‘hello-hug’ and we chatted about the album, and then would you believe he sang me a little of […] FOR PETE’S SAKE. Peter really is so full of warmth and love, and it’s marvelous to see these beautiful qualities coming through in his singing.” - article by Joie Gould, Fabulous 208, July 1, 1967

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“[Peter] describes himself as ‘5'10″ tall with long, light-brown hair, a ski-slope nose, brown eyes and a dimple.” - Monkee Spectacular (April 1967)

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Photo 2 from the '90s, via Nurit Wilde on Instagram.

“I — I can’t tell you how devastated I was when I heard that he was ill, and then when he died. I was very sad, because Peter was a kind, gentle guy. He helped a lot of people, you know; that’s why he went broke. Some people, like Bobby Hammer, took great advantage of him. You know, he gave Bobby thousands and thousands of dollars to buy camera equipment — they were gonna do a movie, you know. But I was very heartbroken when Peter died. I still think about him, you know. He saved my life, I would say. Because when I found myself pregnant with no money, I had no money, you know, I was getting no support from this baby’s father, I needed a place to live. And Peter, you know, invited me to live, he invited me to come and live at his house so they could all take care of me, because I was the first one of that bunch that had a baby. He was an angel. He was an angel masquerading as a Monkee. But he really was just a wonderful guy. Very generous, not just to me, to many people. Too generous.” - Nurit Wilde, interviewed in June 2021 by Joe Russo for The Monkees Pad Show ep. 12

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With Valerie Kairys Venet on the set of the TV show, and in 2016. (The last photo is a selfie taken by Peter - as Valerie recalled and shared on Facebook.)

Q: “What was it like having Peter Tork as a roommate [after the pilot episode]?” Valerie Kairys Venet: “Oh, god, it was wonderful. Are you kidding? We made him sing for his supper, my roommate and I. See, I had a roommate and so I called her up and I said, you know, I said, ‘...there’s this actor that I worked with and, you know, he’s from Connecticut and he doesn’t really have a place to stay here and until… you know, we just finished the pilot and, you know, he’s gonna wait for the pilot to be sold. Is it okay if he comes and stays with us?’ She’s an actress, too, you know, and she said, ‘Oh, yeah, sure, we’ll give him the downstairs.’ And I said, ‘Okay.’ So he had the couch in the downstairs, and we made him sing. (Laughs) He was wonderful. He really did enjoy it too, come on, you know. Peter has just been so dear to me and to my son. He’s a wonderful person and I love him dearly. I hope that they all hear me and they know how much I love them.” - Zilch Podcast, No. 20, 2014 “I just fell in love with those guys. They were all so sweet. […] Really the nicest guys in the world. I do consider them family, my TV brothers. I know they do love me and I love them very much. And it was so great on that set. And you’re right, they had so much pressure on them and everything. But every morning on the set, you know, you walk out to see what they’re lighting, get your coffee and whatever, see what they’re lighting or what they’re setting up there, and here comes Davy, big hug, big kiss, you know, ‘Good morning.’ And then, you know, more arms around me, oh, there’s Peter and, you know, ‘Good morning.’ And, you know, hug Micky, hug Michael. And that’s the way we were, my relationship with them: very loving, very loving. To this day. These guys are so, so much a part of my life. [...] And then [Peter] went to stay with Michael and Phyllis, and I took him over to Michael’s house after that. But that was wonderful because Peter was a fine musician, and he — I said, ‘Where’s your banjo?’ And he said, ‘Oh, I had to pawn it, I was broke.’ And I said, ‘Oh, no!’ I said, ‘We can’t have that.’ And so, you know, we went to the pawn shop and I got that out for him. That’s the first time I’m saying this, telling this story publicly. But bless his heart, I loved Peter so much. […] [Peter] was brilliant [as a musician]. He was also a teacher, he was a high school teacher. […] And the students loved him, and that’s something in high school, you know? That’s something in high school. He was such a good person.” - Valerie Kairys Venet, The Vintage Rock & Pop Shop, 89.1 WFDU FM, July 14, 2019 (Photo 3) “Pantages Theatre. The last time I saw Peter. Thank God we got to say ‘I love you.’” - Valerie Kairys Venet, Facebook, September 2019

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Remembering Davy.

“I enjoyed [Micky] the most, respected Mike the most, and loved Davy the most.” - Peter Tork, Hartford Courant (February 26, 1982) “[David] was the one member in the group that I had the strongest human connection with. I still have two guys that I love and respect left from the band, but we share a different dynamic.” - Peter Tork, Review Mag (May 27, 2016) “Davy adored performing, and adored meeting and greeting his fans. He was tireless in making himself available to sing a song, do a dance, shake a hand; whatever was asked. I had heart-to-heart moments with him that were among the best in my life. I was blessed to know and work closely with him. He was one in about 6 billion, give or take. We won’t see his like again. He left much too soon. I share your sadness. Thank you again for this chance to contribute. God bless and keep you all.” - Peter Tork in a note for a Pennsylvania memorial event for Davy, also shared via Peter’s official Facebook page (2012)

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Q: “What’s your idea of serenity?” Peter Tork: “Knowing that it’s okay that things aren’t okay.” - Together, (November/December 2010)

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"Monkees Mind Their Manor" - directed by Peter - aired on February 26, 1968. (More about that directorial debut and some behind the scenes photos in an older post.)

“‘The Monkees Mind Their Manor’ episode of ‘The Monkees’ which Peter Tork directed, turned out so well that NBC executives decided to move its air date three weeks earlier to Feb. 26.” - The Paducah Sun, March 12, 1968 "I think Micky’s job, Micky’s ‘Frodis Caper,’ I thought that was a brilliant job, and, and I think I did well; I don’t think I did as well as Micky by a long shot, but I thought that I did do some funny bits, and captured some moments that — I loved throwing Jack Williams, our prop man, into the show. And I loved doing, you know, break-the-frame reality kinds of things, the couple of running jokes which I thought were really fine. And I enjoyed myself directing very much. And I’m glad to say, what with a little competent help, we were able to help me cover my own weak spots, we were able to do, I thought, a real creditable job." - Peter Tork, Headquarters radio, September 1989