Wednesday, February 2, 2022

Micahel Nesmith - 1992-09-16 - Austin City Limits (TV Broadcast), Austin, TX

Michael Nesmith

1992-09-16 (Recording date, broadcast date in early 1993)
Austin City Limits TV Show, Austin, TX
Broadcast recording, very good quality
Mp3@192-320 kbps

Moving forward with more from Michael Nesmith. Heading into the late '70's, Nesmith continued to develop his Pacific Arts Multimedia Co., exploring the potential for music and comedy videos as an entertainment package for home sales. He released two more albums on his label, From a Radio Engine to a Photon Wing (1977) and Infinite Rider on the Big Dogma (1979), also producing whimsical music videos for several of the songs. Around this time he was developing Pacific Arts into a leader in home video production and distribution, and he also developed Pop Clips, a music video TV show, which was sold to later become the basis for MTV. In 1981, Nesmith wrote, produced, starred in, and released Elephant Parts, a long-form video consisting of music and comedy skits for home video sales, which won the very first Grammy for music videos. During the '80's, Michael moved away from making records, and having already become the leading distributor of non-theatrical home videos, Pacific Arts turned to movie production as well, with Michael producing (and usually making a small appearance) in the cult films Time Rider (1982), Repo Man (1984), and Tapeheads (1988). Spurred by a popular resurgence in interest in The Monkees due to rebroadcasts of the TV show on MTV and Nickelodeon, a 20th Anniversary Reunion of The Monkees was announced in 1986, and although Michael was more amenable to a reunion by this time, he was unable to participate (due to conflicting prior commitments), but  did appear in a special Christmas Monkees video for MTV that same year, and also joined the other Monkees in 1989 for a reunion concert, as well as their Hollywood Walk of Fame dedication ceremony that year. In 1992, Nesmith returned to his his solo music career, releasing his first album of new music since 1979, Tropical Campfires (1992). To promote the album he played a series of US shows, culminating in an appearance on Austin City Limits. The album was hailed by AllMusic critic Matthew Greenwald as 'one of the finest and most underrated albums of the 1990's'.  Here today, I have the performances from Michael's Austin City Limits show. Unfortunately, Michael was only given a half-hour on the show, so I have supplemented the 5 ACL songs with some additional songs played at his 1992 shows, which feature mostly the new songs from Tropical Campfires, with just a couple of older songs, to fill out the set to a full album length.These shows also feature the last performances of ace pedal steel guitarist Orville 'Red' Rhodes, who became ill shortly after these appearances, and later died in 1995. Once again, a fine show featuring these later Nesmith songs.

Tracklist:
1. Joanne
2. Laugh Kills Lonesome
3. Yellow Butterfly
4. Twilight On The Trail
5. Rio
Bonus Tracks (From a different 1992 US Live show):
6. Moon Over The Rio Grande
7. Juliana
8. I Am Not That
9. Rising In Love
10. Different Drum

Band:
Michael Nesmith - vocals, guitar
Red Rhodes - pedal steel guitar
John Jorgenson - guitar
Joe Chemay - bass
John Hobbs - keyboards
Luis Conte - percussion

Michael Nesmith_1992-9-16_Austin City Limits.rar