I just put this on Joyce's memoirs Substack here
This is a follow up to this little (fictional) thing I wrote a few months ago and passed along last Thursday
Sometime in the late Summer/Early Fall of 2004, I bought and heard the Toy Matinee CD, which was one of the late Kevin Gilbert’s bands. It kind of changed my life or at least introduced me to who would become my favorite musician ever.
So, when I met Joyce in 2011, at KFAI radio, we talked about our taste in music and our favorite bands and musicians. Joyce loved The Monkees and maybe even more, Michael Nesmith. So, in talking about music and getting to know each other, we made mix tapes which I believe I went over in this video on YouTube soon after she passed.
And I included “Last Plane Out” I believe on 1 of those mixes. And I later burned or maybe even lent her a copy of the Toy Matinee cd. I myself ended up listening to some Monkees and Michael Nesmith not long after that as well. Especially before we saw The Monkees in July 2011.
Well Joyce wasn’t all that grabbed by Toy Matinee. She didn’t hate it, but she wasn’t loving it enough to go back to it. So, I kind of put on hold trying to get her into Kevin Gilbert’s music for a while. Eventually I ended playing her a song titled “Finally Over You” which was only recently released on Kevin Gilbert’s estate compilation “Nuts” in 2009.
She did really dig “Finally Over You,” and came to play it occasionally on YouTube (it-was, but sadly, now is not available to stream on there or anywhere online I don’t believe).
Kevin Gilbert’s estate started releasing a lot of limited printed items more or less in 2009 and have continued through just this past Friday. A lot of unreleased recordings from his bands and solo work. In the time I was with Joyce, they came out periodically. I would estimate maybe around 20 releases, some re-released from out-of-print titles, to covers, to live recordings, to demos, etc.
I was buying them all of course, and I would almost always put them on, often in the car, so Joyce would hear them. She got to know Kevin’s voice among other things. But other than the 1 tune “Finally Over You” she never gravitated to any other tracks really.
Even when Kevin and his live Toy Matinee bandmate Marc Bonilla covered The Monkees “Pleasant Valley Sunday” on the radio once (KLOS). Kevin said though “no ba ba ba’s” lol.
Also many things would come up that I got to point out to her, with the connections Kevin Gilbert had to many musicians she enjoyed. And she rolled her eyes at me, and I couldn’t help but grin and laugh at her.
-Sheryl Crow was Kevin Gilbert’s girlfriend. Sheryl played on the live touring version of Toy Matinee in and is on “Live at the Roxy” on keys and background vocals in fact. Joyce was a pretty big Sheryl Crow fan. She enjoyed her 90’s music especially including the “Tuesday Night Music Club” album, which was in effect her debut album (she had a previous album that was and may still be unreleased though).
Much of the music on Tuesday Night Music Club album was actually written by Kevin Gilbert and his co-musicians who would jam on Tuesday nights, hence the name. Kevin was still dating Sheryl at the time. Joyce however, was not aware of who Kevin Gilbert was until meeting me, including him and the others on that album really.
-Joyce enjoyed Moulin Rouge! likely driven by one of her Hollywood guys Ewan McGregor’s role. On the soundtrack, the tune “Come What May” is included, which was composed by Tuesday Night Music Club members David Baerwald (of David + David fame also), and Kevin Gilbert.
-Christian Nesmith whose one of Michael Nesmith’s sons, is a musician himself and a progressive rock fan. Citing bands like Yes and Rush among others. He even has a close relationship with a band I love, Joyce only heard about through me, in King’s X. Christian Nesmith along with his wife Circe Link, have done many covers on YouTube (and TikTok more recently), which include two Kevin Gilbert tunes. “Parade” and “Suite Fugue” which are both from Kevin Gilbert’s posthumously released rock opera “The Shaming of the True.”
That is all from the son of Michael Nesmith, her favorite musician ever, and at 1-time, live member of The Monkees and Michael Nesmith reunited “First National Band.” And who played-on and produced Monkees work in the last decade (2016’s “Good Times” and 2018’s “Christmas Party” along with Micky Dolenz releases “Dolenz Sings Nesmith” and “Dolenz Sings R.E.M.”).
-Neil Peart, the late drummer from Rush, cited a few times loving The Monkees. I am a huge Rush fan, but Joyce never got into them. But she found it odd and ironic how the drummer for one of my favorite bands loved her favorite band.
-Kevin Gilbert engineered “Black or White” from Michael Jackson and worked with Patrick Leonard of course as part of Toy Matinee. Patrick Leonard being the producer of several of Madonna’s biggest albums in the 80’s. Joyce was a rather big fan of both MJ and Madonna
To quote my friend John “Sometimes my people are your people.” But Joyce dismissed that idea, kind of not wanting to accept it if not in disbelief. Joyce did not like progressive rock. “It hurts my brain!” "You can't dance to it" and “It has no soul,” but as it turns out, some of her taste aligned with some of it oddly. Daryl Hall (of Hall & Oates who Joyce loved) worked with Robert Fripp of King Crimson on one of his solo albums, etc.
Even Michael Nesmith himself made the concept album The Prison, and The Monkees did the experimental film Head, which includes a cameo from progressive musician and friend of Michael Nesmith’s, Frank Zappa (who also appeared on a Monkees episode with Nez)
Even the 2nd time we saw one of the modern bands she enjoyed, The Bird & the Bee (which was just half the band, Inara George per the other half, Greg Kurstin didn’t and may still not actually tour live), there was a group of my fellow progressive rock fans at the show. Joyce came to roll her eyes thinking the “Prog fans” enjoyed her band and music, lol. But it happened, or happens, much to her dismay and lack of ability to understand why.
As the years went by, Joyce would make comments about Kevin Gilbert to me. “Thanks Kevin, I didn’t need to know that” or “Sorry Kevin” or “Oh, it’s Kevin.”
One was “he’s not hot.” She said something to the effect just like a year ago. “He’s not bad looking, but he’s like Where’s Waldo.” “He looks clean and nice, and is a talented musician and singer, but he doesn’t have that striking, hot sexy look that many women can be drawn to” “He didn’t make it big, and it seems part of it was because his looks.” “Like, he’s not bad looking, but he’s doesn’t really have it like George Michael.”
Which oddly enough about George Michael, Kevin Gilbert once said about his tune “Careless Whisper” and the lyric “guilty feet have got no rhythm” was genius. I don’t recall if/when I mentioned that to Joyce, what her reaction was. It likely was just “yeah, thanks Kevin.”
The commentary that I passed along to her at times with Sheryl Crow and Kevin Gilbert fans struck a bit of a nerve with her. She came to look down on some of them; although not me, mind you. I never was into Sheryl Crow’s music really but did not beat a dead horse bringing up the fact he died after they broke up. How he took his own life, and fans blamed Sheryl Crow for it. The sort of rivalry they had a bit after that and her album won Grammys, and it took some work to have all the credits being given to Kevin and the members of the Tuesday Night Music Club.
The Kevin Gilbert fans have historically made comments for years online, and even some articles written. Joyce would give me comebacks to them, talking about how many of the Kevin Gilbert fans were super bitter and misguided in their blaming her, etc. Which I didn’t and can’t disagree with her about. What happened to Kevin Gilbert and his reaching and failing to fully “make it big” in the music industry and even Hollywood to a degree, had much to do with his own personality sadly.
Sheryl had the quote in 1 of the stories I’ll never forget “Kevin was one of the most self-destructive people I’ve ever met” which came out in an article written not long after he died, and Sheryl may have been bitter about things. How some people within his circles viewed her. I guess at his funeral perhaps. I’m not sure. I do suspect now so many decades later even, Sheryl wouldn’t necessarily use those words or may not quite feel that way about him still.
She did mention and include a little about Kevin in the documentary, Sheryl, about her a couple of years ago. Although Sheryl Crow I think had creative control of it, so the amount of content about Kevin Gilbert in it was maybe limited, if for no other reason, but to not create any tension among his fans (time of course as well). I see that, per it’s sort of damned if you do and damned if you don’t. If she had talked in-depth about Kevin, it would raise potential controversy. But when she did not talk much about him, of course many Kevin Gilbert fans wonder why, and think she could still be bitter, etc. It was probably best to limit it, and avoid as much content about a potentially sensitive topic still.
Kevin Gilbert would have turned 59 this past week on November 20th. He will always be a favorite of mine, but also a musician who Joyce had mixed feelings about, despite my longtime obsession with his music. My interest to want more people to hear and hopefully discover his music.
There is this appearance on Used Bin Radio in 2011 with Joyce and I where the hosts Brad and Joe bring up Sheryl Crow and Joyce’s take on her music and Kevin Gilbert’s among others. I introduce her at the 12:45 mark, and she is on from the 13:19-24:48 mark.
There’s also this recent opinionated video that sums up a lot of it, although the creator doesn’t consider anything over the last 29 years with Sheryl, although some of the comments do.
In The Shaming of the True and on a live record “Live at the Troubadour,” Kevin Gilbert references and alludes to Sheryl on songs like “Fun” (“Sheryl’s in the kitchen with the LA Lakers”) and “Miss Broadway.” It didn’t occur to me until a few years ago, “Fun” is blatantly a reference to the lyric on “All I Wanna Do” “All I Want to do is have some fun.” Joyce though, never heard either, which probably was for the best. I generally made and kept the peace with this whole situation. Much like avoiding questioning her lack of appreciation or even respect in some ways for The Beatles, bringing up conflict with Sheryl and Kevin was not somewhere I went with Joyce per I knew she would give me an earful, and the end result wouldn’t be beneficial.
Joyce was always like that with me. She didn’t pull many if any punches, regardless that it was about someone or something I love (Beavis and Butthead in recent years as well). Despite my hoping to connect with her with things I love, it often didn’t work. I was not happy for that, but I still respected that about her.
