Sharon Tate photographed at Columbia Pictures Studios for the Dean Martin spy spoof "The Wrecking Crew" in 1968

George had the album sleeve from John and Yoko's Unfinished Music No. 2: Life With The Lions pinned on his kitchen wall. 👏

Nina Simone “I Shall Be Released” To Love Somebody, June 1969.

Supertramp - The Logical Song

During the filming of 33 ⅓ Revolutions Per Monkee, November 1968.

Peter leaving The Monkees, post 3 of 3.

“I just basically think that I wasn’t feeling a part of it anymore already by that point, I’d already felt like I was odd man out, and of course I quit almost immediately thereafter.” - Peter Tork, Headquarters radio, 1989

“I’d always had deep doubts, ever since the session for ‘Last Train To Clarksville.’ I walked in there with my guitar and Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart looked at me with derision and scorn, like, ‘Guitar in your hand, you fool!’ That was the end of it for me. Right there I was done with The Monkees in large measure. I struggled against it with some success at one point. But after Headquarters nobody wanted to be a recording group anymore. I did what I could, but I didn’t feel like there was any reason for me to be there anymore. I wanted to be in a rock group.” - Peter Tork, Head 1994 liner notes

“While we were making the TV Special, knowing I was not going to be there any longer, I just thought to myself — I don’t have to worry about this thing — and I just let everything slide off my back.” - Peter Tork, NME, January 25, 1969

“We never thought of replacing him — there’s only one Peter Tork in the world.” - Michael Nesmith, Melody Maker, March 1, 1969

Q: “So, when you left, did you want to be known as the former Monkee or did you want to erase that part of your past —” Peter Tork: “I tried to erase it.” Q: “— and start anew.” PT: “I tried to erase it completely.” Q: “How do you do that?” PT: “Well, you just don’t do anything connected with it, just absolutely refuse to have anything to do with it.” - NPR, June 1983 (x)

“Headquarters was by far the best album in the sense that it was us. It was honest, it was pure, and we had a great time. Peter says that the reason he quit was because after we did this album, we decided we weren’t going to be a group anymore. It broke his heart, because Headquarters was the whole reason why he’d become one of The Monkees.” - Micky Dolenz, Headquarters 1995 liner notes

“[Micky] did a great job [drumming] on Headquarters. [But] he wasn’t going to do it again, and there was nothing you could do [to change his mind]. We had to go back in the studio. He said, ‘Peter, you can’t go back.’ Eddie Hoh did the drumming [on Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd., save for ‘Cuddly Toy’]. Chip [Douglas] got him ‘cause he could read [music]. The result is that you get directed stuff, there’s no group interaction, which is why I wanted the group to be on the album in the first place. You listen to Beatle albums and one of the things that makes them great is that they have found ways to use who they have to get what they want without asking anyone to do what they couldn’t do. That’s what makes group music happen. That’s all I ever hoped for, and I had it for like a minute on Headquarters.” - Peter Tork, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn and Jones Ltd. 2007 liner notes

“[Peter] admits he harbored a lot of bitterness for many years. The main bone of contention was the TV show’s producers insistence that the band members not play their own instruments. [...] ‘I was devastated at first. I originally approached The Monkees in terms of my own desire to be part of a genuine pop-rock music group. I felt like it was a professional slight to me. Like I was being excluded.’” - The Bellingham Herald, August 5, 1996

“Peter wasn’t satisfied musically [with The Monkees]. He’d been led to believe he could express himself musically. He was frustrated.” - Davy Jones, News-Press, May 14, 1977

“‘I was mostly interested in the Monkees as a musical entity,’ Thorkelson commented. ‘We didn’t fully realize that potential, and I felt ripped off.’” - The Bowling Green News Revue, May 24, 1979 (x)

“We’re all sorry to lose Peter but it was all very friendly and I personally can understand what is going through his mind, He’s a clever guy, you know, and he gets kinda restless sometimes. You should see the books he plows through… real deep stuff with words about a mile long.” - Davy Jones, Monkees Monthly, February 1969

“Peter and I were the bulk of the playing ability because we were musicians. But when Peter left it rather unnerved Davy and [Micky] — and I changed my mind [about quitting]. After all, the personal appearances were pretty well satisfying, the music was fun, and the whole thing was fairly lucrative. And Davy and [Micky] left alone would have been in real trouble.” - Michael Nesmith, Disc & Music Echo, September 19, 1970

“If the truth be known, the day Peter quit was probably the happiest day of Mike’s life. They’d never really gotten along, right from day one. Mike had always perceived of Peter as untenable, and they’d always been adversarial, if not outright combative. Finally he was out of the way. Now Mike could get on with doing what he had always wanted to do, make the Monkees his group. And I was happy to go along. I respected Mike and his music and was quite prepared to go along for the ride. [...] I saw Peter’s abdication as a minor setback at most. Basically, I think the three of us really thought that would be able to go on, just as we had before, and nobody would even notice there were only three people on stage instead of four — after all Peter didn’t sing on many of the songs anyway. How naive. […] I suppose it depends on whom you talk to, but as far as I’m concerned, the day Peter quit was the day the music died (apologies to Don McLean).” - Micky Dolenz, I’m A Believer: My Life of Monkees, Music, And Madness (1993)

A selection of international posters for the cinema release of Vendetta for the Saint (1969)

Simon and Garfunkel (1970)

What do you mean Zapple was launched on 9 May 1969 with the release of George Harrison’s Electronic Sound and John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Unfinished Music No 2: Life With The Lions.

That is Liberty Bell Day - how were all of these things happening at exactly the same time, no wonder it’s all impossible to keep track of.

HOW is the dad rock poll even defining Dad Rock™️ if they have the Red Hot Chili Peppers (teen boy rock, largely), Linkin Park (for the mad and gotta talk about it set), and The Killers (for the angsty set)?????????

Did John Lennon watch Ken Russell’s Women in Love!!!!!!! Did he!!!!!!!! 

Sharon Tate in production stills for her film “12+1″ 

there is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

maya angelou

I Shall Be Released - The Brothers & Sisters (Dylan's Gospel, 1969)

The Doors - Wild Child

Peter Tork; photos by Nurit Wilde.

“Tork in the late 1960’s” - Nurit Wilde, Instagram, June 19, 2021

“I’m free, I don’t know what I’ll be doing. I’m actually a little apprehensive, because there’s no doubt that there are three other incredibly talented fellows out there. They’re very talented guys. Mike is one of the funniest people I’ve ever known. Micky is even funnier and Davy is just cute as a button. Who could ask for anything more? Davy dances so great, did you see him dance in the film? I’ve not seen dancing like that on the screen except from Fred Astaire. The only other thing is that I’m both really relieved and really, really apprehensive. I’m terribly glad and also terribly sad.” - Peter Tork, NME, January 25, 1969

"[Tork] says The Peter Tork Project plays music ‘sort of on the heavy end’ of album-oriented rock radio. ‘We’re not heavy metal per say, but we’re just on the pop side of that,’ adds the affable performer. The band, formed in January with Scott Avitabile on guitar, Jerry Renino on bass and Derek Lord at the drums, is one of several ensembles with which Tork has performed since leaving The Monkees. [In the early 1970s, Peter was a member of the] San Francisco-based rock band named [Osceola]. ‘That was a name full of significance,’ he said. ‘[Osceola] was chief of the Seminoles, the only tribe never to have surrendered to the federal government.’ Tork said he identifies strongly with that kind of defiance. ‘All of my early life was spent feeling out of whack. Physically I matured late and never was very athletic and always found myself on the short end of the stick. I was raised in a liberal family in the middle of the McCarthy era.’ Against those odds, Tork inevitably developed an inferiority complex that he carried into adulthood and his musical career. When he became one of four young men chosen out of 437 applicants to become what were supposed to be the ‘American Beatles,’ his self-doubt grew to mammoth proportions. ‘Half of the time I would think I didn’t deserve it and the other half I would think I was God’s gift to the children. I got my head turned around. It was the “arrogant doormat” syndrome low self-esteem combined with arrogance.’ [...] Tork recalls now that he wanted things done his way, but wasn’t willing to put his effort where his mouth was. His subsequent attempts at a career of his own were consistent failures, and for a while in the mid-’70s he joined his wife in the teaching profession, instructing a variety of classes in private high schools. That career was shortlived. [More about Peter’s time teaching here and here.] ‘Not that I didn’t enjoy teaching, but there’s no money in it. It’s a tragic comment on social priorities, but there it is.’ Tork expresses fervent enthusiasm for his new group [...]. As for his old bandmates, with whom he enjoyed superstardom for such a short time so many years ago, Tork says he stays in touch. Assessing his relationships with each one, Tork favored the diminutive, British-born Davy Jones ‘because he could see things the others couldn’t. Occasionally he was able to reach down into the depths.’ Drummer [Micky] Dolenz, who gained childhood fame as TV’s ‘Circus Boy,’ was ‘a whole lot more fun’ to be around than the other Monkees. Nesmith, considered the most creative of the four, was the most ‘respectable, in the sense that he did his work and had a sense of his own work ethic.’” - The Daily Oklahoman, November 7, 1983

"To tell you truth… I… I never was able in those days [the '60s] particularly — I’m getting better at it these days — but in those days I was almost entirely unable to fight for what I saw as quality. If I didn’t get somebody fighting on my behalf then it didn’t, just didn’t come to pass." - Peter Tork, Headquarters radio, September 1989 (read more here)

"I had pathological self value. I really didn’t have a sense of it at all. I didn’t get why. I thought I had been picked almost at random. I didn’t have any sense of myself bringing anything except that character to the Monkees. What I thought they hired me for was that character, and I think to this day that that had a lot to do with it. I didn’t recognize how that sprung forth from whom who I really am. I thought I was faking them out. I thought I was handing them a lie and they were buying the lie — and so how could I value myself? Any time you compliment somebody and they can’t take the compliment, what they’re saying to you is, ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ That’s the message that anybody with low self-esteem gives back when somebody compliments them. Which is where I was. All that played into this fame thing. 
And it plays backwards, too. The reason that I got into the fame game was because I didn’t have any sense of value. I thought, ‘Jeez, if I can get the millions to love me then I’ll be all right.’ I got the millions to love me — and it still wasn’t all right. What a surprise. Ha, ha, ha.” - Peter Tork, Toxic Fame: Celebrities Speak on Stardom (1996) (x)

girls will get angry about rocky flats for the yet againth time