Mike Nesmith’s passing at the tail end of 2021 was a sad note in a year of sad notes, and it affected Eric Alexandrakis to the extent that he recorded a tribute to him the next day, as he says: “Nez’s passing affected me a great deal, as he’s always been a big influence. I felt compelled the day after to record this track as my own farewell tribute to him. All of it is first takes on a 16-track recorder, with no original commercial intentions whatsoever, but from the looks of it, everyone else feels the same way about him as I do.”
The song has gotten out though to the extent that it earned a Grammy nomination in the Best Americana Performance category. It’s an honest tribute to a much-underrated musician who was so much more than a Monkee. ‘Silver Moon‘ originally appeared on the Michael Nesmith & The First National Band album ‘Loose Salute‘, an album that is worth anyone’s time.
Eric Alexandrakis is a classically trained musician who kicked things up a notch after an early brush with cancer at the age of 25 acted, as he says, as a giant “GO” sign – he wrote and recorded his second album ‘I.V. Catatonia‘ whilst he recovered from treatment and basically has never looked back – getting involved in music production (in management, label, radio promotion, and being a road manager), his own singer-songwriter path and also early-on championing of the use of Digital Watermarking in the realm of Intellectual Property Rights Protection. Reflecting back on ‘Silver Moon‘ Alexandrakis’ notes that “Slowly the great innovators who put so many foundations into motion are leaving us. Part of the reason why I recorded this was not only to pay tribute to a great artist and hopefully open some eyes to his solo work, but to also remind us all that people like Nez are the reason why people like me do what I do.”
