jonathan richman: is this guy a class fucking act or what?

Is Nick looking at Jonathan and thinking,"Is this guy a class fucking act or what?"

Can't help but hear the title of this thread being spoken by the voice of Mike Damon from Fast Times at Ridgemont High

went to the Union Chapel gig last night and I can confirm that he is the fucking classest of acts.

saws him last night in berlin in the festsaal kreuzberg. it was packed and i sweated a lot. just him and a drummer. a very short set, only about one hour and three short encores. but i don't remember having smiled as much at any concert before. he finished with the song where the mind gets asked about love, can't handle the question and directs the asker to the heart. somehow he reminds me a lot of neil young, the same kind of innocence, the same kind of realness.

sp: i saw him last night...

it's funny how much of this guy's oeuvre was 20-30 years ahead of its time with the de rigeur hipster-lifestyle topics - organic farming, hating cars, locavore foods etc

i dunno if he was that ahead of the curve on caring about those things, but he was definitely ahead of the curve in thinking "hey i can write a song about this" about lots of things he writes about

Wow, Jess. Your opening post here is fan-fuckin'-tastic! It so perfectly evokes the feeling of being really truly surprisingly into something you "should" dislike, and that's one of my favorite things--and something you can never ever plan for.

i saw richman live for the first time within a year of this thread being started (but don't think i had seen it then) and jess really does sum up really well why he's one of my favorite live acts ever.

he was definitely ahead of the curve in thinking "hey i can write a song about this" about lots of things he writes about

writing a song about how awesome the local falafel stand is, for example, fits right into today's indie landscape - but I can't think of anybody doing that kind of thing besides him back then.

I've been on a "backfill" with the Bezerkley albums, I only had the first one for ages. Now I have up to the live one.

saw him a couple of months ago and he was great, I could just listen to his song introductions by themselves. loved his whole rap about apologizing to the moon for the way all of our artificial light competes w/"her", and the version of "Old World" that he does nowadays is spine-tingling.

Bezerkely albums are all really solid

I'm a bit of a Jonathan obsessive. Own all his albums, mostly on vinyl. Those Rough Trade released 80's LP's that have never really been available on CD are absolute corkers. I'm also a big fan of the 1989 'Jonathan Richman' and 'Having a Party With Jonathan Richman' albums as well; some of his best electric guitar playing.

Have seen him many times, but not in a decade or more. Not in this century in fact. Maybe next month.

Jonathan does not have a computer and does not like to do interviews but he responded via hand-written poems on paper to 2 questions from a writer(musician) who works for the Washington Post. Jonathan is gonna be in DC tonight

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/going-out-guide/wp/2013/02/21/jonathan-richman-wrote-me-a-poem-no-really/

and the answer comes again: a class fucking act

tbh I never really noticed how much he uses Dr. Seuss cadences before

saw jonathan this weekend! or er, the last half of his show -- i couldn't get down to denver until about 10 and apparently richman starts shows on time. but what i did see was aces, turning one of the diviest colfax bars (really not worthy of the dude) into a perfect setting. the last song was "her mystery not of high heels and eyeshadow" which turned into this beautiful free associating thing...almost van morrison-ish? weird comparison, but that's what it made me think of. a class fucking act!

picked up a copy of "Modern Lovers "Live!"" (1977) on which Jonathon flaunts some kind of puffy shirt and pencil mustache. More than any other record, this seems to be where the childlike/naif persona stuff got cemented. It's something he's toyed with on and off since ("Not Yet 3" etc.) but man nearly every song on here sounds like it was written by a little kid - airplanes, dinosaurs, insects, etc. Not a bad record in all but more one-note than some of his later 80s records, which I like way more.

I used to play that for my my kid

I just found a copy of that record two weeks ago and it made me so happy, "I'm A Little Airplane" is really intense in terms of the rhythm/delivery even with all its goofiness

i like, “I do not accept messages transmitted via cell phones":

http://www.todayszaman.com/news-343832-jonathan-richman-vs-commonwealth-of-massachusetts.html

http://radiovalencia.fm/waxcracklepop/2014/03/03/wax-crackle-pop-show-15-special-guest-jonathan-richman-helps-celebrate-lous-birthday/
great VU stories / music / thoughts from jonathan.

Was reading this on the subway when I heard somebody say something like "I walked four blocks to your house" and I looked up and around to see if Jojo was there.

Interview on Michael Shelley's show on WFMU today. Shelley says "it's wasn't my best work but it was interesting."

i paid homage to this thread's title in print this week: http://www.citypaper.com/music/short-list/bcp-the-short-list-dillon-francis-jonathan-richman-say-anything-more-20141118,0,1146964.story

I don't think Jojo himself what approve of the cussing.

Michael just described the interview once more and is playing one more tune before he actually airs it. Jojo kind of evasive, pretending he doesn't understand questions. Sounds typical to me, looking forward to it.

this is adorable

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qYbrxe_nKM

backstory and description of that tape (but so glad it's all in one download on the Tube; so tired of big o track by track and rename em all and put each one in new folder whiiiiine) http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=1481

Thanks for that. Not sure I realized before the similarity of "Government Center" to "I Think We're Alone Now."

I didn't realize it until now!

More JR on Big O:
Vinyl Rarities (tracks from various shows)
http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=2295

Brooklyn 2010
http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=462

The Lost Album
http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=164

cool, I didn't know about that lost album, and the early '80s is one of my favorite eras for him

Doesn't look like the Top of the Pops clips have been posted on here before. I just saw this for the first time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im1NQm57wws

OK, it's not Top of the Pops! It's a Dutch show called TopPop.

Never saw that will take a look. Think I actually did see a Top of the Pops video once for one of the alternate, later "Roadrunner" takes.

Just got home from his show here in Durham, NC on the Duke campus. It was wonderful. If you like him at all, and you've never seen him play before, and you get a chance to, you should take it.

Ishkode! Ishkode!: Jonathan Richman’s first new album in five years

Have not heard this yet

it has terrible distribution!

i've heard it, it's good!

It is good, and it does have terrible distribution. Not sure if the no-digital thing was part of the plan or if they just don't care

richman is pretty anti-internet, i don't even think he does email.

all his shit has been terribly distributed since, like, forever. the one exception being that album that came out after TSAM

it's not even on amazon. or in my local record store. you kind of have to buy it from the label (which is a tiny label run by a guy who has a record store in cleveland; i don't think they've signed any other artists).

i get the feeling that richman is either totally ignorant of, or more likely, totally indifferent to the record industry. i'm not sure that his albums are afterthoughts per se (certainly his /songwriting/ is not an afterthought) but the actual distribution of them is obviously not foremost on his agenda.

similarly, he seems positively sanguine about the fact that the majority of his old records (most of the ones not on rounder) are out of print. but i don't think it's helped his legacy. imagine deluxe editions of his 80s records, for example, would get a fair bit of press for him.

but oh well, he's jojo! he just does his artisanal masonry stuff a few months out of the year, and tours w/ tommy larkin the rest of the time. don't think he gives much of a shit about the rest of it.

i missed his closest concerts this time out. but i saw him on his last two tours--the last one not even supporting a record IIRC.

he was still great the last time i saw him two or three years ago. but yeah, i think he reallllly does not care about the business side of things. he could easily have the profile of at least someone like robyn hitchcock, but even that tiny level of cult fame must be unappealing to him.

I don't blame him really. He's a great live show, great songwriter, great player, good for him for just focusing on the stuff he likes to do.

yeah, it's totally refreshing really -- I hope he makes enough dough to just keep doing it his way. (though yeah, i wouldn't mind reissues, or a nice box set or something)