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

Jonathan Richman
American Music Club
Chuck Prophet & Stephanie Finch
Noe Venable

Great American Music Hall, SF, Nov. 30

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cf. Modern Lovers 88
-- M Matos (michaelangelomato...) (webmail), November 17th, 2003 3:47 PM. (M Matos) (link)

huh? modern lovers 88 rocks!

Revive -- Everyone can stand a little more Jonathan in their lives!

With great hesistation, i've been laboring to assemble a complete vinyl set of his albums for the last 12 years - which will likely approach completion about the same time somebody lays out a proper reissue series or boxset.

i could stand some more jess in my life! i want to hear him talk about "cuddlecore".

thanks for reminding me, Jonathan is playing here next week and I need to buy a ticket.

Thanks for the revive, christoff. Never seen this thread before. Nice to read something so well-written, enthusiastic and smart 1st thing in the morning (helps that I agree w/ everything he says). Kinda puts a shine on the day.

I slept in the office in his house last year.

My favorite Jonathan story: I saw him in Minneapolis at 7th Street Entry (TINY club) where his support act was a local, female-led band called Beangirl. Jonathan seemed to really like them, he was out on the dance floor watching and applauding.

Shortly thereafter I travelled to Seattle, and Jonathan was playing there at the Bumbershoot festival. I found a big piece of cardboard and a marker, lettered BEANGIRL on it, and held it up from many rows back. He interrupted one of his monologues to ask, "Are you from Minneapolis? Wow! Beangirl is a really cool band... but I don't wanna talk about that right now... 1234" and into Roadrunner.

one of the first songs he played was "springtime in new york" (at least i assumed that's what it was called), and i can't really described the mood it called up, comparable with so very few things in the vast morass of art about nyc, maybe the gentlest work of paul auster (cf. moon palace) or the experience of living in the city itself (which, like that ridiculous song suggests, everyone should do once before they become hardened.) it's a love song to a place which so effortlessly trumps any of the post-9/11 blather (neil young, stick your head up your own arse in abject shame, please.) it made me happy to be alive, which few things do these days.

i'm sure i've said this elsewhere on ILM, but "springtime in new york" was the first song i saw ANYONE play live after 9/11 in new york. it was at the knitting factory, which isn't that far from ground zero. the city was still very much in shock. there was still dust downtown. the stage power went out just before jonathan started playing. so in front of a packed knitting factory, which is not too small, and which includes a balcony, he proceeded to play "springtime in new york" with an acoustic guitar and no microphone. singing with that trademark purity and innocence about lovers in the east village and then that throwaway line about how "demolishing a building brings a smell of 1890 through the breeze" (sung that night AS a throwaway line, with no attempt to wink or raise an eyebrow or in any way acknowlege out loud what had just happened) he completely totally utterly melted the joint. one of my favorite concert experiences ever.

(also, i'm pretty sure i met matos at that show, though we don't actually know each other. he was standing next to me on the balcony with a notebook in his hand and i asked who he was and we chatted for probably a minute and that was that.)

this man is a giant of American music

"Jonathan and Tommy Larkins have just completed a brand new album, Because Her Beauty is Raw and Wild. The album will be in stores in March!!! Jonathan will of course return to the road in support of the new album."

-from vaporrecords.com

played the 5 Spot in Nashville last nite, he was good, sort of an (even more) minimalist rockin' João Gilberto at times, did "Pablo Picasso" using a funny voice.

a couple weeks back i was driving down 18th Street in San Francisco one afternoon and I saw Jonathan just casually strolling down the street with a Spanish guitar in hand. wish i coulda followed him to see where he ended up.

i'm bummed he's not coming to philly on this tour. saw him for the first time last year. excellent set!

Quick question.. he's in town Saturday, should I go see him for $10?
I don't know much about him but will he make me smile like the "I'm a little dinosaur" song or are his other songs not as entertaining?

he is totally worth seeing for $10, totally one of my favorite live performers even though I barely know any of his non-Modern Lovers recorded output.

awesome

Really always worth seeing, even if (like me) you are not familiar with the vast disorganized reaches that are his catalogue.

HE was great at Primavera Sound last year, but thenI would say that because like most people on this thread, I do thnk he's a clas fucing act.

"Because Her Beauty Is Raw & Wild" is, as expected, still top quality stuff. This guy just doesn't let up does he? Highlights include a very pretty song in French that I remember him playing in Barcelona; the haunting "Our Drab Ways"; and "If We Refuse To Suffer" (which is getting me through a self-imposed smoking ban).

I found an old copy of Abdul and Cleopatra / Oh Carol (the chuck berry song) on Beserkley the other day. Yay 4 me.

Interesting Grauniad piece this weekend.

OK, Jess, I've got to know about this four-track Aznavour. Which albums?

How he is live these days? Going to see him next month, with Tommy Larkins on drums. (Vic Chesnutt opening.)

i saw him a year ago and he was good as ever. the last album was v. underrated.

always loved the jess post that kicked off this thread.

He was great. He didn't do "I'm A Little Dinosaur" however. The youtube made me want to see him do that so bad.

is the original modern lovers the only big proto punk act with all members still alive not to ever reform? wonder if it'll ever happen. saw that arthur russell doc a week ago and it had the bass player in it, looking healthy and hale.

I last saw him (with Tommy Larkins of course) about 6 months ago and it was as great as ever. He alwasy focusses on newer material with about a quarter of the show being older stuff or crowd pleasing classics. A great thing about Jonathan live is the connection he makes with the audience, which is quite unlike what most performer can acheive. He does with his conversational presentation and by playing quite quietly, stepping away from the microphone and playing his guitar unamplified a lot of the time. It's almost like watching your friend play the guitar in his living room. Tommy uses brushes or those pom-pom things a lot and barely touches his drums. This was in a venue for about 1,000 and you could hear a pin drop. He even asked for the AC to be turned off because it was too loud. Sometimes it's like a party but this last show was quite hypnotic, with a lot of the songs getting extended instrumental sections where Tommy and Jonathan found a groove and just stayed in it.

By the way, I've seen him probably 15 times over the last 20 years and he's NEVER played "I'm a Little Dinosaur" :-(

yeah my fave thing about seeing him has always been the guitar playing! he's really good -- not something that always comes across on the records.

i just wish he would fucking come to austria... or at least to europe..

I haven't seen him in a while but he has his schtick down so well and is such a fantastic guitar player and performer I can't really imagine he's gotten worse over the last few years. I've never seen him do "I'm a Little Dinosaur" either. (I have seen him do "Roadrunner" and "Pablo Picasso", both of which were kinda shocking)

My favorite record, apart from the Modern Lovers one, is "Modern Lovers '88" - really beautiful, low-key, casual record.

yeah he's got a lot of gems strewn across his career. he probably needs a well-chosen box set or something (i know he 's got several "best ofs") ...

The gf was doing some travel for him and she asked him, in passing, if he'd write an autograph for a fan she knew. He said yes but she thought, 'He'll never remember, whatevs.' Two weeks later she got the autograph. He'd forgotten or misplaced the name but it was an original and sincere sentiment written down, not just a signature nor boilerplate.

I saw him in '84 in London, opening for Orange Juice. Good show.

I saw him in '84 in London, opening for Orange Juice. Good show.

Gah that's awesome. So jealous.

Every once in a while I like to pop on Roadrunner when I am heading to Stop and Shop. It's like having my own personal narrator.

maybe one day i'll be dignified

^^^nice

He even asked for the AC to be turned off because it was too loud.
Ha! When I saw him a couple weeks ago, he asked that the fans be turned off for the same reason. We were on the third floor of a converted clothing mill (The Narrows in Fall River, Mass.) on a steamy night and he apologized profusely for making us sweat.
Then he complained about the bad vibes in the room because there seemed to be a "moat" between him and the audience. He asked everyone to move their seats closer and then, when informed they were church pews that couldn't be budged, told everyone to sit down in front of him like it was a campfire performance.
It was a pretty memorable night. Lots of kids came with their parents. One of them — he couldn't have been more than 3 — kept yelling out for "New England." Finally, his dad brought him right up to the stage between songs to ask Jonathan directly. Jonathan leaned over and politely thanked the little boy for coming. He never did play the song.

i need to see him again, it's been four or five years. has anyone heard any of these somewhat newly discovered modern lovers live boots? http://jojofiles.blogspot.com/2007/11/more-unreleased-modern-lovers-from-1971.html http://jojofiles.blogspot.com/2007/10/great-71-recordings-found.html

Seeing him next week in a small club in Providence. Hope he sings "My Affected Accent," which is probably my favorite JR song now. BTW, this might be the worst concert review I've ever read:
Jonathan Richman: More charismatic than musical, but that’s fine with me

Here is what really blew my mind: there were roughly 70 people at the show. There were no opening bands to pre-sell tickets, this show was all Richman. This guy isn’t local or well known, or even all that good. As far as I could tell, people where drawn to him by his sheer charisma.

jesus christ

there's really no excuse for reading local-paper concert reviews

http://jacksonville.com/files/imagecache/avatar/pictures/picture-16475.jpg

I wonder what his band sounds like