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

Coincidentally, I've been listening to these records for the first time over the past several days. Just gave Jonathan Sings! my first listen this afternoon. "The Neighbors" cracked me up. "Important In Your Life" from the s/t and "Afternoon" from Rock 'n' Roll have been my other favorites so far.

Sings > Live > Rock n Roll > Back In Your Life > JR & TML

They’re all good, but Sings & Live are the classics out of this run. Live is seriously underrated and sometimes it’s my favorite thing he’s done. The never ending Ice Cream Man is sooooo good!

Rock n’ Roll has a really nice set of instrumentals.

Back In Your Life has my least favorite JR song, "Nature's Mosquito." I normally have a high tolerance for his cutesy stuff but the cloying quality to his singing on this one pushes it over the edge. "I Like Gumby" from a Gumby tribute album is also rough going.

Favorite tucked away song: "Our Dog Is Getting Older" from a various artists thing called Colours Are Brighter.

I'm a JR super fan and I've got just about everything there is to get, without collecting different cover variations and whatnot. One thing that has eluded me for a long time is an Academy Awards "for your consideration" promo CD. It contains instrumental music from How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Dr. Doolittle, and There's Something About Mary. The Jonathan Richman section contains:

There's Something About Mary
11. Mary Walks Down The Stairs 1:50
12. Theme... Tucker... Crutches 1:00
13. Ambulence 2:01
14. Herpes Sweet 0:56
15. Mary Sweet 1:49
16. Excellent News 0:22
17. Brett Faru 0:16
18. Jam - A Minor 2:19

I even wrote to the one person on Discogs that has this but they never wrote me back. I check periodically on Ebay but it's pretty hard to search for. You wind up with the individual soundtracks or a glut of For Your Consideration discs.

Yeah, from when he was produced by Ric Ocasek,right? "Let her go into the darkness..."

xp do you have that damn Penthouse live LP? it's eluded me twice on Discogs...

(if you do, plz YSI)

I didn't even know about that one! The only bootleg LP I have is Songs for Laura, which is pretty good.

Live is seriously underrated and sometimes it’s my favorite thing he’s done. The never ending Ice Cream Man is sooooo good!
Tell them, Cow_Art.

^Yep Live is the best, "The Morning of Our Lives" one of the most uplifting songs I know

I love Sings and the followup quit a bit because of the backing vocals. Jonathan paired with a female voice is really nice. "That Summer Feeling" is dreamy.

"Monologue About Bermuda" from Having A Party is very good, and has a great explanation for why his music shifted after recording The Modern Lovers. He plays a bit of "She Cracked" in it in a very self-mocking way.

People always mention moving to SF softened him, but I also wonder how much fatherhood fostered Jojo's stylistic shift.

I love Sings and the followup quit a bit because of the backing vocals. Jonathan paired with a female voice is really nice. "That Summer Feeling" is dreamy.

100%... this is the album I tend to favor, for the same reasons (not that I've heard 'em all, by any means)

(Sings, that is... will have to look up which is the follow-up)

The songs on Jonathan Sings! also have a certain degree of, I guess, "sophistication" that a lot of his other stuff is lacking for me... and I don't even mean that as a criticism, I'm just not into the really simple/silly songs as much.

If you mean shifting gears from The Modern Lovers VU style rock to what came immediately afterwards, that was way before he was a dad. Listen to Bermuda Monologue on youtube, he explains it better than I can. But the short of it is: OG Modern Lovers wound up at a miserable gig playing at a resort in Bermuda. It was not a good fit. But Jonathan heard some of the local guys music and realized how much more there was in terms of rhythm and tone; he realized that his band was stiff and rigid and he wanted to get away from that.

I love that first (not really an) album, but I’m happy he moved on.

This is one of those discussions that I'll be looking for two years from now and have no idea what thread it was in.

― Lily Dale, Sunday, February 25, 2024 8:32 PM

Post a controversial music opinion

Oh well, some prefer other genres to nasal voiced rocker gone acoustic singing alone .

Ya think?

And that's . . . OK.

And here's why

What wait did you say?

This is a brand new shirt!

Didn’t I just take this shirt out of the package, Modern Lovers?

yeah, yeah, yeah

dum de-dum-dum, de-dumma-dum day

Ohhhh, New England.

Little Kookenhagen is so damn sweet.

I didn't realize Bell House had four shows booked for him, and the first and last aren't sold out. Setlist.fm seems a bit incomplete for his recent shows, but is it worth going multiple nights on the same tour or is it pretty much the same show each night?

I would imagine there are significant differences, but have not put that to the test

I dream of flying to the US to see Jonathan some day

He used to play in London quite regularly in the 80s, at least. First time I saw him was the best - supporting JR & Modern Lovers supporting Orange Juice at the Hammersmith Palais. He hadn't actually been to the UK for a while at this point, and it was almost a 'comeback' gig - and he was absolutely full Jonathan, almost glowing with good vibes. He got a rapturous reception, and we were not alone in being there for him rather than the headliners. I rather regret we didn't stay for Orange Juice now, but we just didn't think ANYBODY could follow what we'd just seen.

I saw him on Glasgow years ago. It was the period when he used to have a mike set up at this feet to pick up the sound of him dancing. Don't know if he still does that. I also know people who hung out with him afterwards and said he was almost uncomfortably intense - maybe a post gig thing.

Pre-gig too iirc

I saw him in Brooklyn many, many ages ago. He was great, and I hooked up with someone who was massively out of my league, so technically it was the greatest show I've ever been to.

I was only able to catch tonight's show and it was amazing. He may be in his 70's, but between his voice and his dance moves, he seemed as youthful as ever. His face obviously looks older, but surprisingly as I watched him up close, he reminded me of Henry Fonda around the eyes - he has the same twinkle in them that Fonda carried into his 70's.

Anyway, thanks to the MTA, traveling there kind of sucked, so I made the most of it - loaded up on merch (got the last Modern Lovers T-shirt my size) and stuck around with a few fans who wanted to meet him afterwards. During the show, there was a guy with an eyepatch off to the side that looked like David Johansen - when Richman came out, that guy was with him, and I said out loud "you know, that guy looks like David Johansen," to which someone replied "he IS David Johansen." I didn't know they even socialized together so that was pretty mind-blowing. He went straight home but Richman hung around for a bit and was very sweet. Class act all the way.

Must've forgotten this - they played on the same bill once back in the day:

http://www.furious.com/perfect/newyorkdolls.html

One more detail, when someone asked him to sign a CD of Precise Modern Lovers Order (Live In Berkeley And Boston), he said "THIS album captures how we REALLY sounded," or something like that, and he repeated it with a bit more emphasis, so I'd take that as a very strong recommendation.

Indeed.

Must've forgotten this - they played on the same bill once back in the day:

http://www.furious.com/perfect/newyorkdolls.html🕸

was there last night as well. Jonathan was on fire. have seen him many times over the years, but that was near the top. his affection for the "old world" came up in recent discussion here. Jonathan is very much in the old world needs to go mode these days.

thanks for sharing your experiences

as I think I've stated many times already it's a big dream of mine to see him someday

not so likely to happen

so I enjoy these second hand reviews

I’ve seen him many times but haven’t been paying attention recently so am also appreciating the reviews