The Modern Lovers - C or U.F.C??

Didn't we do this one btw? I vaguely remember putting the boot in before. :)

Bonus points for use of "Bobbins" though. Good word.

Saw J. Richman for the first time supporting Orange Juice at the Hammersmith Palais sometime in the eighties. Jonathan was SO charismatic, so funny and talented, we didn't bother to stay for OJ (D'oh!) Still the most impressive showman I have ever seen; once tried to interview him for a fanzine and he was v.v. hostile and paranoid - an object lesson in never meeting yr idols!

'Dignified and Old' should be added to the list.

I'm surprised that Dr. C likes them.

Why? Perhaps Edna knows. Edna?

I expect I have not changed my mind about the band, not having heard them in years. Last I heard them, they seemed unmelodic and overrated. Yet, see comments above, etc, as per.

Anyway, the best ever thing connected with the band that I have heard is LLOYD COLE'S version of 'MODERN WORLD', which Youn gave me (thanks, Youn), and which I heard again today. It's really good, and almost makes me think that the geezer, Richman, might have had one or two OK ideas for making pop music. But maybe it needed Lloyd to bring them out.

Significant variant:
On the live "Precise Modern Lovers Order" the lyric to "I'm Straight" refers to "Hippie Ernie" - Ernie Brooks!

It Happened One Night. Before the Jonathan Richman show:
JR's opening act is a juggler- it's all entertainment, people! JR is standing around, my friend Steve tries to chat with him. Jojo, as is his wont, quickly becomes bored/annoyed/paranoid, points to the stage and says:

"I think we should pay attention to the juggler."

but mainly, ufc. at this point i like the live stuff i better than the studio album: precise modern lovers order, some bits off live at the longbranch, the bootleg cassette i got years ago at a wfmu record fair with an amazing 10+ minute version of a plea for tenderness.

God, I love on "Hospital" when he cracks himself up for a second. It's probably my favorite single second on any record.

I'd always assumed that the point of She Cracked is that he's trying too hard to convince himself of something - hence the 'yeah, staying at home and eating healthfood is great' lyric which doesn't quite convince somehow.

I have nothing on which to base this (highly subjective) argument.

And classic, though it took a few listens for me to realise why.

For what it's worth, I'd say his golden period runs from about 1979 to 1986 encompassing "Back In Your Life", "Rockin' and Romance" "Jonathan Sings" and "It's Time For..".

Some of these albums, and indeed most of his older albums, are really hard to find and deserve reissuing along with the full concert which was edited for "Modern Lovers Live".

I think it's now a myth that Jonathan is a bad guitarist and can't sing. Anyone who's seen him live in the last 20 years will confirm he's excellent on guitar, sings with passion and sounds like he means it, which more than compensates for the slightly adenoidal delivery (though lately his melancholic soppy voice has became waaaay too prevalant).

One thing I don't understand is his habit (in the last decade) of padding his albums with re-recording of his older songs. It's okay when he did it for the country album and the Spanish one, 'cos the new arrangements were pretty radical but these days he tends to just do a soppy vocal over a less-rockin' back-up. Why bother?

as for the original modern lovers album, it's absolutely classic, and i don't particularly care if jonathan himself likes it or not, or if it's representative or not. it's a great rock album.

Those with LP of the Live Album: check the cover carefully for extra sixth finger airbrushed (or photo artifact?) on Leroy's hand! (or is this memory an artifact as well? Perfect Thoughts Forever- I think not.
Those with CD: use magnifying glass.

One time I saw Mojo Nixon and he started playing "Roadrunner" and somebody in the audience started doing the "Radio On!" and soon the rest of the crowd joined in. Mojo then told us that Jonathan told him, "Mojo, you can sing my song, but you can't change the words."

Possible TS: Mojo versus Jojo, but I ain't gonna be the one to start it. Right now anyway.

I take your point, Cuz. What I want to get across is that even though "The Modern Lovers" is a great rock album, it's not a great Jonathan album (notably, it's the only album without his name on the cover). A lot of his strengths are undeveloped or absent, for example his loose conversational style, the enthusiastic odes to his various interests and passions, the ever-present importance of relaxing and having a good time. The original Modern Lovers cannot (or did not) swing like the 70's line-up could. Similarly, "In The City" is a great punk album, but not a great Paul Weller album.

Still, apart from being a cool album, "The Modern Lovers" does give an insight into the mind of the teenage Jonathan and comparing it with later albums like "Jonathan Sings" provides an interesting insight into how much someone can change when they shake off their youthful inhibitions and start to enjoy the world instead of fighting it.

I may be overdoing this, but you may also enjoy the following story I just posted about a funky performance by Jonathan

I've always wondered if I'm Straight, She Cracked and Hospital are about the same girl, and if so, whether it's true or at least based on truth. To me they seem to form a narrative - the girl he loves hanging out with the hippy, druggy crowd in I'm Straight, her breakdown in She Cracked, and her subsequent spell in Hospital. It's like a loss of innocence tale. "As a child you must have been magic/I still get jealous of your old boyfriends in the suburbs sometimes" - devastating.
It's not especially judgemental or fingerwagging though. Dog Latin was OTM with the emo self-irony idea. The "eating health food at home" line is pretty funny an not especially self righteous.
They're an amazing trio of songs and whether they're meant to be about the same person or not, the effect is deeply moving.

Classic Pinefox.

I dislike David Bowie's version of Pablo Picasso intensely. Perhaps I am missing the point.

Now and Forever: A COMPLETE AND UTTER CLASSIC!

I've been meaning to go see Ernie Brooks play in one of his recent incarnations, maybe Gods And Monsters with Gary Lucas and somebody else on drums.

i really love that first record from 1976.

there's something throwaway and at the same time singularly wise and sincere about everything that comes out of his mouth on that record. i really get quite a kick out of how the irreverent and speculative delivery fuses with the nicely developed musical arrangements. there's lots of charm there

There were zero things wrong with this band.

hmmm http://www.piccadillyrecords.com/products/ModernLovers-96Tears-VinylLovers-74599.html
think i have this recording already ...

what's the recording quality like?

kinda poor, i think? the stonehenge recording (http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/828142175/old-world-finally-getting-around-to-posting-this) is better quality. at least if this is the same thing as I think it is ... links still work there btw.

The 2003 liner notes:

Returning triumphantly from New York (but not before members of the Dolls and the Modern Lovers had hurriedly entered a local studio to cut a version of '96 Tears', with Jonathan and David Johansen sharing vocals) the Modern Lovers started to unravel...

I want that. I've been looking around, and found a couple okay live versions, but no studio version so far. Modern Lovers lovers, we gotta mission.

yeah i'd be interested in hearing that. i assume it's never been bootlegged.

so are these the only sessions by the original modern lovers (before J.R. moved to california)?

Intermedia Studio-Boston/Warner Bros. session (late 1971)
John Cale/Warner Bros. session (April 1972)
Alan Mason and Robert Appere/A&M session (April 1972)
Km Fowley/Stuart Dawson sessions (June 1972)
"Radcliffe demos" (Oct. 1972)
John Cale sessions (Sept. 1973 - no recordings completed?)
Kim Fowley/Gold Star Studio session (1973?)

and has anyone carefully sorted out which recordings are from which sessions? man i'd kill for a box set that started with the M.L. album as released in '76 but then including all or almost all of the above-listed sessions. ain't gonna happen.

as suggested earlier in this thread, there are other sessions that have been rumored. FWIW the earliest "solo" J.R. stuff is the "solo acetate" from 1974. honestly it sounds very uncertain to me, like he knows he's not interested in making the kind of music his old band made, but hasn't quite figured out what he wants to do instead.

i've been (ahem) "finding" a lot of JR/MLs boots recently and frankly it gets very confusing... very difficult to date stuff from the early years. most studio boots seem to have a little from here, a little from there, mostly in atrocious sound quality (the only versions of the radcliffe demos i've ever heard are full of almost impenetrable hiss).

tbh the live stuff from this era is much more interesting b/c of jonathan's monologues and interactions with the audience. the "precise modern lovers order" album is probably the best document of this. the stonehenge stuff is probably the best-sounding live boot of the orginal MLs.

folks who like the later stuff (the JR&MLs era, so to speak) should find the peppermint lounge 7/20/81 show. apparently this comes from a promo LP the record company put together in the expectation that JR would soon have a new album out. as it turns out it took two more years to release "jonathan sings". the LP is a 37-minute edit of what was no doubt a longer concert. apparently boots of the whole thing are out there but don't sound have as good as the stuff pirated from the promo LP.

anyway.

oh and then there's the early'80s "jonathan goes funky" tape which is kind of bizarre. he seems to really have tried out a lot of different approaches in that era before settling on something he could live with. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KUSJ9UJ1

Gold Star is August of '73... and you listed all the ones I know about. Stonehenge is solid and there are the JR 1970 demos on that Punk Vault CD (Songs Of Remembrance), but I think that's it for the early stuff now that Precise M.L.O. and Long Branch have been released.

Darn, sure wish I'd seen this thread earlier.Would it be feasible to re-post the Stonehenge recording, Tyler?
Just now listened to his self-titled album on New Rounder, released this summer. Charming as evah, with as much accompaniment as needed (never too much), not totally solo, despite the description posted alongside track listings (on rdio.com, where I listened for free, with no ads, so suck it spotify). Really sociable live moments from current tour on Youtube, with his tireless, unflappable drummer, and what a dancer (Jonathan)

wait what is this new album? the newest one i know about is o moon queen of night on earth.

i mean there's a self-titled album from like the late 80s/early 90s on rounder, is that what you're thinking of?

also is there anything from those intermedia sessions "out there"? i can't recall hearing anything from those that i know of.

don't think there are any of those imtermedia sessions out there. could be wrong!
dow, i'll repost those shows shortly! and you should thank amateurist, he's the one who hooked me up with them in the first place.

Oops--although rdio lists July 5, 2011 as release date, discogs and others indeed say '89, so may be a reissue (on New Rounder, for that forever young vote, along with the new Jayhawks album, Plant, Krauss, Plant & Krauss, etc). Thanks Tyler and Amateurist, looking fwd to the Stonehenge re-post(JR on YouTube collection's also expired, adds lazy greedy me)

also is there anything from those intermedia sessions "out there"? i can't recall hearing anything from those that i know of.

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Tuesday, 11 October 2011 08:01 (12 hours ago)

Intermedia tracks appear on the 2003 Castle reissue CD of the S/T, version of "Hospital", "Someone I Care About", "Roadrunner" and "Modern World"... supposedly a track called 'Ride The Highway" was also recorded.

oh there you go.
ride the highway is on precise modern lovers, right?

still, good point, would make sense to do a box set of all this stuff. complete original modern lovers, a couple discs, live show or two, etc.

and fuckit I'll just throw that Punk Vault CD up on Shards Of Beauty, shardsofbeauty.blogspot.com, gimme half an hour.

yeah that's got some great stuff. the live tracks at mercer's in NYC sounds amazing, always wondered if there's a full recording of that show?

oh duh I forgot to mention that all of those Intermedia session tracks I mentioned except "Ride The Highway" are also on Songs Of Remembrance

ah ok -- i have songs of remembrance but i can't figure out which songs are from which sessions, etc. anyone want to clarify that for everybody?

oh wait y'all just posted that on yr blog. thank you.

herman cain is a moron.

ha ha wrong thread. but still true.

ok that early show has been re-posted over yonder: http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/11756298203/old-world-another-repost-you-want-this

he played here a couple days ago, i kinda hate myself for not having the energy to go

A fair number of really engaging 2011 performances on YouTube (although several are fragmented by camera phones etc, so check 2011 too, and way before!) Ton of his albums on his MySpace (the one with Pablopicassowas in its name) mostly overlapping with those on rdio.com, which also has live and studio Modern Lovers albums.

he was really engaging last time i saw him in 2008! i wish i could see him every year.

dude killed when I saw him @ the beginning of the year I think

i said this elsewhere recently but to me richman is like a national treasure, should be revered more on the level of like a tom waits imo

yeah. the contrast is stark: each new album tom waits releases gets a big media campaign, NPR interviews, accompanying PBS special, etc. (you get the idea). richman's new albums just kind of get dropped out there. some of the recent ones are import-only or already out of print. my guess is that they sell in the low 10,000s.

i've seen him twice in recent years. in honesty i wasn't too hot on the second of those two shows; his tendency to blur all his songs together by virtue of extended each of them with almost atonal acoustic-guitar workouts, singalong parts, extended monologues, etc. went a little overboard. but other people no doubt liked it a lot. i do wish he would dig deeper into his catalogue, but i think just as in the 1980s he was embarrassed by the O.G. modern lover stuff, now he's embarrassed by the twee early "solo" stuff (ca. 1977–86). which is my favorite era for him but oh well. to each his own goat.

don't know much of his work beyond modern lovers but I try to limit my listening as it tends to tickle my inner saddoe side and that's not healthy

"Roadrunner" for State Rock Song:

http://blog.thephoenix.com/BLOGS/onthedownload/archive/2013/02/11/15-reasons-why-roadrunner-jonathan-richman-modern-lovers-will-become-official-song-massachusetts-2013.aspx#.URk79a2RZYE.twitter

a good idea. though i didn't know states had rock songs. what are the other ones?

ok, ohio has "hang on sloopy", oklahoma has "do you realize?"...

i am stunned to learn that the pinefox doesn't like j. richman!

Narcissism of small differences?

Anyway, thinking of going to see Jojo next week at The Bell House.

Never did go.

Anyway, came to post this bizarre video- with yet another alternative take, as far as I can tell, of "Roadrunner."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x7D2VUP62I

great stuff here: http://www.vice.com/read/jonathan-richman-in-love-with-the-modern-world

Thanks Ernie Brooks, that is great

great read

yeah, i mean, it makes me glad we even got that original modern lovers album at all. seems like it was a pretty precarious thing.

my thought exactly. he's really unclear on where those takes come from - at one point, he says:

We got about four crazy, not very satisfactory tracks done, and then came the moment when Warner Bros. continued to put pressure on us, which led to Jonathan saying, “Well, I’m just not gonna do this anymore…”

So Warner Bros. dropped us.

anybody know what the story is here? did they end up using some/all of the earlier demo tracks?

Weird that he doesnt mention bermuda

xpost - They did demo sessions with John Cale before being signed to Warners and again after being signed. Think Ernie is talking about the latter, whereas the album mostly (or completely?) came from the earlier sessions.

Since he talks quite a lot here about "I'm Straight" it's funny he doesn't mention about how "Hippy Johnny" was originally "Hippy Ernie" and how he felt about that, especially since the "Ernie" version is more critical.

In the couple of weeks on the West Coast, we recorded all the songs that went into the Modern Lovers album, most of them recorded by Cale in a session where he basically captured us playing our live set. It went well, though all of us thought at the time that it was just a demo, preparation for what would be the "real" record

Still intending to go see Ernie play one day with Gary Lucas or whoever else he plays with but I never do.

whoops missed that, thanks!

god, now that I dig into Discogs, this record has a ridiculous history. I knew that "Government Center" and "Dignified And Old" were added to the 1986 Rhino reissue and subsequent CDs etc, but I never realized "I'm Straight" wasn't on any previous version of the record! Crazy that it was not released until the 1980 Troublemakers comp.

yeah i always get confused. i was saying someone really just needs to do a complete original modern lovers box set, w/ all the studio sessions in chronological order, plus whatever live stuff they can gather up. don't know if it's just all tied up w/ different record companies or what but it'd sell like hotcakes!

In the UK at least I'm Straight was on the 1976 Berserkley version - presumably the version that all those punks were supposedly influenced by.

Modern Lovers thread is not so bad
Not like the googlers say

Yeah, it was kind of weird how those three songs went missing for so long. First heard "Government Center" on Beserkley Chartbusters, "I'm Straight" on the Kim Fowley Original Modern Lovers and "Dignified and Old" I can't even remember when I first heard it, but I know it took ages. The novelty value made them seem like they were perhaps better than the other songs. Might have expected time to have turned the tables and devalued them but that never happened. Although I must admit I prefer the later version of "Government Center."

Posted this on jonathan richman: is this guy a class fucking act or what? but really should have posted here:
https://trouserpress.com/magazine-covers-5/
TP 44, November 1979

As mentioned in the Ernie Brooks interview upthread:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_1sA0PVArw

RIP Leroy Radcliffe. Which I found about from the main page of this blog and then verified on FB.

https://jojofiles.blogspot.com/2012/12/interview-26-modern-lover-leroy.html

I’m so sad. The Modern Lover’s’ original incarnation seems to get all the attention, but that second record, with “Abominable Snowman” and “Martian Martians” etc., is absolutely one of my favorite records of all time, and a huge influence. RIP, Leroy.

Yeah, the second band was its own thing.

They weren't just some rent-a-band, utilty players.

Just learned that Leroy and Robin Lane had a kid together.

And found a song about D. Sharpe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egOT4GVz17I

I had forgotten he played with Robin Lane, didn’t know the relationship went further than that. She put on a memorable live set back in the day, and I still think Imitation Life is a great record.

Just saw that Asa Brebner passed in 2019, which I don't think was noted around here.

Well, I know what records I’m playing tonight...

I loved Leroy's playing. Back in Your Life is my favorite period of that group. Leroy's playing on songs like "Abdul and Cleopatra" - beautiful.

Yes, that last tune is my favorite- "Tell them, Leroy." He was sort of doing something similar to Jonathan's exoticized Chuck Berry or whatever you want to call it, but with his own spin on it. Unless I confuse both of their playing styles.

Asa died almost exactly two years ago.

Should have said "a favorite" not "my favorite."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dokKKJ_8r6A

Yeah, think we watched that on another thread. Good stuff.

I hadn’t seen that before. So good.

Radcliffe was on twitter and I saw one tweet from him with a vague reference to cancer. RIP

Here's that whole TopPop show from whence came that version of "Abdul and Cleopatra."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rm4bd7gYCRI

Think I probably bought the four albums (assuming I am counting right) with Leroy etc before I finally got to the Holy Grail of that first album and while I enjoyed those records I was probably a little dismissive of them. In retrospect I started to appreciate Leroy and Asa and D. Sharpe as a classic lineup. I mean I liked to go and see Jonathan with the Rockin' Robins and such but I couldn't really tell you who was in those bands unless it was a Paley brother or Curly temporarily returned to the fold. I guess Tommy and Jonathan is a classic lineup too.

There's just something about Jonathan and Leroy doing their version of Lou and Sterl, if that's not too much of a stretch.

That video ended and a solo Jonathan video came on and I was reminded of the overlap between him and Andy Kaufman, if I had ever thought about it before.

So the Joshua Clover book about "Roadrunner" seems to live up to the hype. There is also this essay by Laura Barton as well as a follow-up.

Here is Xgau's review.

Jonathan Richman is now spending half his time selling pizza ovens says Christgau.

????

Googled and see that was his dayjob for a bit

Same here.

This video has probably been posted before but:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u96COiazRS8

He finally made it to "Top of the pops" with that one, but no hit (I went out and bought it the next day, where were you?)

There is another, different looking video also on TOTP. Who knew? What gives?

Or maybe just a slightly different camera angle.

Oh no, a different show, TopPop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cFUxcHM8nA

As mentioned upthread (by me!) and on other threads.

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

Wacky

I've never seen him play sax!

Yeah, hadn't been aware of that phase of his career.

Yall know Omnivore's got a line of ML reissues out soon, right? Meanwhile:

(download incl., though might have to try the link more than once)
https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2012/11/16/the-modern-lovers-stonehenge-club-ipswich-ma-19701971/

Tell them, Modern Lovers.

Dum-a-dum-day now!

It just occurred to me that the line dividing some of JR's performances above and Andy Kaufman's Mighty Mouse routine is a pretty thin line.

True.

Recently read somewhere that the singing voice of Mighty Mouse was done by Roy Halee Sr., father of the recording engineer.

A plea for tenderness might not be the best song ever recorded, but it’s pretty close and definitely takes the cake for the best modern lovers track.

Except for the fact that J richman doesn’t want to hear the girl talk about her cat????? Like wtf that’s the most tender thing anyone could talk about. Besides that, the song bangs

Old world a close second

I still love my parents too

Thanx for mentioning "Plea"... I hadn't heard it in a long time, was nice to revisit the song (via two different live versions). For whatever reason, I really only ever listen to their "main" studio album.

my kind of romantic

see also Hospital and Girlfriend

but also late career epiphanies like Not So Much to Be Loved as to Love
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Fzc_NeWPKc

Two different live versions? I know it’s on two different live albums but that seems to be the same track to me? Is there another rendition?

Late career so great. Very partial to his “early” solo album “Jonathan sings”. “Somebody to hold me” also an all time great, and “stop this car” is a cracker to play in the car while your partner is driving

Great track corrs

xp Oh, sorry if I have it wrong... they sounded different to me (and have slightly different run times); and the track on Precise Modern Lovers says "Live at Cambridge MA / 1973." I assumed the take on Live at Longbranch and More was recorded at the titular Berkeley venue... but sounds like you'd know better than me!

Yeah nah they’re the same, I think a plea for tenderness on the long branch and more is exactly where the “morel” starts to happen. Had me excited for another version! Haha

there's another "plea for tenderness" on this recording — not quite as good the cambridge version, but pretty good!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd0ZK9Gvy6g

Thank you!

So Jonathan was my 14 year old daughter's first concert, when she was 8. Her younger sister is now 8 and it will be her first concert; we're all going together next weekend.

Lucky kids!

that's wonderful

“stop this car” is a cracker to play in the car while your partner is driving

I don't think it was my daughter's first concert but he played our local bookshop when she was young and he was so great and she still loves him.

It was early COVID surging hence the mask, he was finishing up a work project in our hood and then he and his pup dropped by the bookstore to do a show afterwards:

https://i.imgur.com/nSq3UFB.jpg

Nice photo, thanks for sharing

<3

I just rewatched the VU doc last night and he is so lovely in that

Indeed