Boston Big-Shot Returns to Bean-Town

Foreword: Everyone reading this should stop. Go buy a CD called The Modern Lovers. It'll be about $8 with tax; it's always in the bargain bin over at Newbury Comics. If you care in the least about rock and roll, you should own this album.

Jonathan Richman wrote one of the essential rock songs but is most famous for playing the mystery musician in There's Something About Mary, who sings the movie's theme song while waltzing through the scenery. Of course, Jonathan Richman, despite his incredible influence over more than 26 years of playing music, has had only one hit--"Egyptian Reggae," an instrumental dance number that scraped the bottom of the charts in Europe about 22 years ago. Richman's recording career, among the most varied in rock, is what ought to be garnering all the attention; his first songs were highly influential proto-punk, but he has since refused to play any song that might injure the ears of infants. So it was a little odd to find him stuck in the middle of the intermittently amusing spectacle of immaturity that was Mary.

The songs Richman wrote and performed during the early '70s are astonishing; they meld the sound of his beloved Velvet Underground and the Stooges with the typical teen rock concerns of girls, driving and insecurity, shot through with an unnerving simplicity and directness like nothing else in rock then or now. Also distinctive is Richman's voice, which I hesitate to describe as nasal and monotone, because it is far more appealing than that.

The Modern Lovers signed to Warner Brothers, which proves just how base corporate rock today is, since major labels then weren't afraid to sign bands like the Stooges or the MC5 or the Modern Lovers. All these bands were commercial flops, so it's understandable that labels were chastened, but each produced a body of art that ought to have bands like Third Eye Bland and Dave bleedin' Matthews throwing themselves off bridges in shame, or at least wetting themselves with envy and awe.

During this period Richman recorded his best known song: "Roadrunner." He takes two chords from the Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray" and makes "Roadrunner" one of the best rock songs ever recorded. The simple, affecting music is matched by the lyrics, which are both the typical rock song and about the power of that song: "I'm in love with Massachusetts/I'm in love with the radio on/It helps me from being lonely late at night/I don't feel so bad now in the car." Richman's probably sick of playing "Roadrunner," but people aren't sick of hearing it, yet.

No other songs of Richman's are as timeless and universal as the sound and feeling of Richman driving alone "in love with modern girls and modern rock & roll." That sound and feeling have often led to Richman being labeled a "protopunk," and it is true that he played passionate minimalist rock in a time otherwise filled mostly with orchestral, pretentious crap and inoffensive James Taylor wimpery. Richman's influence is all over '77 punk, as you know if you've ever heard the Sex Pistols' massacre of "Roadrunner." And a cover of "Pablo Picasso" appeared in Alex Cox's brilliant movie Repo Man.

Richman's early '70s songs weren't relaesed until 1976. But by this time, he was virtually a different person. What pissed off his new fans--the ones who saw the brilliance of "Roadrunner" and wanted more--was that his new songs weren't just happier; they really were directed at infants. He sang songs like "Hey There Little Insect" and "I'm A Little Dinosaur" and "Here Come the Martian Martians." He stopped playing with professional musicians and picked strangers out of the audience at concerts; they'd drum for him using rolled up newspapers. It took him a couple of years, but by 1979's Back in Your Life, he had snapped out of it, and he now plays a fusion of his two previous styles. A song on his new album, I'm So Confused, is called "The Lonely Little Thrift Store," but this thrift store sells "avocado green appliances/with the smell of domestic violences."

Richman's new album is good, but it's not great. He pointlessly re-records some of his older songs. Some of the new songs are unexceptional and some are excellent; this is more or less the way it's been since 1972. In "Nineteen in Naples," Richman ruefully examines his youthful anger ("I didn't like this and I didn't like that/I was such a little brat"), but the song is musically unimpressive. The titular "I'm So Confused" makes better use of the irritating synthesizers than most other songs on the album. Producer Ric Ocasek has stuck the distracting synths in everywhere, apparently longing for his days in the Cars with ex-Modern Lovers drummer Jerry Harrison. "Love Me Like I Love" is similar to Richman's older work in its direct expression of loneliness and isolation, but it looks backwards to childhood, where early Modern Lovers songs like "Dignified and Old" looked towards the future for happiness. But the song most similar to the early Modern Lovers feel is "The Night Is Still Young," which has Richman driving around looking for a party. Although far jauntier than "Roadrunner," comparing the two songs allows one to see the constants in Richman's music.

What is most appealing about Richman's music, aside from general excellence, is its unironic appreciation of life, rare in today's hipper-than-thou culture. Richman is never less than totally honest and earnest and although he is aware of this and its effects, he is never putting on an act; he's just being Jonathan. This was very apparent when he played to a packed downstairs at the Middle East on Nov. 2. With just his guitar and drummer Tommy Larkins, Richman played one of the most entertaining and energetic live shows I've seen in a very long time. And true to his concern for infants' ears, the guitar was barely amplified and the drums were unmic'ed. He played about half the songs on the new album, which were much better live, and he also played many of his classics, like "I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar" ("Well the straight bar things were stop and stare/But in this bar things were laissez faire") and the hilarious "Parties in the USA." He played "Girlfriend" and "Pablo Picasso" ("Well some people try to pick up girls/And get called assholes/This never happened to Pablo Picasso/Not like you"), both from the first Modern Lovers album (to the delight of the crowd), which sang so loud they nearly drowned out the sound of poor Jonathan. Richman loves to swing his hips in Elvis fashion and would often put down his guitar so he could sing and dance at the same time.

The whole evening was characterized by sincere feeling and good humor that unfailingly raised the spirits of all involved, even when the songs were about loneliness, as so many were. It's hard to write about what great music sounds like, so I will simply suggest that you hear it for yourself.