Jonathan Richman in Concert -- An Embarrassment of Riches
October 14, 2020 11:35 PM Subscribe
Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers TopPop Special September 16, 1978
Jonathan Richman Live in Barcelona Spain 1987 Part 1
Jonathan Richman Live in Barcelona Spain 1987 Part 2
Jonathan Richman Full Set Live Stream Capture Burger Boogaloo 2015
Jonathan Richman -- Take Me to the Plaza (Great American Music Hall San Francisco December 2002)
Andrew Bird's Live from the Great Room featuring Jonathan Richman 2020
Special Bonus:
Jonathan Richman -- Living Room Demos
Jonathan Richman Live in Barcelona Spain 1987 Part 1
Jonathan Richman Live in Barcelona Spain 1987 Part 2
Jonathan Richman Full Set Live Stream Capture Burger Boogaloo 2015
Jonathan Richman -- Take Me to the Plaza (Great American Music Hall San Francisco December 2002)
Andrew Bird's Live from the Great Room featuring Jonathan Richman 2020
Special Bonus:
Jonathan Richman -- Living Room Demos
I'm awake in the middle of the night with stomach cramps. This is helping. Thanks.
posted by bonobothegreat at 2:15 AM on October 15, 2020
posted by bonobothegreat at 2:15 AM on October 15, 2020
See also
Jonathan Richman --Girlfriend / Roadrunner at Joey Ramones Birthday Party Coney Island High NYC May 1998
posted by y2karl at 3:08 AM on October 15, 2020 [1 favorite]
Jonathan Richman --Girlfriend / Roadrunner at Joey Ramones Birthday Party Coney Island High NYC May 1998
posted by y2karl at 3:08 AM on October 15, 2020 [1 favorite]
I really do wish all this helps your stomach cramps bonobothegreat -- I've been there myself and it's no fun. I hope you feel better soonest.
posted by y2karl at 3:19 AM on October 15, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by y2karl at 3:19 AM on October 15, 2020 [1 favorite]
This one was memorable.
Not So Much to Be Loved as to Love, Valentine’s Day, 2010
posted by Ptrin at 5:22 AM on October 15, 2020 [1 favorite]
Not So Much to Be Loved as to Love, Valentine’s Day, 2010
posted by Ptrin at 5:22 AM on October 15, 2020 [1 favorite]
Seen him a few times, but this one was the best. Hard to believe it has been almost 20 years.
posted by snofoam at 5:29 AM on October 15, 2020
posted by snofoam at 5:29 AM on October 15, 2020
This post is timely, since my kid has just discovered I, Jonathan on our ancient iPod. Her faves shift between "You Can't Talk to the Dude," "I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar," and "A Higher Power," depending on how energetically she wants to dance.
I have seen him maybe 3 times? Twice at The Howlin' Wolf in New Orleans, where the crowd fave was "Vampire Girl" and once in the Bay Area someplace.
We have been listening since I was a kid, when a friend of my mom's taped a whole bunch of Modern Lovers for her to get through a major break up. It's great music for road trips.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 8:58 AM on October 15, 2020
I have seen him maybe 3 times? Twice at The Howlin' Wolf in New Orleans, where the crowd fave was "Vampire Girl" and once in the Bay Area someplace.
We have been listening since I was a kid, when a friend of my mom's taped a whole bunch of Modern Lovers for her to get through a major break up. It's great music for road trips.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 8:58 AM on October 15, 2020
Seems like a good time to dust off some Modern Lovers albums, watch these videos, and enjoy An Embarrassment of Richman.
posted by neon909 at 9:58 AM on October 15, 2020
posted by neon909 at 9:58 AM on October 15, 2020
I cannot believe how little attention it got on the Internet, but Jonathan Richman did a pair of AMAs on Reddit last month and this month and they are pure joyful Richman. Here's the first, and here's the second.
They're full of intelligent and thoughtful and sweet responses, and he (and his assistant doing the typing) kept coming back to the threads until every single question was answered.
Some of the really amazing lines:
"A lot of my happiest songs, have their roots in deep sorrow. In fact, I don't trust happy music, myself, unless I can hear at least a hint of sorrow. So I think, if you're going to feel, you won't just feel happy. You'll feel both, or nothing at all."
"I don't see lack of creativity as something which must be changed, it's a rest from creativity, and I have faith that creativity will return again."
posted by ZaphodB at 11:20 AM on October 15, 2020 [9 favorites]
They're full of intelligent and thoughtful and sweet responses, and he (and his assistant doing the typing) kept coming back to the threads until every single question was answered.
Some of the really amazing lines:
"A lot of my happiest songs, have their roots in deep sorrow. In fact, I don't trust happy music, myself, unless I can hear at least a hint of sorrow. So I think, if you're going to feel, you won't just feel happy. You'll feel both, or nothing at all."
"I don't see lack of creativity as something which must be changed, it's a rest from creativity, and I have faith that creativity will return again."
posted by ZaphodB at 11:20 AM on October 15, 2020 [9 favorites]
Contrary to the song, Pablo Picasso was indeed an asshole.
posted by storybored at 1:57 PM on October 15, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by storybored at 1:57 PM on October 15, 2020 [4 favorites]
Perhaps, but was he ever called one?
posted by rhizome at 3:49 PM on October 15, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by rhizome at 3:49 PM on October 15, 2020 [1 favorite]
This is great! I have seen Johnathan Richman live several times, and Andrew Bird live several times, but I have never seen them together!
posted by Cookiebastard at 4:11 PM on October 15, 2020
posted by Cookiebastard at 4:11 PM on October 15, 2020
Not being from the US, I could never really pull apart how much of Richman's accent was geographic and how much was personal idiosyncrasy. It struck me tonight that he reminds me of the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz - and it turns out Ray Bolger was also from the greater Boston area, so I guess largely geographic?
posted by bonobothegreat at 7:44 PM on October 15, 2020
posted by bonobothegreat at 7:44 PM on October 15, 2020
Ask and you shall receive...
Jonathan Richman -- My Affected Accent
See also
posted by y2karl at 9:39 PM on October 15, 2020 [2 favorites]
Jonathan Richman -- My Affected Accent
See also
posted by y2karl at 9:39 PM on October 15, 2020 [2 favorites]
I could write reams on this guy, but here are a few random highlights:
I don't get to San Francisco very often, but for some reason, every time I do, I get to catch a Jojo gig at GAMH, the Great American Music Hall. Last time mid-December 2016. Of course a great show, even with the downer encore where he sang about his dying mother.
Thinking back to my first show, at Club Zinc in Hull, Quebec (next to Ottawa) in I guess 1988. After the show, Jojo just sat down on the lip of the stage and talked to the fans.
If anyone here has a tape of his interview on Brave New Waves from 1984, yes I would appreciate being able to hear it again. That was my intro. Don't remember whether he was talking to Augusta Lapaix or Brent Banbury, but I definitely remember hearing them play "The Tag Game", and it took me about 8 years to finally find it, on a 12" EP of That Summer Feeling. Hunting things down before there was an internet to speak of was so much more fun.
Thanks for the reddits. Had no idea.
posted by morspin at 10:04 PM on October 15, 2020
I don't get to San Francisco very often, but for some reason, every time I do, I get to catch a Jojo gig at GAMH, the Great American Music Hall. Last time mid-December 2016. Of course a great show, even with the downer encore where he sang about his dying mother.
Thinking back to my first show, at Club Zinc in Hull, Quebec (next to Ottawa) in I guess 1988. After the show, Jojo just sat down on the lip of the stage and talked to the fans.
If anyone here has a tape of his interview on Brave New Waves from 1984, yes I would appreciate being able to hear it again. That was my intro. Don't remember whether he was talking to Augusta Lapaix or Brent Banbury, but I definitely remember hearing them play "The Tag Game", and it took me about 8 years to finally find it, on a 12" EP of That Summer Feeling. Hunting things down before there was an internet to speak of was so much more fun.
Thanks for the reddits. Had no idea.
posted by morspin at 10:04 PM on October 15, 2020
His friends say stop whining,
They've had enough of that.
His friends would say stop pining,
There's others girls to look at.
They've tried to set him up with Tiffany and Indigo,
But there's something about Mary that they don't know.
Mary, there's just something about Mary.
Well, his friends say, look life's no fairy tale,
That he should have some fun, he's suffered long enough.
Well, they may now about domestic and imported ale,
But they don't know a thing about love.
Well, his friends would say he's dreaming
And living in the past,
But they've never fallen in love,
So his friends need not be asked.
His friends would say be reasonable,
His friends would say just let go,
But there's something about Mary that they don't know.
Mary, there's just something about Mary.
posted by Narrative_Historian at 12:45 AM on October 16, 2020 [1 favorite]
They've had enough of that.
His friends would say stop pining,
There's others girls to look at.
They've tried to set him up with Tiffany and Indigo,
But there's something about Mary that they don't know.
Mary, there's just something about Mary.
Well, his friends say, look life's no fairy tale,
That he should have some fun, he's suffered long enough.
Well, they may now about domestic and imported ale,
But they don't know a thing about love.
Well, his friends would say he's dreaming
And living in the past,
But they've never fallen in love,
So his friends need not be asked.
His friends would say be reasonable,
His friends would say just let go,
But there's something about Mary that they don't know.
Mary, there's just something about Mary.
posted by Narrative_Historian at 12:45 AM on October 16, 2020 [1 favorite]
intelligent and thoughtful and sweet
In the pretty early 90s my friend Charlotte was about to have a birthday and she didn't want a birthday so she definitely didn't want a party but at the same time we sensed that perhaps she kind of did, but she didn't so she made a bunch of ridiculous and she thought impossible demands like she wanted her cake--not the icing, the cake--to be blue and she wanted a dinosaur theme and a bunch of other stuff I forget. So I threw a bunch of blue food coloring in the box cake mix and bought some plastic dinosaurs and everybody else did whateverall else she wanted and we had a party and after the party we went to the Jonathon Richman show. At the last minute on a whim somebody thought to bring him a plate with plastic dinosaurs and blue cake and all her other birthday foods which I sadly forget. We arranged everything nicely and included a note that said something like, "Please enjoy this birthday treat courtesy of birthday girl Charlotte." We left it for him backstage and went and stood in the audience and at some point in the show, we held up a big posterboard sign over her head that said "Charlotte!" with an arrow pointing down at Charlotte. He stopped the show and said in a wondering tone as if he had just spotted a baby fawn, "Charlotte!" He said, "Happy birthday, Charlotte!" and then he explained about the birthday plate and listed all the various birthday treats and the plastic dinosaurs and whatever else it was, and then he made everybody sing happy birthday to Charlotte and she said she hated it all but she clearly did not hate it. Jonathon Richman is the best person.
posted by Don Pepino at 9:54 AM on October 16, 2020 [9 favorites]
In the pretty early 90s my friend Charlotte was about to have a birthday and she didn't want a birthday so she definitely didn't want a party but at the same time we sensed that perhaps she kind of did, but she didn't so she made a bunch of ridiculous and she thought impossible demands like she wanted her cake--not the icing, the cake--to be blue and she wanted a dinosaur theme and a bunch of other stuff I forget. So I threw a bunch of blue food coloring in the box cake mix and bought some plastic dinosaurs and everybody else did whateverall else she wanted and we had a party and after the party we went to the Jonathon Richman show. At the last minute on a whim somebody thought to bring him a plate with plastic dinosaurs and blue cake and all her other birthday foods which I sadly forget. We arranged everything nicely and included a note that said something like, "Please enjoy this birthday treat courtesy of birthday girl Charlotte." We left it for him backstage and went and stood in the audience and at some point in the show, we held up a big posterboard sign over her head that said "Charlotte!" with an arrow pointing down at Charlotte. He stopped the show and said in a wondering tone as if he had just spotted a baby fawn, "Charlotte!" He said, "Happy birthday, Charlotte!" and then he explained about the birthday plate and listed all the various birthday treats and the plastic dinosaurs and whatever else it was, and then he made everybody sing happy birthday to Charlotte and she said she hated it all but she clearly did not hate it. Jonathon Richman is the best person.
posted by Don Pepino at 9:54 AM on October 16, 2020 [9 favorites]
By the way, for the record:
The car, the radio, the night - and rock's most thrilling song
posted by y2karl at 9:20 PM on October 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
The car, the radio, the night - and rock's most thrilling song
posted by y2karl at 9:20 PM on October 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
« Older Amy Coney Barrett pledges 'open mind' and plays... | "Always the cowboy, never the cow" 🐄 Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by y2karl at 11:38 PM on October 14, 2020 [3 favorites]