Any other Jonathan Richman fans here?

About 10+ years ago my husband and I went to a JR concert in a club in north Florida. I could've told JR not to bother to come to north Florida, which is hard cracker country and no one would "get" his act there. I was right, very few people did. But for me, it was a blast, I was thrilled to be there and to meet him afterwards and get his autograph.

In trying to convey what Jojo's music is like to non-fans, I find it simply impossible. There's all that great new wave stuff like, "She Cracked" and "Pablo Picasso" and "Modern World," but then you've got all that great childlike stuff like, "I'm a Little Airplane" and "Buzz Buzz Buzz Goes the Honeybee," which is obviously music that is intended to be listened to while under the influence of a great big phatty. I've introduced my 4-year-old son to Jojo and it's all he wants to listen to now.

It's extremely hard to obtain Jonathan's music these days, but I managed to get a few CD imports recently. I sent off two very old cassettes to a friend of mine who is going to turn them into CDs for me and improve their sound quality. These two are not available at all in CD form, so I feel very fortunate to preserve these cassettes this way.

Any other fans here? (I'm outta here, gotta go get a double chocolate malted.....)

Especially the Modern Lovers stuff, but I love all of his career.

I've seen JR probably 8 or 9 times. I've even done sound for him (which is a challenge, I can tell you.) My favorite Jonathan moment: reading his contract rider. Normally, famous musicians ask for all sorts of things: cigarettes, booze, towels, etc. Jonathan's rider simply said: Mr. Richman requires a Fender amplifier and a parking space.

Jeebus, I don't know how one would go about handling that aspect of a Jojo show, LMAO!! The sound quality on some of his CDs is so scattershot.

Loved your post!

I try to see him whenever he comes to Portland. He usually packs them in pretty good here, filling up mid-size venues.

His cd's are hard to get. About five years ago I saw pretty much all of them in bettern music shops, but now I only see compilations--and that's pretty rare. Someone needs to re-release his entire catalog.

http://www.allmusic.com/
Do a search for him at this excellent site. there are a bunch of his CDs available.

"About 10+ years ago my husband and I went to a JR concert in a club in north Florida." My wife and I did, too!!

I saw him in Pensacola a few years back. We met him after, but that's where our posts differ. My wife mostly spoke to him, and said it was the biggest let down. She said he was the strangest guy, just plain weird. Maybe he was just tired, or on something, or if he said something to her she didn't want to tell me, but whatever.

Anyway, we're still big fans of his music. When we met, her 7-year old daughter listened right along with us. She's 13 and still likes him. My wife transcribed the words to "Closer" as a gift to me once. I love the "Bermuda monologue", which pretty much sums it all up as far as why he moved towards more innocent, fun music. I love so many of his songs I can't list them here (have you seen the Kohl's commercial using "Ice Cream Man"?)

For the Pensacola show, he had his drummer/sidekick with him. It wasn't nearly as good as when I saw him a few years before in Louisiana, totally solo, in a large theater with great acoustics. He had only his boots for percussion. It was mesmerising. One of the best live shows I've ever seen.

Well, when I met him, he actually seemed more *normal* than I expected him to be. In fact, I believe I was the only fan who approached him afterwards (this was in Jax), and if my husband and I had offered, we felt like he would've gone out for a drink with us. He seemed to want to linger with us, seemed kinda lonely. Kicking ourselves for not asking.

It cracks me up that so many people only discovered him with the "Mary" movie, and my feeling was, holy cow, he's been a part of my life since about 1979, and even at that time, I was considered a latecomer to Jojo's world! Made me feel old!

Whenever that commercial with Ice Cream Man comes on, my 2 year old daughter stops dead in her tracks, smiles and just stares at the tv.

at the 40 Watt.

I'm going to see him at the 9:30 Club in DC. It's much less personal than
the time I saw him at the Eight By Ten in Baltimore about 8-9 yrs ago. I
was 'early' cuz traffic was better than I thought, so I popped down to a
brewpub called Sissons on the same block as the club. When I stepped
out of the pub, and walked the 50 yds down to the club, I bumped into
JR himself, in an old beater station wagon, and said "hey, you're JR!"
and he said "yeah, could you help me carry this drum into this club?"
so I walked in with him, drum in hand, like a 'roadie', and got in for
free cuz the door guy thought I WAS the drummer or something. Heh.
That club only held about 100 so it was like being in his living room.
He played for about 2 hours and EVERYONE was singing and dancing.
At The Birchmere in Arlington VA, full of yuppie dinner club types...
he begged them to sing and dance and they sat on their hands. Morons.

His music and joie de vivre are something you either GET or you DON'T.
I always thought that if I found a woman who liked JR, I know she'd be
the one for me. I did and we've been married 6 yrs and counting.

And I still like playing 'Sleeper Car' while driving my 1964 Ford around
town. :+

Bigby

He has some great songs that others have covered well. His own version of Roadrunner is great, but Ihave heard several bands cover it ala Richman and its always fantastic. The Feelies cover of Egyptian Reggae first turned me on to JR.

I Eat With Gusto, Damn! You Bet and 5 I Was Dancing In The Lesbian Bar, along with Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste were the songs that sold me on him. I also heard a live tape of him once witha song called Blue Squirtgun or something like that and that simple little song has stuck in my head for over a decade on one hearing. amazing songwriter.

I've been a fan since the early modern lovers. back in the 80''s I was in a band that covered "I'm hip." I met him in '90. When I told him about covering this song he seemed really surprised. He told me he had recently heard a tape of my old band via mutual friends. I've run into him a couple of times over the years He's the real deal. Unfortunatly I've only seen him on stage once.

with the radio on..."

I remember around 10-12 years ago, whenever he was playing around town (the Boston area), he'd call a friend of ours (and another friend of hers) to invite them to the show; and every time, he'd call them to come up on stage to sing with him.

I've never actually seen him live. And he's been around for a long time. When I was in college, I can remember my boyfriend mentioning to me that he was going to see Jonathan Richman--that was in 1977!