TITLE: "I'm Straight"
ARTIST: The Modern Lovers
ALBUM: The Modern Lovers
RELEASE DATE: 1976
There are fewer things as cliched as a self-professed music geek waxing rhapsodic about a culturally-significant-albeit-comparatively-obscure album with fervent reverence. I've done it several times here already. I'm afraid it just goes part and parcel with having put in the endless hours of perusing racks in dusty record shops (instead of, say, running around in the sun, inventing something entirely unique and/or forging meaningful relationships with one's fellow human beings). Look, we can't help it, alright? Whether it stems from a need to share the joy and excitement of hearing something that will never be played on a mainstream radio station or on a sports bar's jukebox or it's born of a desire to flex one's knowitall chops in the vain hope of impressing someone, music geeks MUST spread their gospel whenever possible. As an easily pegged stereotype, we might often be sheepish, awkward and sullen, but ask a music geek to opine on an even tenuously esoteric piece of music, and we'll probably blossom like a dew-kissed daffodil in a light April rain.
That brings me to today's installment. When Charlotte and Oliver started howling at 6:15 this morning for their milk and respective diaper changes, I begrudgingly rose from bed, reached in the closet to grab a clean t-shirt from the top of the pile and went about my dastardly doody duty. The t-shirt in question ended up being my black Modern Lovers t-shirt, an artifact I prized off the internet some years ago. When I walk down the street in this shirt, it prompts exceptionally few nods of recognition (making it, of course, prototypical rock geek wear -- "hey world, check out my eclectic taste!") Featuring a stream-lined heart and an angular font, the Modern Lovers logo looks a bit like the Strokes logo, which is probably not an accident, being that the Modern Lovers themselves were a crucial influence on all the bands the Strokes went onto rip off. That all said, mention the name "Modern Lovers" to your average person on the street, and they'll probably have no idea who you're talking about or assume that they're an ironically-named, cheese-ball wedding band. But let me tell you, there was no irony nor cheese involved with The Modern Lovers. At least not in terms of their eponymous first LP.
I'd first heard the record when I was a freshman in college in 1985. There was a senior who lived in my dorm named Warrick (pronouced: Wahhrick). Warrick was an endearingly pompous senior who hosted a show on the university's radio staion, WDUB. I can't remember how it was we became friends, but in relatively short order, Warrick would stop by my room prior to his broadcasts to borrow records. At the time, I was still in the throes of my hardcore fixation -- championing bands like Naked Raygun, Black Flag, Kraut, Minor Threat, Suicidal Tendencies, etc. -- but was also nurturing a growing adoration for UK bands like The Damned, The Sisters of Mercy, The Stranglers, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Stiff Little Fingers, Sham 69, The Cult and -- wait for it -- Killing Joke. I'd happily lend W my vinyl and then listen to his show later in the evening. In between tracks from my albums, Warrick would play music I was largely unfamiliar with, like stuff from the Nuggets compilation, Brian Eno, obscure Stones tracks from early on in their career, Tom Verlaine and The Tom Robinson Band (I believe he played "Power In The Darkness" on every show of his). One night, he opened his show with "Roadrunner" from the first album by The Modern Lovers.
While I maintain that The Modern Lovers are the probably the best known, legitimately "seminal" (cliched rock critic term alert!) band you've never heard, I'm relatively sure you've heard "Roadrunner." Kicking off with the preternaturally adenoidal vocals of the youthful Jonathan Richman (punkily counting off the song a couple of years before Dee Dee Ramone picked up the shtick), "Roadrunner" is virtually the perfect rock n' roll song. Pairing the avant-drone of the Velvet Underground (of whom Richman was a devout fan) and the stomping horsepower of The Stooges, "Roadrunner" is a balls-out, honest ode to the simple joys of driving one's car while cranking the radio. I didn't have a driver's license when I first heard this version in 1985 (and inexcusably wouldn't get one for another twenty years!!!), but the first time I got in a car by myself and drove around with the stereo pumped up, I knew EXACTLY what Jonathan was singing about.
I'd heard the song before, but never the original version. "Roadrunner" was notoriously covered in exceptionally sloppy fashion by The Sex Pistols on their Great Rock N' Roll Swindle soundtrack album (finding Johnny Rotten largely forgetting all the words). While the `Pistols' rendition was barely cohesive, the original version is tight and hard-hitting. Joan Jett tried her comely hand at covering it a while back, but the less said about that the better (as she'd probably agree). I heard Warwick spin it for the first time and instantly wanted to know more.
The Modern Lovers' debut album was officially recorded at some point in the early `70s and produced by Velvet Underground bassist John Cale. Legend has it that he found the recording sessions somewhat exasperating, as he purportedly kept urging the growingly eccentric Richman to "ATTACK!". For all Cale's misgivings, I'd suggest that he succeeded for the most part, as the Modern Lovers -- much less Jonathan Richman's solo work -- would never sound this aggressive again. Regardless, the finished product ended up being such a strange anomaly for the times, that it went unreleased until 1976, when maverick proto-indie label Beserkly prized the recordings (ultimately a collection of demos) and released them as the LP. Suffice to say, it didn't immediately (or ever) make a dent in the pop charts.
The Modern Lovers didn't sing about fanciful crap. They were earnest, normal guys living in drab, suburban Boston and making music that matched their mood and lifestyle. And if that subject matter turned out to be inescapably banal, the band found a way to make it sound entirely unique (especially when the rest of the world was grooving to glam, prog and folk rock). Built around Jonathan Richman's somewhat pious, arguably naive perspective, the spirit of the Modern Lovers flew directly in the face of conventional rock mores. They weren't tight trousered hellions or depraved lotharios. If you invited the Modern Lovers over for dinner, they'd probably help you re-arrange your book shelves and chat about postimpressionist French painting rather than drink your liquor cabinet dry and put a boot through your television set. They were positively wholesome, but in a credible, cool way.
I taped Warwick's super-rare copy of the original vinyl, but in a strange moment of synergized serendipity, Rhino Records ended up re-releasing The Modern Lovers that following Summer. They appended a couple of tracks that were missing on the original LP, and changed the cover art (slapping a picture of the ragtag foursome underneath the logo). I snapped it up immediately. It lived on one half of a 90 minute cassette that was permanently lodged in my Walkman for the entirety of the Summer (on the other side was The Cure's singles compilation, Standing On A Beach). WIth the possible exception of the mawkish "Hospital" (wherein Jonathan wallows in his "troubled girlfriend" fixation for the umpteenth time -- see also the raging "She Cracked"), there really isn't a weak track in the bunch. The playing is blunt, forceful and raw, augmented by the odd bum note (usually courtesy of organist and future Talking Head, Jerry Harrison). The rhythm section of bassist Ernie Brooks and drummer Dave Robinson shoves proceedings along with a proto-punky intensity, but it's Jonathan himself who remains the star of the show, by way of his Velvets-inspired guitar, earnest monotone and his peculiarly honest world view, captured perfectly in the track I'm citing here, "I'm Straight."
Don't let the title fool you. "I'm Straight" has nothing to do with sexual orientation, rather it's an open-hearted albeit somewhat vengefully pious plea to a girl to reconsider her affections for the infamous "Hippie Johnnie." In an era when most pop music was telling you to tune in, turn on and drop out, "I'm Straight" was a bold declaration of integrity, decrying Hippie Johnnie's slack-jawed reliance on reefer (ironically delivered in a blunt monotone that makes Jonathan sound like he's been hittin' the bong himself). The playing is taut and deliberate, packing an emphatic punch behind Jonathan's words. "I'm Straight" may not be the first Punk song ever committed to tape (I'll let you debate that one), but it might very well be the first straightedge song. Ian MacKaye was certainly listening.
The unique power of the band circa The Modern Lovers was not to last. Whether it was carefully calculated shtick or he legitimately went around the bend, Jonathan decided to abandon the band's hard-edged sound. He decided that he never again wanted to make music that could hurt the ears of children. Drummer David Robinson, legend has it, was instructed to stop playing drums in favor of rolling a newspaper up and banging it on his knee. Unsurprisingly, Robinson didn't respond enthusiastically to this dictum and left the ranks, later to join The Cars, although his playing in that band betrays the propulsive punch he provided for the Modern Lovers.
Jonathan, meanwhile, continued to lighten up both the sound and the sentiment of his music. Later albums found him penning material like "Abominable Snowman in The Market," "Here Come The Martian Martians" and "Ice Cream Man," his penchant for childlike whimsy being an inarguable influence on later artists like Calvin Johnson of Beat Happening and even Jack White of the The White Stripes. Personally speaking, while I lament the dissolution of his original band, I still buy the odd Jonathan Richman album, as he remains a hugely entertaining songwriter and a great guitar player.
I first went and saw Jonathan play sometime in 1990 at the long-since defunct Lone Star Roadhouse on 52nd Street. He was milling around before hand and some friends and I sheepishly went up to him and asked him to perform "I'm Straight." He immediately started chuckling in an "awww, shucks" sort of way. "No, no, no, no, I can't do that, heh heh heh", he said before wandering off. Suffice to say, he didn't play it -- or anything else from that record either. About a year after this, Jonathan released his bajillionth solo album, Having a Party With Jonathan Richman. On a live track called "Monologue About Bermuda," he briefly talks about his days with the early Modern Lovers, lamenting them as being stiff and snotty. Fair enough, I suppose, but as far as I'm concerned, stiff and snotty is usually a lot more interesting than contrived and goofy. The last album I picked up from Jonathan was Her Mystery Not of High Heels, featuring the sublime "Springtime In New York," which is about as far as one could possibly get from the comparatively dark attack of "I'm Straight."
There was a point about seven years ago when my writer friend Sean was trying to goad me into writing a book. We were batting ideas around, and I suggested that -- to my knowledge at the time -- no one had ever bothered to tell the Jonathan Richman story. Here he was this hugely influential and eccentric figure in the development of rock n' roll, but he was nowhere near a household name in the same way as his peers like Lou Reed and Iggy Pop. Sean thought it was a brilliant idea and called up his agent, who in turn called me to set up an appointment to chat about it. We made a lunch date for the following week. In the interim, I did a little bit of research and discovered to my embarrassment that someone had in fact attempted to tell Jonathan's story and published the book only the year before. My timing couldn't have been worse. Given his cameos in the arguably hilarious film, "There's Something About Mary," Jonathan Richman's name had been catapulted into the mainstream, and a writer named Tim Mitchell seized the opportunity. Mitchell's book, the somewhat crassly titled "There's Something About Jonathan" is a thorough if not particularly exciting encapsulation of the Modern Lovers' story, but there was a crucial flaw. While he didn't renounce the book, Jonathan Richman politely refused to cooperate or authorize the work. I told the literary agent this as soon as we sat down, and we were both a little deflated. I suppose if I could manage to coax Jonathan into it, another book with his input would be worth doing, but it seemed like a long shot at best. Secretly, I was a little relieved. The idea of devoting at least two years of my life to telling the story of Jonathan Richman seemed like a swift recipe for insanity. I suppose it could still happen, though.
Every time I play this album, and especially this song, I think about it.
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