UPDATE, October '98: This summer Jonathan called me from South Miami to tell me about a film he was working on. I figured "indie", and when I asked if I knew anyone in it and he mentioned Matt Dillon and Cameron Dias I was- needless to say -both impressed and a wee bit envious ("man, Cameron is SUCH a babe", I believe I said...Jojo was nonplussed). A few months before we'd discussed a film scoring project I was working on, and I'd asked him if he had ever considered writing music for films; the question was almost rhetorical, as Jonathan writes all of his material from life, a methodology not condusive to the sort of Miami Vice crap most films require. I said I was enjoying the challenge of trying to fit music to a scene, and was enjoying it, but Jonathan, as expected, found it hard to imagine a situation where he would write from anything but his heart. So I was pleased and a bit surprised when he told me that his role in the movie Something About Mary involved a number of appearances throughout the film, and that he had written a song for the movie. "Hmm", I said to him, "sounds like the Nat King Cole role in Cat Ballou". He laughed and confirmed that the idea had come to the directors from that self-same, tongue-in-cheek '60's flick. I asked Jojo, in light of our earlier conversation, what made him change his mind about writing for film. "Well, see, I didn't really start out to write a song, I was just going to be in the movie doing some of my own stuff, but after I read the script I got an idea for a song, and so I wrote it...not so much for the movie but more about it. Then I played it for the Farrally brothers and they liked it, they said 'this is good', and I said 'good', and so they said 'maybe we should use it', and I said...umm, 'okay!' So they did." So don't expect Jonathan to start sitting in front of video monitors, writing ditties to match the big car chase scene, or anything remotely like that. But after 25 years of sticking to his guns, and remaining one of the very few succesful musicians that has NEVER sold out, it warms my heart to see him infiltrating mainstream America- despite his concerted efforts to avoid doing so -through the huge success of Something About Mary. I remember ten years or so ago getting an excited call from Jonathan telling me he was doing a pilot for a kiddie show out in California, and thinking how well he would translate to the idiot box in that context. The Farrally Brothers, bless their hearts, have done the next best thing by placing him in a movie that has all the characteristics of Jonathan's own work: romance, humor, and a healthy sense of the adventure inherent in life.

I met Jonathan for the first time in 1976. It was at the Record Garage, the second-hand guitar store in Harvard Square that served as a hang-out for local musicians. I had only just started going to clubs the year before and I could barely play. The Garage was the sort of place where you could sit around and bullshit for hours, sitting at the feet of some of Boston's finest guitarists and sponging riffs. I had no idea who Jonathan was, but I remember noticing that his style of playing was totally different from any of the other regulars I'd seen. It confused me because he had none of the flash Jeff Beck riffs or the Keith Richards open-tuned junkie feel that I'd come to recognize as good playing in Record Garage regulars like Matthew McKenzie and Billy Loosigian. Unlike monster guitarists like Eric Rosenfield or Billy West he wasn't a virtuoso with amazing orchestral chords up the wazoo. He didn't fit any of the styles I was learning about in my quest to become a good guitarist. He used his right hand more than his left, sounded more like the Ventures than the Stones, and in stark contrast to the prevailing style of the time he played at low volume without distortion. But he moved me when he played- more than any of the players that I looked up to. In short he was an enigma to me.

A year later I was working at the Record Garage, sponging riffs full time and dutifully learning guitar lore, and in walked Jonathan again. At the time I was into martial arts, and things were slow so I happened to be stretching out when he came in. He asked about some of the exercises I was doing and seemed impressed when I said that I'd made them up myself. Jonathan told me that he was exercising a lot at home, and we ended up working out a bit on the floor of the Garage. Later on we hung out, fooling around and climbing trees in Harvard Yard- JoJo said he never really learned how to climb trees and I showed him how. We became friends. We never discussed music and I hadn't ever heard of the Modern Lovers. It was only later, in his little apartment on Prospect Street, that Jonathan played me some of the songs he was writing- "Abdul and Cleopatra", "Back in Your Life", stuff like that. Around this time Billy Cole was manager of the Record Garage, and had gone to Europe as a soundman and road manager for Jonathan. Billy asked me if I liked Jonathan's older music and when I replied "what music" Billy played me a tape of the first album. Of course I loved the record but I couldn't quite put together those songs with the person I was friends with. The 1978 Jonathan and his 1978 music were seemlessly consistent to me, the songs he played were extensions of his personality, but my friend and his current personality seemed curiously out of step with the songs on the first record. Knowing Jonathan first as a friend and only later as a Modern Lover made his late 70's musical persona seem completely logical to me. Soon I learned that almost everyone else in the music world felt otherwise- they wondered how the guy who made the first album could be playing "Ice Cream Man" or "Hey There Little Insect". We all shared an ignorance of an important fact: the time lag between albums.

The second album was released right after the first, but the short space between releases hid the fact that almost five years had passed between the making of the first record and its release, followed quickly by the release of the second. Those were five years of big changes for Jonathan. Beyond turning a blind eye towards the Next Big Thing myth, deconstructing the rock icon that he was being turned into, Jonathan had grown up. There were things to say that were important to him NOW. The songs he had written as a teenager on the first record were out of step with the man. When we talked about these issues he made complete sense, but then it hadn't taken me long to see that there was no artifice in Jonathan's music; if he sang it, he meant it, and if it didn't mean something to him he wouldn't sing it. Period. It was like he was stripping away the assembly line ingredients for 70's rock: "angst-ridden" lyrics, excessive volume, self-absorbed lead guitar solos, screamed vocals, barely veiled or obvious sexual metaphor -they all had to go. Revealed underneath was the stripped down hot-rod chassis beneath it all: Chuck Berry, doo-wop, pure tones and a backbeat. And it still rocked! I think of the second album songs as far from silliness. I see them as a message hurled like a gauntlet at the bloated, coiffed, million watt, laser show beast rock had become: the message said: "this is all you need to rock".

When Jonathan moved to Maine he emptied the Prospect Street apartment, divested of most of his material possessions. I got Richie Valens Live at Hollywood High and a bunch of great doo-wop records by bands I'd never heard of. By this time I was a fan as well as a friend so these gifts were special to me. I also got a bumble bee striped shirt that Jonathan picked up after the first Modern Lovers gig in Paris. Kenzo, who was my then-girlfriend's favorite designer, took Jonathan into the showroom and said "pick anything you want", and the yellow-and-black striped shirt was it. When I got too fat to wear it and my best friend Anthony said I looked like John Belushi in the Bee Suit I gave it him. He cherished it as an icon- just as I had - until he returned it just prior to his death seven years later. Another JoJo "relic", a hospital shirt he was wearing in his kitchen when he first played me a new song called "Back In Your Life, went to Ted Pine, the musical genius behind the Sex Execs and another unabashed Jonathan admirer. Despite the need to maintain the cool facade of the rock musician we were all huge fans.

Not that being a big fan clouded my judgement. Jonathan could be an enormous pain in the ass at times. He never judged his friends, many of whom had drug problems of one sort or another. But in the presence of his quiet, taking-it-all-in gaze, you sometimes started to judge yourself. He would ask very sincere, almost child like questions when he was trying to understand something. He'dlook a person directly in the eyes, and it made some of them squirm. When you have a drug problem you are usually lying to yourself. Having to answer a direct question about it from a person as forthright as Jonathan was a denial-buster. Here was a guy doing exactly what he wanted, making no compromise and offering no quarter when it came to honesty. This made some folks feel guilty by inference, particularly people who were continually compromising themselves, marking time doing one thing while wishing they were doing something else, and lying to themselves or to others. Jonathan and I have discussed this and neither of us understand it completely, but he was like a mirror that certain people saw their shortcomings in. These were often the same folks who later bitched about him being a goody two-shoes. That's bullshit. Over the years I never felt compelled to lie to Jonathan about my heroin addiction or other drug use, and never felt judged or less liked when I was honest. In fact he's a great person to discuss those kind of things with. I suppose I still find it ironic that people can feel so threatened by somebody just because they are trying to be a good and honest individual.

After a rough patch with plenty of grumbling from the old fans who wanted to hear the black album ad infinitum it was a relief to see Jonathan's personal and musical decisions vindicated. I remembered reading the end-of-year reviews in 1985 and Jonathan had made many of the most influential lists. He'd been cited for Best Rock Show or Best Live Performance in the Village Voice, the Boston Globe and Rolling Stone. People were starting to get it, and the key was the live shows. It was almost impossible to attend one and not be swept up in the enthusiasm and the pure musical honesty. Even those who thought the lyrics were sophomoric and the songs were for children would end up applauding for someone who had the balls to pull this shit off onstage. Time after time I saw critics turned into converts after a single live performance. A classic example of this occurred much later on in the late 80's...here's the story:

JoJo - True Kid on the Block

Jonathan had called to say he was flying in for the Boston Music Awards to make a presentation to Bill Nowland of Rounder Records- my former Fort Apache landlord. I knew they weren't jetting him all the way from his home in Nevada City, California just to hand over a plaque, and I told him I thought he must have won an award, too. He would get to play a song as part of the ceremony, and asked "what song do you think I should play". I suggested my favorite cut from the new record, Fender Stratocaster, whose lyrics are full of wonderful similes and humorous- but perfectly precise -observations (it's got the ancient Egyptian script; it's got the wang bar from the crypt!). Agreeing, he asked "what kind of guitar do you think I should play?"- we both had a laugh when I suggested a Fender Telecaster, offering to loan him one so he didn't have to risk flying with a guitar (he was already familiar with my '66 Teli: during a romantic emergency in 1980 he'd loaned me the money to buy a ticket to Pakistan, receiving the guitar as collateral; times were tough, and I repaid the loan painfully slowly until he generously waived the last hundred dollars or so and returned my guitar). This was the second year in a row that the New Kids on the Block were prominently featured at the awards. Just as in the previous year the audience was split into two groups: the usual Boston rock crowd and a flock of 13 year-old teenie boppers who screamed their heads off whenever the NKOTB were mentioned or appeared onstage. The "usual suspects" were disgruntled at their ceremony being usurped by a prefab music biz creation like NKOTB. Before long whenever the teenies screamed the other half of the room would hiss. It was getting ugly. The rock acts that played left the New Kids crowd silent, and the mood was not pleasant. Then Jonathan came out and did his thing. True to plan he was playing "Fender Stratocaster" on my red Telecaster. Also true to form he placed the guitar down on the stage after a verse or two and did most of the rest of the tune using only his voice accompanied by "drums" made from pounding his fists on his chest. He was doing his little Jonathan dance, a joyous Jewish Jackie Wilson sort of affair, replete with hip thrusting and pelvic rotations. And...to my utter amazement...the teenie boppers went wild!!! They started screaming like it was Shaun Cassidy circa 1976. This was the only time at that awards show that both halves of the room grooved to the same act. So nothing really surprises me anymore where Jonathan is concerned.

Aegean Raggae

Over the years I've seen Jonathan at a number of venues around the country. It as if there's a link between us that manifests itself in odd ways. One night in 1979 I was sitting in an outdoor disco on the Greek island of Aegina, talking with our host George who was this super-nerd shipping tycoon billionaire. Knowing I was planning on a career in music he was outlining reasons why I shouldn't bother. George had met Berry Gordy who had told him that it wasn't how good you were but who you know, and even if you knew someone the music business was almost impossible to break into for a performer. I said that I didn't believe that, in fact you didn't even have to be able to sing properly or pander to popular taste if you had a true emotional commitment to your music. "It's like this friend of mine back home named Jonathan Richman..." I began to say. At that moment as if on cue the riff from "Egyptian Raggae" jumps out of the speaker hung from a grape arbor behind us! I got all excited. "This is him! This is the guy I'm talking about!" Everyone in our party except my girlfriend looked at me with great skepticism, like "oh sure, sure this is your friend, mm-hmmm". As it turned out the synchronicity wasn't totally unlikely because "Egyptian Raggae" had been climbing the charts in Europe, reaching the top ten in some of the Scandinavian countries and in England. It made big bucks for Beserkley Records, and probably allowed them to release the next several records by the Rubinoos, Earthquake and the soon-to-be top ten Greg Kihn Band. In fact when the Paley Brothers played the Paradise in 1980 the Greg Kihn Band opened for them and played "Road Runner" as an encore, as did the Rubinoos when they were at the Orpheum.

In 1985 I was attending the NAMM Show in Annaheim as a buyer for RSF Music in Belmont. I was with owner Rick Falk and ex-Sex Exec Ted Pine and we decided to drive into LA for an evening to check it out. Arriving in Hollywood we headed for the Rainbow Room to see the Loft of the Hollywood Vampires, once frequented by the likes of Nillson, Mickey Dolenz and Ringo Starr. The place was full of classic 80's Left Coast metal heads with houseplant haircuts, but lo and behold next door at the Roxy Jonathan was playing! I managed to get a message to JR and he got the three of us into the sold-out show, which was being filmed for a French TV documentary. We hung out a bit later while he was being interviewed and then he drove out of town in a primer gray 1956 Chevy, an ideal car for him I thought as he headed out of sight down Sunset Boulevard (rode off onto the Sunset as it were). A perfect evening except later we were almost killed by a Puerto Rican teen in a white tuxedo probably heading to his prom. We made the mistake of trying to get him to stop and exchange papers after he ran into us on the Freeway and I got my first view of LA road rage.

I was happy to open for Jonathan in Columbus, Ohio, at Stache's, during a 1993 show. I was living in Columbus at the time and owner Dan Dugan knew we were friends from back home so he put Blunt, my band at that time, on the bill. Jonathan thought we were too loud but I didn't expect him to like us anyway. I remember playing some of the first songs I'd ever written for him back in 1977 or so and how frank he'd been about not liking them. They were insipid ditties that he immediately noticed were written without any real personal involvement, and he said so. My ego was bruised, but I learned one of the three very valuable lessons I'd receive from JoJo that have stood me in good stead: don't write if you have nothing to say, and if you do write do it from the heart and do it with total emotional commitment to the song. I think what he said was along the lines of "if you don't believe what you're singing the audience won't either, and if you do believe it they sense it and have to accept it". The second lasting lesson Jonathan taught me had to do with playing at a low volume to reveal the song instead of hiding behind a din just for the sake of volume. I found that the dynamics I had been losing were the essence of good arranging and playing, and playing low put all the responsibility for creating dynamics on my playing- and on my ability to interact with the band and with the song itself. Lesson three was to listen - really listen - to the rest of the band, and when leading a band to communicate with the other musicians so that they could easily follow you . Not that we agree on everything. Once I knew how to play softly I found that I still loved to play loud, and in the proper situations I do. To keep myself honest I use an early '60's Ampeg Reverb Rocket that has a single 12-inch greenback Celestion speaker. The amp only gets so loud: just enough volume to be heard over the drums. I use all sorts of amps when recording, particularly Vox AC-30's, Traynor YBA1 bass heads (for guitar) and pre-1972 50 watt Marshalls. But for live gigs I try to keep under the 30 watt barrier.

There have been other gigs that have involved JR in a memorable way. Valentine's Day of 1982 the Bones were opening for the Sex Execs at the Honey Lounge on Boylston Street. JR showed up and played guitar on "Astral Plane", a tune off the first ML album that the bones covered as part of our regular set. Then he sat in with the Sex Execs to play a George Jones song. But the oddest of all had to be a series of shows that Jonathan played as replacement drummer for the Bones in 1983. We had a full weekend of shows booked when our drummer had a bit of a nervous breakdown and ended up in Charles River Mental Hospital (we may have been the only band in the history of that institution to rehearse there). I'd run into JoJo and he'd noticed I was agitated. When he found out it was due to the loss of our drummer on the busiest week we'd ever had he mentioned that he'd played drums a bit for Patti Smith when he was in NYC. He didn't want to play any rock clubs, though. That night Dave "Bone" Pedersen and I played the first scheduled show- a Wednesday at Cantones -sitting on bar stools without a drummer. The show went great. When Jonathan heard that he decided that if the crowd would accept two "stoolies" then they weren't typical rock ingrates and he'd be comfortable drumming there. Jonathan joined us for that night's Thursday show at Cantone's without rehearsal so we wrote a set of mostly old covers that we played: "Slow Down", "Bad Boy", some Fugs and MC5 tunes. The funny thing is that the Bones played a lot of our stuff really fast, but as we hadn't rehearsed Jonathan counted them off at half speed compared to our regular drummer (wunderkind Richie "Cunningham" Madallo). Dave and I were so impressed to be playing with Jonathan that we just played everything slower- with sometimes comic effect. On Friday night we played our next show- a Booze Cruise benefit for Bob Capucci, candidate for Representative of East Boston. After our set Jonathan danced with every old Italian lady I ever grew up with. The images frozen in my memory include JR in the midst of a long line of dancers doing a rockette chorus line to Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York ", and JR doing the Hully-Gully surrounded by friends of my mother. On Saturday we were opening a new club on Huntington Ave. called Jimbo's that I was booking (now Huskie's), and Jonathan played drums for that too. By then word was out that Jonathan was playing with us and it was announced on the radio that he'd be appearing. They forgot to say what he was playing, however. Luckily there weren't too many complaints, but the night was a sellout due to the JR fans who flocked to the place to see him. I'd booked John Felice's Remakes for the next night so it was like an informal Modern Lovers alumni weekend.

One night when Jonathan was in town playing Nightstage I drove him to his hotel after the show. I was telling him of my plan to leave Boston for Columbus, Ohio at the end of that summer, which led to a discussion of the things that are good and bad about Boston. When he'd been getting ready to move to Maine in the early 80's, and again a year later when he relocated to California, Jonathan had told me that part of what he wanted to get away from was an "old energy" in Boston that was inert and restrictive ( based on recent talks I'm not sure that he still feels that way after living in California for almost a decade). Now as we drove along and I articulated my own reasons for wanting to move- many of which had to do with drugs -Jojo turned to me eagerly and began to nod his head. He then surprised me by saying "Do you know why I had to move from Boston and leave the East Coast? Flush toilets!" "Huh?" was all I could muster for a reply. "The thought of all those toilets flushing over and over- and each time they do they're wasting eleven gallons of water- was more than I could stand. In the desert you can step outside of your trailer and just pee in the sand." Hmmm.

It was on that same drive that he turned to me and asked "do you have a good, cheap guitar?" Although I had almost thirty guitars at the time the truth was I didn't have a good, cheap one, and I said so. So when we arrived at his hotel he said "wait here for a minute", ran up to his room and returned with a large orchestral case. The Harmony Hollywood was a beauty. It had a stencil of an Oscar statuette on the headstock and the metallic gold dragon decals that Jonathan had placed on it nicely matched the tabacco sunburst paint job. The humbucker pickup added to the guitar had been held in with pink kitchen sponge, and their covers "finished" with pink nail polish. A classic JoJo instrument, I treasured it until it was stolen from my apartment in Columbus, Ohio. The Bleddyn Butcher photo above is of Jonathan playing that Harmony and is taken from page 69 of the the New Musical Express Hot 100 Photos issue.