wo-o-oo-oah

jonathan richman with the modern lovers, live in 1978 (photo by gie knaeps)

The Modern Lovers - Sword in the Stone, Boston, Massachusetts, 1972

People! It's 2024 — and there's still no definitive boxed set collecting the complete works of the original Modern Lovers! This seems like a major oversight ... there are probably an array of dumb business reasons it hasn't happened, but some enterprising reissue label has got to put all the puzzle pieces together in chronological / cleaned up form, telling the story of this still-so-unique and ahead of its time band. The demos, the live recordings, all of it. Paging Numero Group?!

Until then, why not enjoy a new-to-me audience tape of the gang in their hometown of Boston, playing the Sword In The Stone coffeehouse on Charles St. One more stoney night — another killer Modern Lovers recording comes from the Stonehenge club up in Ipswich.

It's a bit unclear what the actual date for the Sword In The Stone gig is, but I'm thinking it's late in the year, after the band went out to west coast to record demos with John Cale (and apparently hang out with Gram Parsons). Prove me wrong! This is the classic quartet — Jonathan Richman, Jerry Harrison, David Robinson and Ernie Brooks — and they sound terrific. Messy, brilliant and beautiful, with Jonathan leading everyone across the astral plane. The only bummer is that the "Plea For Tenderness" here is only a fragment, and the tape ends before the final song, which I'm guessing was an epic jam on "Roadrunner." Otherwise, a sweet trip back to the Old World.

Ernie Brooks: At some of the early shows Jonathan would set up an easel, and he’d place his drawings on it. I don’t know if you’ve seen any of the drawings, but I have a copy of a poster that he drew; it’s of the Modern Lovers—a cartoon of the four of us with a heart flying over the band. It’s got the highway in the background and stuff. And he had this picture of a girl in the suburban town in Massachusetts where she lived and a picture of the hospital she ended up in, and while pointing to the drawings he’d recite the lyrics before he did the song. 

Photo: Jeff Albertson

The Modern Lovers

Just wrote my last final exam which absolutely demolished me

Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers, "Hospital" (Live in NYC, 1976)

A somewhat less dark take on my fave Modern Lovers' track with the second Modern Lovers.

h/t Doom & Gloom From The Tomb

8:38 PM EDT April 24, 2024:

The Modern Lovers - "Someone I Care About" From the album The Modern Lovers (August 1976)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

Jerry Harrison *February 21, 1949

John Cale - Pablo Picasso/Love Me Two Times (Rockpalast 1984)

Jerry Harrison with The Modern Lovers

Rhyming in songs peaked when the Modern Lovers rhymed “Picasso” with “asshole”

jonathan richman and the modern lovers, 1978 (photos by gie knaeps)

12/28/23.

I actually learned about The Sleeveens (Nashville, Tennessee) from a Marty Winch/Green Noise Records email. They have a new LP out on Dirtnap Records (original releasers of The Exploding Hearts) but nothing is up for preview. So here is this excellent 7" on Sweet Time Records (Nashville, Tennessee).

Stefan Murphy sounds like he could be in a Dublin pub (RIP Shane McGowan). But the music also sounds like Ramones-era punk. And in some ways this recalls the early punk of Jonathan Richman/The Modern Lovers.

By the way, Sleeveen is an Irish term for trickster.

The Modern Lovers - Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, February 23, 1974

The end of the Original Modern Lovers? This might've been the band's final official gig — thanks to Jesse J for passing along a recently surfaced tape. Jesse calls the recording's quality "atrocious," and he's not wrong (though it's as much the fault of the venue's cavernous acoustics as it is the tape's). Whatever, atrocious quality audience recordings are what Doom & Gloom is all about, am I right? So adjust your ears and take a trip back to a bitter New England winter just about 50 years ago.

Historic/interesting stuff! The set sees the Modern Lovers attempting to bring together their older, more VU-inspired material with the quieter, more innocent songs that Jonathan Richman was writing. There are tunes that will certainly be familiar — "Roadrunner," "Government Center," "Pablo Picasso," etc. And then there are several strong songs that — as far as I know — don't appear anywhere else in the Modern Lovers' discography (officially or unofficially). And hey, it all works pretty well; in some alternate universe, the band might've been able to reconcile their two sides and finally record a proper debut LP. It was not to be, alas — soon, Jerry Harrison would head back to Harvard to get his master's degree in architecture. And today, he is renowned as one of the world's greatest architects ... right???

Of course, we have to note the truly bonkers lineup — a heretofore unknown alignment with the Velevet (sic) Underground and George Thorogood galaxies. Though if the description below is correct (though the source says the date was Valentine's Day), Moe Tucker didn't even get to play because of George. That's truly b-b-b-b-bad. But, as Jesse pointed out, Jonathan and Moe did make it into the studio a few days later to record their charming rendition of the VU's "I'm Sticking With You." Was Moe's band really called the Bloody Virgins?! Hmmm, further investigation is warranted.

An eyewitness account? Although the Modern Lovers broke up in 1973, they reformed in '74 (maybe late '73) with a different drummer but that didn't last long because the drummer hated Jonathan. They did at least one concert: Valentine's Day 1974. I was there early with Jonathan so I got to see all the sound checks for all three bands. Unfortunately, the idiot promoters let the mediocre opening band, George Thoroughlynogood and the Delaware Destroyers, play for one hour and 45 minutes. They should have had 25 minutes max. Thus, the Modern Lovers could only play one hour. And the second band couldn't play at all, which is very unfortunate, as it was Mo Tucker's excellent (and totally unknown) all-girl band the Bloody Virgins (but me and Jonathan got to watch their excellent 25-minute sound check). Seven or either years ago, an internet music forum was discussing Mo, and I talked about seeing that band. A noted music critic (and friend of Mo) was pissed off and said that Mo never had any such band and that I was a liar. Luckily, I still had the concert ad and uploaded a photo of it to the forum.

Ernie Brooks: At one of the last gigs we did, when we played “Roadrunner,” we still didn’t have a record out, but that was always a catchy song, and we actually got some applause—and then Jonathan said, “People like that song too much; I don’t think we should do it anymore….” I think it was just part of Jonathan’s natural inclination that when things seemed to be going well—to go against it. He was very contrary. He was very difficult. I mean, anybody who is on to something new has some element of being a contrarian, because they’re rejecting the status quo. They’re doing something in the way they’ve figured out how to do it—and they don’t want to hear something different, even if it could make things better. When Jonathan said, “I won’t play 'Roadrunner' anymore,” it was pretty much the classic case—you can’t really get any more contrarian than that.