About 4 or 5 days before performance date, I walked up to the Oberlin student union desk for other business, and I saw Jonathan Richman on the list of names. The name didn't immediately register. I hadn't seen posters. I had to go upstairs and google a bit before the "OH" hit me and I ran back downstairs, slapping down $6 with a shout of "THAT JONATHAN RICHMAN?"
To be fair, I hadn't known about the man, the legend, and his associated Modern Lovers until about a week before. I'd been diving in and listening around after I read an article about a Rte-128 rock pilgrimage in the name of "Roadrunner"; I was amazed to find a man and group of influence and skill based out of, and singing about, the suburbs I came from. Next time we talked, my Dad laughed and told me about the Beserkeley releases he had in the basement. It felt like a world opening up.
A cursory search made me realize the need to reacquaint. "Roadrunner" was first recorded around 40 years ago, and in the time Jonathan has worked extensively doing no-one-can-be-sure-quite-what. It's resulted in a discography that Wikipedia hasn't even a quarter documented. He releases a disk, p4k gives it a good-to-strong review, and everyone goes on their ways. It wasn't the genre or songwriting or the comedy or history that I went down tonight for tonight; I think it was just the man.
The setlist is a blur to my untrained mind, but he got there late with drummer Tommy Larkins, and stepped up to play 10 minutes later. "He looks like a dad" my friend said. No opener, no lagtime. Starting off on his first song he was reading us intently, gently mocking the folded arms of the hipsters, spinning out his observations and experiences. The audience did not know whether or how to applause during the next three songs, all about partying in different languages (Arabic, Spanish, Italian). He was putting down his guitar to play these...jingle bells, honest to god.
He would throw quick changes of tune to Tommy, who held down a quiet and insistent beat structure with occasionally solos. He would invariably reintroduce Tommy, often while wandering away from the mic and inviting everybody closer. Tommy's kit was stripped to ride, crash, bongo, tom and kick, played only with brushes and cluster sticks, but he was effective in supporting and filling every song differently. The sound was like easy-listening except there wasn't anything easy about it. It was impossible to sing along to his changes and disruptions, the flow of the songwriting was constantly disrupted (did I mention the cowbell solo in "Lesbian Bar?" did I mention he played "Lesbian Bar?" did I mention the drum solo and the dance solo? he dances like he's dancing a hundred dances at once and just flows through them), and then an entirely different song would start.
Generally I saw him..."wandering through" gives too little credit to his intention and persistence, and "happening upon" gives too little credit to his ability and wit. He felt his way through, with immense specificity of subject, about the things that he wanted to write amount. I trusted every conclusion and generalization he came to because I trusted his love of small things first. I've seen bands about love who wear only white, I've seen bands about love with politics they think are complete, I've seen bands about love who think they have a message. Jonathan has what he loves. He follows what he wants to write, fast-tempo quiet music in many languages. And he plays them well, he is an honestly fluent guitarist always with a few tricks up his sleeve.
The show ended abruptly, but not disruptively; there had been a 5 minute intermission (perhaps, with a few "thank you"s one of the few traditionally showman-ship things he did) and we were reaching a stopping point...and then there were two encores. The first was offhand request to an increasingly dancy crowd, "Tandem Jump." The second began as an explanation of how encores work and why there wasn't going to be another one, and then he seemed to convince himself and invited Tommy back up. A few requests for "Straight Up" led to a surprising discussion on honesty in songwriting: how the song wasn't intended tongue-and-cheek, how he feels differently now, and doesn't want to play it tongue-and-cheek or without feeling. He instead performed "Door to Bohemia," calling out Boston for the first time and bringing more than a few cheers. He smiled, finished, and opened himself up to the floor.
I watched him start a conversation with a peer about her classes and majors which turned, in her bewilderment, to Confessions of an Economic Hitman. I just asked him about Boston and we nodded at each other about Rte. 109, a southwest-bound route which meets the kind-of-famous 128 not a mile from where I grew up. He does have a serious, even tone offstage, unlike his never-overdone comic range onstage, but the glitter never leaves his eyes.
Throughout: the metaphors that got away from him were just as compelling as the ones he nailed; the emphatic "No!" placeholders he substituted brilliant extensions in their own way. His eyes took us in, considered and offered us; he didn't offer deep secrets or solutions, but parts of his daily life. It was probably the only kind of optimism in music that I've ever found convincing and compelling; it is unwavering but not unshielded, creative but not reductive, humorous but never senseless, broad but not unarticulated. He doesn't hold some kind of non-ironic purity; it's so much more complicated, present than that. Watching Jonathan is watching simple things happen in complicated, compelling ways. I like the way he treats songs like loose architectures, imperfect, needed to be performed and related to be effective. Hearing it on record was just one facet. It felt like coming home to a tradition that I could be welcome to. And, lucky for all of us, he keeps doing what he does.
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