The Modern Lovers

33⅓ Main Series #119

by Sean L. Maloney

From the "War on Hippies" to the Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindl e , the story of Modern Lovers is a high octane tale of Brutalist architecture, rock 'n' roll ambition and the struggle for identity in a changing world. One of punk rock's foundational documents, the archetype for indie obsession and all but disowned by its author, The Modern Lovers was an album doomed by its own coolness from day one. Powered by the two-chord wonder “Roadrunner” and its proclamation that “I'm in love with rock 'n' roll,” The Modern Lovers is the essential document of American alienation, an escape route from the cultural wasteland of postwar suburbia. The Modern Lovers is the bridge connecting the Velvet Underground and the Sex Pistols; they were peers of the New York Dolls and friends with Gram Parsons and they would splinter into Talking Heads, The Cars, and The Real Kids.

But The Modern Lovers was never meant to be an album. A collection of demos, recorded in fits and starts as Jonathan Richman and his band negotiate modernity and the music industry. It is a collection of songs about a city and a society in flux, grappling with ancient corruptions and bright-eyed idealism. Richman observes a city all but abandoned by adults, ravaged by white flight and urban renewal, veering towards anarchy as old world social moors collide with new attitudes. It is a city stands in stark contrast to the the ranchstyle bedroom community where he was raised. All of these conflicts are churned through Richman's intellectual acuity and emotional unrest to create one of the 20th century's most enduring documents of post-adolescent malaise.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Biography

152 pages, Paperback

First published February 9, 2017

Reviews

[Alex Sarll]

I'm not really that up on Jonathan Richman in general, but that first Modern Lovers album...I won't say 'who doesn't like it?', because as someone who dislikes the vast majority of the Beatles I've been on the wrong end of falsely presumed consensus too many times. But it's not an album you need to be into a particular style or scene to get. And of course, it's not an album, not really, which makes its inclusion in the 33 1/3 series interesting; this is the first entry I've read where the author has to explain that he's using the tracklisting of the CD reissue, not the original, because that's the version scratched into his soul and also it better fits the story he wants to tell. Fine by me, not least because it's the version I know too. Under each song's title, we get a brief and perceptive account of the track itself (though I'm perhaps less convinced than Maloney that there's a song cycle per se to be found), a stage in the rise and fall of the Modern Lovers, and a little more on the history of Boston as the sixties give way to the seventies. It's the third strand which surprised me most; I'd always had the place down as a fairly cool city, and also a fairly old one*. Maloney soon disabused me of this, talking about the aggressive redevelopment bent on destroying whole urban neighbourhoods to give suburbanites a quicker commute - "But it’s the kids that are going to destroy the fabric of society", so the city's other big project is a 'war on hippies' and alternative culture in general. In setting an album and its creators against the fractious background which in turn created them, this is not dissimilar to the Dead Kennedys 33 1/3, but it feels a little more free and less grounded; that book would never have described itself as "A story about magic and mystery and negotiating what those can mean in the modern era". On the other hand, this is perhaps more of a one man show; I got more feeling for the personality of the new mayor, or scene fixer Danny Fields, than I did for any of the Lovers who weren't Richman. Still, for all that one of his bandmates did end up in the Cars (about which again I had no idea, nor that Richman came up playing the same shows as, of all the people with whom you'd assume he had absolutely nothing in common, Aerosmith), Richman is undeniably the main point of interest here. A massively proto-punk figure in many ways, with his sense that anyone can do it regardless of conventional notions of musical skill, his desire to record the old-fashioned way with four guys playing live in a room, his refusal to pander to audience expectations and play the hits. But on the other hand, a man conflicted about the darkness of his beloved Velvet Underground, still respectful of the old way of doing things, a man who can write a song called 'Dignified and Old' and make it sound like a good thing. Which was always going to lead to a certain amount of tension: as he said himself, much later, listening back to his old records - "I’m hearing a kid who is having a bad time but a fair amount of it is his own fault". I can't vouch for how much of the information and analysis here would be new to a hardcore Richman fan, or a Boston resident, but for the rest of us, the ones for whom 'Roadrunner' and 'Pablo Picasso' are great songs but ones which kind of came from nowhere, it's a fascinating read. I just hope the finished copies are a little more tightly edited than the Netgalley ARC, which is a bit all over the place, from a mention of producer 'Joe Meeks' to a lovely little passage about the genius of scenes spoiled by the use of 'duplicity' where 'duplication' is meant.

*By US standards, obviously; I not infrequently lunch while leaning on a little-remarked wall older than any structure in the USA.

[Bob Schnell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once again, the 33 1/3 series does not disappoint. These little books about seminal albums are jam packed with great background and insights. In this case The Modern Lovers' self-titled "debut" album gets full coverage. I learned a lot, not only about the artist and the city of Boston at the time, but also about how the album was released years after Jonathon Richman had given up and moved on to other musical pursuits. It turned out to be one of the most influential albums since his idols' "The Velvet Underground & Nico." In fact, it was the recent Velvet Underground documentary that led me to this book, since Jonathon Richman is one of the main interview subjects in the film. I now feel that I have a better understanding of his place in (punk) rock history than I did before.

[Patrick McCoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sean L. Maloney's 33 1/3: The Modern Lovers (2017) was entertaining and informative on several levels. The chapters are arranged in the order of an internet listing (fansite JoJoChords. com) that was influential to the author. Both "Roadrunner" and "Pablo Picaso" are punk rock classics, but it is a very strong album overall. Each song section begins with a discussion of said song. After that the author alternately talks about the background of Jonathan Richman, his band, the musical context of the band in relation to alternative acts such as the influential Velvet Underground as well as the social, economic, and political context of Boston at the time. These issues would include censorship, urban gentrification, the war against hippies, among other issues-giving a the reader a keen sense of time and place in Beantown. It also looks at The Modern Lover's city musical contemporaries such as Aerosmith and the J. Geils Band. It's amazing to learn that this influential album was never meant to be released-the band broke up and Richman moved on stylistically before the record was even released. The author follows up the legendary of the band and the times by showing how members Jerry Harrison would go on to commercial and artistic success with Talking Heads, while drummer David Robinson would also see equal returns for his stint with another Boston New Wave band The Cars.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Funnily enough although I am a fan of Jonathan Richman's solo work, I never really gravitated towards the The Modern Lovers album and although this 33 1/3 volume is ok, it did not reignite any deep appreciation.

Basically Maloney takes the title of a track on the Moder Lovers album, gives a brief description about it and veers off on a tangent about the history of the Modern Lovers. As I said before this volume is ok but not outstanding in anyway. There have been better books in the series focusing on the New York punk scene.

[Geoff Winston Leghorn Balme · Rating 5 out of 5]

While this meandering essay gives a bit of insight into the modern lovers and their origins, it is as much a story of Boston, J Geils Band, Aerosmith, and others.
It manages to give a touch of how difficult Richman becomes to unplug and redirect his career. Hey it has to be hard to ride your teenager poetry and minimal skills on guitar. Still can’t the old works be honored?

I’ve seen Richman with his drummer still performing and it’s still an entertaining show. He’ll sometimes do Pablo Picasso so perhaps it really is a feeling thing.

The Hancock tower? Does it work??

[Jo Coleman · Rating 3 out of 5]

'The Modern Lovers' contains some of my favourite songs ever and I've always been puzzled by why they only sound half as good as the versions on 'Precise Modern Lovers Order'. This does a pretty good job of explaining why (short version: Jonathan Richman very much had his own ideas...). It also covers what was going on in Boston at the time politically and musically, but I found this less interesting, though I learned a thing or two about Aerosmith.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Radio on, baby!

http://artsfuse.org/156688/book-revie...

[Austin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Frustrating -- this reads like the sloppy first draft of a potentially much better book.

It's hard to believe this received any kind of editing whatsoever. It's rife with typos; people and places are repeatedly introduced as if we hadn't just met them in the previous chapter; and most distractingly, he can't seem to decide whether he wants to write in past or present tense, so it just whips violently from one to the other, sometimes even within the same sentence.

There is some fascinating stuff here about the Boston musical/cultural scene the Modern Lovers sprang from. But ultimately it all feels unsatisfying -- or unfinished.

[Frank Jude · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maloney's take on the now classic and iconic LP, The Modern Lovers contextualizes the causes and conditions that led to it's creation within the social, cultural, and even political climate of Boston in the late 60s through the 80s. As Boston goes through radical transformation under the administration of Mayor White, we see the transformation of "youth culture" and the music that is its soundtrack.

Now, at times, Maloney's writing can get truly purple, rife with what may seem crazy grandiosity when interpreting the lyrics of songs that can easily be taken as -- at best -- simple, and at worse, perhaps simplistic. But he has his points and the insights into what one can hear into even a one-chord song like "Pablo Picasso" makes one stop and re-think: "Again Richman creates a narrative with multiple viewpoints, a rock 'n' roll reply to the titular artist's early experiments with Cubism.... Richman collapses art history and personal history into one moment, external observation and self-reflection are folded into one another, awe, and loathing bleed across borders." Pretty heady stuff for a song with the rollicking line, "Pablo Picasso never got called an asshole; not like you!"

The story of The Modern Lovers would make a great film. From obscure beginnings, to being courted by multiple record companies, and hobnobbing with the cultural cognoscenti including Andy Warhol, Lou Reed, John Cale and so many others, making multiple demos for an album that was ultimately never made while the band itself implodes and Jonathan does what I still think is the biggest punk move: eliminating drums and electrics and writing light, joyful, frothy tunes like "Hello Little Insect" and "Ice Cream Man".

As Maloney ends this fun and amazingly entertaining read: "For a collection of songs that were never meant to be released, it has become one of the most beloved and revered in the rock canon."

[Eric · Rating 2 out of 5]

My 2nd foray into this series, & again a disappointing mixed bag. Some fascinating stuff on Boston history in the late '60s-early '70s; how the city's now astronomically priced downtown neighborhoods were neglected & undesirable not so long ago, & how that fostered a thriving arts scene that included the old psychedelic ballroom The Boston Tea Party on Berkeley Street, where the young Jonathan Richman first encountered The Velvet Underground. Interesting as well is the charting of Richman's short trajectory from Velvets devotee & disciple to an artist embracing a completely opposite musical philosophy: short songs vs. long, acoustic vs. electric, light & happy vs. dark & debauched. The story of the first Modern Lovers album is somewhat less interesting, & the thin book is padded with superfluous & largely irrelevant anecdotes about the concurrent rise to popularity of both the J. Geils Band & Aerosmith. As with the other installment I read (Some Girls), the sections on each individual song leave me cold, and the writing in general here seems to be constantly reaching toward a punch line that never quite comes across. Most disheartening is what I'm afraid is emerging as a theme to this series: editorial errors. Mistakes abound which could be easily avoided with a good proofreader, including two different misuses of the apostrophe on one page alone. Ugh.

[Greg Hovanesian · Rating 5 out of 5]

For anyone who cares about late '60s rock, punk rock, the city of Boston (and specifically the recent history of Boston in the '60s and '70s), post-punk, and of course, the band The Modern Lovers and their only album...this book is for perfect for you.

Though this book is about a band and its music, it's really about the City of Boston: its ugliness and its beauty, its charm and its nastiness, its politics and its people, its grime and its culture, its life-blood. Having grown up in Boston in the '80s and '90s, I experienced a lot of emotions and nostalgia reading this. The city has changed and is unrecognizable from the city on these pages. This brought parts of it back.

And of course the music of the Modern Lovers was and still is revolutionary...and is often forgotten.

If rock music and Boston are not things you're into, this book probably isn't for you.

[Grant McDougall · Rating 4 out of 5]

One, two, three, four, five, six ! This book is a delightful, highly-engaging overview of this timeless album. As a longtime fan of the band and album, I already knew the basic history behind them. But the real strength of this book is how it superbly puts in context what was happening in Boston at the time. It brilliantly articulates the music, politics and culture of the city in the era that Jonathan Richman and his bandmates were developing. Maloney also does a great job of succinctly and clearly describing what each song captures and reflects. Highly recommended.

[Nathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly, there were parts of the story that were interesting, but I thought that Maloney sort of muddied up the entirety with trying to weave too many arcs into the Modern Lovers. Instead of sort of focusing on the band, he does that and then builds in an arc on the mayor as well as the meteoric rise of Aerosmith. Sure, they're part of the story, but seemed a minuscule part, even with the tie ins Maloney built into the retelling. Meh.

[Gary Fowles · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first I found this a frustrating read. Maloney packs a lot of Boston history into the story, which means that The Modern Lovers take a backseat for a while. Once you get past that though this is a decent enough telling of the story. Although it does suffer from Maloney not securing interviews with any of the major players.

[Rich · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this re-telling of the formation of one of my favorite albums of all time. There is great history of Boston politics and growing pains, and the city music scene at the time that this album was being performed.

Jonathan Richman is a blazing original.

[Matt Ogborn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed learning a little bit about Boston at the turn of the decade (and Aerosmith, I guess), but I don't think the author really tied it to the Modern Lovers in a way that was particularly illuminating.

[Nat]

I learned a lot about Boston politics and local radio in the 1970s and the convoluted history of the production and release of this album, as well as the fact that the Talking Heads played a cover of "Pablo Picasso" at Max's Kansas City in 1976:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_CCb...

[Simon Sweetman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant at giving a 'holistic' view of the wider context around the scene, the record and the still enigmatic Jonathan Richman. A really great piece of writing.

[Ralph · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learnt more about Boston than about the album. Having said that what was written about the album was very good and gets to the heart of it. Overall an enjoyable read

[Dean · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book about my favorite album.

[Steve Klemz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really a lot of good information of that period where the Modern Lovers/Beserkly Chartbusters/first Jonathan Richman solo records came out. A beloved record for sure.

[Jonny Brick · Rating 4 out of 5]

The pride of Boston at punk's epicentre.

[Cameron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Did you know Jonathan Richman is from Boston? It’s brought up once or twice.

[John Hamilton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Start at page 60.

[Lukas Evan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Modern girls and modern rock & roll.

[Cathy Tarr · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read! It won't disappoint!

[Burgoo · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's as much a look at Boston in the late 60s/early 70s as an examination of the band or the music. I think your reaction will vary based on your feelings for the city.

http://fedpeaches.blogspot.com/2017/0...