Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Jonathan Richman
Belly Up Tavern, Monday, December 3, 8 p.m. 858-481-8140. $15
Iggy Pop and Frank Black and the Violent Femmes all have Jonathan Richman in common, but you're not likely to get the connection without having heard "Roadrunner" first. Richman's masterpiece in simplicity was recorded in 1970. Lionized in Great Britain then as the progenitor of punk (the Sex Pistols covered "Roadrunner," which has since been called the first punk-rock song), Richman's earliest incarnation of the Modern Lovers was heavily influenced by the two- and three-chord mentality of the Velvet Underground. Later, when Richman tired of playing loud and shifted abruptly to something more laid back, he became a career singer/songwriter bent on portraying the antithesis of all of rock's big excesses and glamorous predictability. Richman's sound, beloved as it may be, is low rent and not at all hip, and in a plain voice he sings the simplest of lyrics: "I say, hey there, little hornet, buzzing around me/ It sounds like a warning, and it kind of scares me/ Well, hey there, little insect, please calm down/ So we can have fun and fool around."
The Godfather of Punk, as Richman has been called, has earned a legion of fans with a music that defies description. If I had to pin down what he and drummer Tommy Larkins are doing at present, I'd call it '50s rock balladeering -- with a twist. It leaves room for a fertile imagination to create a deeper meaning where perhaps there is none. This, I think, is the hook. Richman's writing instigates a listener to transpose whatever pathos the mood inspires onto the uneven surface of his music. But absorb enough of Richman and you begin to see him as an eccentric who is deconstructing rock in much the same way that Andy Kaufman deconstructed comedy. Like Kaufman, Richman is in equal measures brazen and childish and maybe brilliant, and that's what's delicious about the Godfather. You are left to wonder, "Who is this guy? Is he for real?"
JONATHAN RICHMAN, Belly Up Tavern, Monday, December 3, 8 p.m. 858-481-8140. $15.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Jonathan Richman
Jonathan Richman
Belly Up Tavern, Monday, December 3, 8 p.m. 858-481-8140. $15
Iggy Pop and Frank Black and the Violent Femmes all have Jonathan Richman in common, but you're not likely to get the connection without having heard "Roadrunner" first. Richman's masterpiece in simplicity was recorded in 1970. Lionized in Great Britain then as the progenitor of punk (the Sex Pistols covered "Roadrunner," which has since been called the first punk-rock song), Richman's earliest incarnation of the Modern Lovers was heavily influenced by the two- and three-chord mentality of the Velvet Underground. Later, when Richman tired of playing loud and shifted abruptly to something more laid back, he became a career singer/songwriter bent on portraying the antithesis of all of rock's big excesses and glamorous predictability. Richman's sound, beloved as it may be, is low rent and not at all hip, and in a plain voice he sings the simplest of lyrics: "I say, hey there, little hornet, buzzing around me/ It sounds like a warning, and it kind of scares me/ Well, hey there, little insect, please calm down/ So we can have fun and fool around."
The Godfather of Punk, as Richman has been called, has earned a legion of fans with a music that defies description. If I had to pin down what he and drummer Tommy Larkins are doing at present, I'd call it '50s rock balladeering -- with a twist. It leaves room for a fertile imagination to create a deeper meaning where perhaps there is none. This, I think, is the hook. Richman's writing instigates a listener to transpose whatever pathos the mood inspires onto the uneven surface of his music. But absorb enough of Richman and you begin to see him as an eccentric who is deconstructing rock in much the same way that Andy Kaufman deconstructed comedy. Like Kaufman, Richman is in equal measures brazen and childish and maybe brilliant, and that's what's delicious about the Godfather. You are left to wonder, "Who is this guy? Is he for real?"
JONATHAN RICHMAN, Belly Up Tavern, Monday, December 3, 8 p.m. 858-481-8140. $15.
Comments