The Modern Lovers [Extra tracks]

This remastered-reissue from 2003 comes with the original nine-track album made by a line-up that included future Talking Head Jerry Harrison and eight-bonus tracks that take in demo-alt-versions of these tracks and several other related songs. The organ-drones, like those of Silver Apples, predict bands like Spacemen 3 and Suicide- the demo-version of 'Someone I Care About' could fit on 'Playing with Fire' (well, perhaps with less chemical-experimentation from Spacemen 3!) The Modern Lovers are very much the missing link between The Velvets and The Voidoids, as the taglines often say & also are part of the U.S. proto-punk set that included Television, New York Dolls, Rocket from the Tombs, Pere Ubu & Kim Fowley.

Jonathan Richman- who probably found his widest audience ever popping up in 'There's Something About Mary' - wrote the songs here (excepting bonus-track I Wanna Sleep In Your Arms, which appears to either quote an Iggy Pop song, or was written with Mr Pop himself; it sounds like a more interesting Ramones!). The band are as tight as anything and were formed out of Richman's nerdish world-view, a disdain of then contemporary hippy-America and a devotional fan-influence toward then cult-unknowns The Velvet Underground. 'The Modern Lovers' links to The Velvets are clear- this album was produced by John Cale (who would also produce classic debut LPs by Patti Smith & The Stooges)- and its most famous song 'Roadrunner' quotes the organ-riff from the epic 'Sister Ray'- which proves that even a 17-minute exercise in avant-white-noise can make a great pop-song! It's notable that another great song from this era - Can's 'Mother Sky' - would be influence by The Velvets' 'Sister Ray.'

Much of this album feels like Woody Allen if he'd fronted a Velvets-inflected band - Richman coming across as a loser, an outsider and when he has a girlfriend, critical of her hippy-behaviour (which makes you think of the bit of 'Annie Hall' when Allen rips it out of hippy-date Shelley Duvall and Bob Dylan's lyrics!) Richman champions the elderly and traditional (Old World, Dignified & Old) - "I still love the fifties" he sings at one point, making me think of their illusory surface captured in David Lynch's classic 'Blue Velvet' (to read more on the 1950s in America, I'd recommend the excelent book 'Crabgrass Frontier'). The conforming-nerd quality would influence Talking Heads (ironically)- this comparison is demonstrated when you take in bonus-track 'Government Center'- a definite precursor of 'Don't Worry About the Government'!

'Astral Plane' rips it out of the hippy-era, the refrain of "Go insane!" most likely a knowing pisstake of The Doors' lead singer; while a song like 'She Cracked' attacks the contemporary female at the time: "She understood European things from 1943/She does all these things I can't stand...She eat garbage/Eat shit/Get stoned - I stay alone, eat health-food at home"!!! The brilliant bonus-track 'I'm Straight' - which sounds like both The Fall and Pavement - continues this theme, picking on "hippy-Johnny" and offering up possibly the first example of the 'straight-edge' thing later espoused by Minor Threat and other Dischord acts in the 1980s...

There are more down-moments, songs like 'Hospital' and 'Dance with Me' bleak songs that take in the casualties and make me think of Big Star's 'Third/Sister Lovers', as well as the damaged souls in Philip K. Dick's drugs-classic 'A Scanner Darkly.' But the sense of humour overrides- the classic 'Pablo Picasso' (covered by both David Bowie & John Cale) points out the allure of the great artist compared to the nobody - "Pablo Picasso never got called an asshole...Well the girls would turn the colour of an avocado when he would drive down the street in his Eldorado...Pablo Picasso never got called an asshole- like you!...Well he was only 5'3", but girls could not resist his stare!" Oh, to be somebody....

The final three-tracks proper remain the strongest- the pulsing drone-rock of 'Someone I Care About' continues Richman's quest for a girlfriend, while at the same time pointing out what he doesn't want: "I want a girl to fool around with...I want nothing at all...Well I won't pretend to like a girl if I really don't...All I want is a girl I care about...Well I don't want no cocaine-sniffing triumph in the bar...I want no-one at all..." 'Girlfriend' is closest to the kind of sound Richman would offer on subsequent albums (from 'Ice Cream Man' to 'There's Something About Mary' and last year's album)- sounding like an alienated-loser's take on those gorgeous lovesongs on the radio in the 1960s (e.g. The Shangri Las, Smokey Robinson...). Finally there is 'Modern World'- another song that predicts 'Witch Trials'-Fall - which has Richman stating "I'm in love with the USA...Put down your cigarrette and drop out of B.U. [Boston University, though I've always wanted it to be V.U.!!]"- there are even robo-handclaps and minimnal rhythms toward the end- so this could be said to predict things like Joy Division and Pere Ubu...and so on...

'The Modern Lovers' is a brilliant album, Richman's other stuff is often filed under quirky and placed next to Weezer, Devo, They Might Be Giants, The Colorblind James Experience et al - but this is the real-deal, setting a tight-proto-punk-organ-drone-rock outfit against Richman's alienated & amusing songs. As significant as 'Marquee Moon', 'Horses', 'New York Dolls' & 'The Modern Dance' & one no music-collection should be without. & I'm sure you could point The Modern Lovers #1 's influence on the current set of hip-bands - Interpol, Franz Ferdinand, The Killers, The Strokes et al - so always a timeless classic then...

The quality of Richman's writing, of course bolstered by suitably caveman music, even at this early stage in his career, confirms that he is one of the greatest treasures in the world of rock and roll. Those of us who follow Richman will all, no doubt, be hugely excited by this timely re-release, not least due to the generous unreleased-track package.

Lets hope that, with its wider release, this wonderful album can now take up its rightful place in amongst the landmarks of rock and roll: as the true start of punk.