If I were to walk to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston...

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mission
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If I were to walk to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston...

Postby mission » 11 Sep 2018, 14:08

Like any other sentient being with a beating heart and a functioning soul, Jojo Richman has been part of my life for so long now he seems like a friend. No-one is ever going to get a band together and just nail, with skins and wires, that rock and roll sound as well as the Modern Lovers did. They are some kind of Platonic achievement, an ur-band who captured in sound not only how it feels to be a arty weirdo teenager who wants, sure, a girlfren, but also that super nowness of being young; of being free for just that little while, that summer, those three or four minutes where the tune plays itself and you have found some fellow misfits and, fuck that, you no longer don't fit in.

Anyway, all Richman-o-philes know how much Jojo loves Vermeer but ArtNews has an interview where he talks more broadly on the subject of visual art and you can hear him as you read - taking nasally Boston to the high art crowd.

Worth a read, even if you think Picasso was an asshole
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Re: If I were to walk to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston...

Postby Charlie O. » 11 Sep 2018, 15:03

Oh, I'm definitely coming back to this when I have the time. Thanks!
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Re: If I were to walk to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston...

Postby fange » 11 Sep 2018, 15:28

Cheers! Edward Hopper and 'Roadrunner', interesting.
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Re: If I were to walk to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston...

Postby Snarfyguy » 11 Sep 2018, 15:55

A personal fave



Not sure why this wasn't on the album. You used to have to get it on this Warner Bros sampler:

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which actually was pretty decent (Sex Pistols, Wire, Devo, Gang of Four, etc.). Maybe the song is from different sessions or something. Anyway, one of their best, in my opinion. Two chords -- C major and E major (like Cowgirl in the Sand and So Alone), very effective.
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Re: If I were to walk to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston...

Postby Bent Fabric » 11 Sep 2018, 19:03

Yeah, "I'm Straight" was the song that reeled me in and really made me a fan. It's such a perfect storm of his/their magic, things to do with phrasing, emphasis, etc.

But I, I got scared, I put it back in place— I put my phone back in place


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Re: If I were to walk to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston...

Postby Charlie O. » 12 Sep 2018, 01:51

Great article!

Surprised he didn't mention this guy, though:


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Re: If I were to walk to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston...

Postby Snarfyguy » 13 Sep 2018, 03:59



I noticed that this song gives James Osterberg a co-writing credit on the 2003 CD re-issue of the first Modern Lovers album (on which it's a bonus track, per Wikipedia; I don't have it; I have that old LP bootleg that (mis?)identifies it as a Kim Fowley recording (is it actually John Cale?)) , presumably because it sounds like I Got A Right (although it doesn't really sound that much like it).

Seeing as the Modern Lovers song was just a demo, and was possibly recorded BEFORE I Got A Right was recorded or released (?), and that Iggy Pop is very unlikely to have written the music for The Stooges' track (clearly a James Williamson joint), I wonder how this credit came to be.

I'm looking at YOU, Charlie O! :lol:

(Sorry for all the parentheses!)
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Re: If I were to walk to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston...

Postby Charlie O. » 13 Sep 2018, 04:45

You rang? :D

It's a Fowley "production." It was first released on an LP on his label Mohawk called The Original Modern Lovers, purporting to have been recorded in '72 (or was it '71?) BEFORE the Cale demos.

Greg Shaw's Bomp! label subsequently reissued it, retaining the original cover and liner notes, but adding a new (and surprisingly good-humored) liner note from Richman himself. In it he dismisses the notion that these recordings pre-date the Cale demos, saying that even if he couldn't personally recall the sequence of events (which he could), he'd be able to tell by how bored-sounding and/or mannered his vocal performances were - that it took him a couple of years to reach the point where he was that sick of the older songs. He also explains that "I Wanna Sleep In Your Arms" "couldn't have been recorded in 1972 because I didn't hear the Stooges song I stole the guitar riff from until 1973." (I'm paraphrasing, I don't have the record handy.)

I wonder if he shouldn't have given that co-credit to James Williamson instead? [edit: whoops, just noticed you said that too.]
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Re: If I were to walk to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston...

Postby Snarfyguy » 13 Sep 2018, 20:24

Thank you Charlie!
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