Richman’s Raw Delight

A Night of Song, Laughter and Punk Spirit

By Evelyn McDonnell

If you want to see delight in formation, watch Jonathan Richman’s face. His brow wrinkles in confusion, his lips purse, and at 74, his baby dimples still pucker. The glory of the troubadour from Boston is the manner in which he has never grown up, never let edit get in the way of expression. Slowly, his brown eyes widen as realization of bodily liberation dawns, his eyebrows lift, and the wrinkles on his forehead roll in reverse. He steps to the microphone to share enlightenment, raising his strapless acoustic guitar to fire the revelation home. But wait! First, a few dance steps, a little tango with joy. Then the chorus, which the sold-out crowd sings along: “I was dancing in a lesbian bar!”

The Sardine, alas, is not a lesbian bar, but it’s San Pedro’s home of punk rock, and on Dec. 5 and 6, Jonathan Richman turned it into a temple of wonder. The singer-songwriter has been a rock ’n’ roll legend since 1970, when he formed the band the Modern Lovers. He has developed a global cult following with his songs about romance and music, such as Roadrunner, That Summer Feeling, and I’m Nature’s Mosquito. He reached a general audience when he and drummer Tommy Larkins provided the musical commentary for the movie There’s Something About Mary. Considered a pioneer of punk for his refreshing rawness, he drew a wide range of ages to his port town visit, at least at the sold-out Saturday show.

For Todd Congelliere, the shows were a punk rock dream come true. When he co-founded Sardine six years ago, Richman was one of four acts on his ultimate wish list. (The others were the Sonics, Detroit Cobras, and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.) It was only recently that Richman, who has lived in Northern California for decades, started playing bars again. 

Jonathan did not let Todd down. He and Larkins performed tunes both new and classic. A flamenco singer and dancer at heart, he sang several songs in Spanish. They played precisely for an hour in Sardine’s big room for an audience of big kids happy to cry and laugh and sing and let their guards down. Richman is like a kindergarten teacher, offering lessons in love and happiness, such as to Surrender. He frequently engages in Socratic dialogue with himself, starting a break with, “Well, Jonathan …” then answering his own questions. He has a kind of comic genius; at times, he made me think of Dick Smothers, of the ’60s duo the Smothers Brothers. While his demeanor remains childlike, his voice — like Patti Smith’s — has aged beautifully; apparently punk rock can be good for the vocal cords. I’ve seen Richman many times over the decades, and it — and he — never gets old.