Jon Richman part 5

"All I can say is, it's not to my taste," Ernie Brooks shrugs. " I don't know whether Jonathan freaked out on his own seriousness or if his inspiration somehow changed. I don't want to put him down for doing that. It just doesn't interest me."

Whatever he does, Jonathan is a great performer. He's great at putting himself totally out there and trying to reach an audience. But his newer stuff -- it's like he's trying to reach kids or something."

Jonathan later comes back to the point: "We were talking about me writing songs and how it isn't that much of an effort for me to be free and all. But that doesn't mean it wasn't an effort for me to loosen myself up. It didn't just happen as I was writing the songs. It happened slowly over a period of years. Then I would write music which was free; when I played for an audience they would respond in a new way and that would make me loosen up again. It was this cycle of slowly getting looser over the years. Partly it was that I didn't care what people thought, anyway. When we first did 'I'm a Little Dinosaur,' which had me crawling around on the floor, the other guys said, 'Jonathan affects a voice of reason regarding lunacy. Uh- oh!' But it was me doing it and I didn't mind."

to be continued

by Bill Flanagan Trouser Press November1979

part 4