Work in Silence: Jonathan Richman interviewed by Arielle Mae Mullen

Thank you to Arielle Mae Mullen for kind permission to reprint this wonderful interview.  Earlier we heard from Roger Catlin who posted a great review of Jonathan Richman's appearance at the Andy Warhol Museum (read it again).  This interview makes a good pairing.

-rb-

August 23, 2015 
Original can be found here
First published in Synthesis Weekly

 Listen to the audio version (it's really good)
~~~~~~♡♡♡~~~~~~

Jonathan Richman

 
On August 21, 2015 I was afforded the opportunity to interview musician Jonathan Richman in the backyard of his northern California home. I arrived at his house a bit nervous. I’d been wanting to interview him for a long time, and given the fact that he famously doesn’t do interviews, I wasn’t sure how it would go. Adding to my nervousness was the fact that I hadn’t prepared any questions. Normally I would have a list of talking points to hit, with a general outline to guide the conversation. But when I called the number on his business card and asked if he’d be willing to take a meeting with me, I hadn’t expected him to agree, let alone suggest we do it in fifteen minutes.

So there I was: really nervous, fairly unprepared, but mostly just excited. This is my first attempt at offering an audio version of an interview, and I’m so happy to make this one available to all of you. During the interview we sat outside in his backyard. A guitar sat on his lap and his two dogs at his feet. At one point one of them (who happens to be deaf), started barking pretty loudly, but other than that, the audio came out fairly clear. Jonathan graciously agreed to let me interview him, on the condition that I keep his answers unedited. Usually I’d make an effort to edit the transcribed interview for clarity or continuity, but his feelings being what they are about the subject, I felt it important to try to preserve as much of the original conversation as I could.

Jonathan has a gentle air that makes him appear almost cautious, but directly under the surface is a seemingly limitless supply of unfettered joy and creativity. Listening back to this interview, I can definitely hear that come through in his voice and the stories he tells, so I’m really happy to be able to share this with you. With that, please enjoy my interview with Jonathan Richman.

Less Than Perfect¹, More Than Special²

An appreciation of Vic Chesnutt done almost entirely in two footnotes.

Image: rb

¹ Of course ‘less than perfect’ describes how Vic Chesnutt saw himself.

² And ‘more than special’ describes how everyone else, everyone who was touched by his presence and had the privilege to glimpse the gleanings of his spirit, how everyone else saw him and could not, could never adequately articulate what they knew (knew, to have known, to know, as in the biblical sense, which can be carnal, sure, why not, if you want that meaning but is more like what happens when a soul encounters a soul and KNOWS and things progress from there to a sort of a bang and a bang and a bang and a bang and a bang to the spawnings of fathomless universes heretofore unknown and undreamt of and mysterious in their workings, circling in their relations, enchantments and horrors) in instinct but not in words, and the exhaustive impossibility of ever being able to describe this special quality to anyone who has never experienced it (can you really describe a moment of EUREKA to someone who has no conception of such a moment and its divergence of the pathways of a lifetime but can only see what is comfortably familiar and the illusion therewith? Or can you accept that a mind must mature to acquire some of the finer nuanced tastes and there is nothing really you can do about it as this is that other person’s journey to embark upon or not?) I digress.

I tried to begin writing this in the first days of Vic’s passing. I couldn’t.

Image: rb

#515

There is a pain—so utter—
It swallows substance up—
Then covers the Abyss with Trance—
So Memory can step
Around—across—upon it—
As one within a Swoon—
Goes safely—where an open eye—
Would drop him—Bone by Bone—

-- Emily Dickinson (one of Vic Chesnutt’s many poet heroes)

The morning after he took wing I was in the Smoky Mountains with my husband where we had spent a somber Christmas day, and caught this sunrise, 26 December 2009, after a sleepless night:

Image: rb

When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

-- Wallace Stevens (another of Vic’s poet heroes), from ‘Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird’

Jonathan and Damien

The smell of the air
and the wind on my face
makes me remember
other places
and other times
when I wasn't
in hell

-- Damien Echols

Another Fine Man Behind Bars
Jonathan Richman interviews Damien Echols of the West Memphis Three

Jonathan hasn't been touring lately but he has some public appearances in California lined up for May and June.

12 May: Reading poetry by Damien Echols at 111 Minna Gallery in San Francisco. Jonathan will be auctioning off one of his own artworks to help pay expenses for The West Memphis Three defense fund
16 May: Paradise Lost 2: Revelations Film Screening at The Attic in Santa Cruz. Jonathan will be speaking about his visit with Damien Echols on Death Row. Greg 'Curly' Keranen will be performing as João Dilberto (heads-up: Curly has Vincent Van Gogh mp3 on his website).
3 June: Benefit for The West Memphis Three at Great American Music Hall in San Francisco on June 3 (see show info) with Mark Kozelek, Chuck Prophet, and Tommy Guerrero. June 3 is also The West Memphis Three Worldwide Awareness Day.

Henry Rollins, Jello Biafra and Jonathan Richman to Speak at "Skeleton Key" Art Auction Benefit for WM3

On May 12th at 6:00 PM, 111 Minna Gallery (111 Minna Street between New Montgomery & 2nd St.) hosts a reception for "Skeleton Key," an art exhibit featuring pieces by death row inmate Damien Echols and several other artists to benefit the WM3 Defense Fund. This one-night-only event includes music, speaking, and poetry readings by punk legends Henry Rollins and [tentatively] Jello Biafra, veteran rocker Jonathan Richman, Penelope Houston of the Avengers, Michale Graves (former singer of the Misfits), Jacob Pitts of Strangers With Candy, and former San Francisco Supervisor Matt Gonzalez. Richman will auction one of his own creations to help the defense fund prove Echols' innocence. The gallery showing opens at 12 PM, and includes works by Winston Smith, Shepard Fairey, and Jonathan Richman. Visit 111minnagallery.com or call 415.974.1719 for more info. Donations will be accepted at the door.

more backstage
Thanks to Allan Hough for his help.