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The Beginning Stages of...

If The Velvet Underground were the first-ever 'alternative' band, VU acolytes The Modern Lovers almost seem to stand as the first 'indie' band. Admittedly, the differences between these two largely-meaningless terms are non-existent, but my drift is this: where the Velvets rewired rock'n'roll into a sound of their own making —standing out as an other with little-to-no precdent— the Modern Lovers, huge acolytes of the Velvet Underground, were less about a musical revolution than a personal one; their non-rockist, shaggy, confessional songs forerunners of the indie sensibility.

Where Velvets frontman Lou Reed was hostile and anti-social, a beatnik telling beneath-the-bowery tales of sex and drugs, the Modern Lovers' leader Jonathan Richman —who had openly idolized the VU from his adolescence on— was a lovable geek, a "straight" (both sexually and drug-wise; a stark change from Reed) and sentimental songwriter who made himself the subject of his own songs, and never dabbled in self-mythologizing.

Punk Rockin' in the Free World

The mythology, in regards to The Modern Lovers' debut LP, all came after the fact. It had to. The album was released in 1976, three years after the songs were recorded, and two years after the band broke up. Issued after Richman had found some acclaim, fronting an all-new, rebranded band called, um, Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, the songs —initially recorded as demos, by the Velvets' John Cale— arrived anew right at the dawning of the punk epoch.

The effect was instantaneous: The Clash swallowed them whole, The Sex Pistols covered them, the press crowned them as the missing link between the Velvet Underground and new New York bands like The Ramones, Television, and Talking Heads.

The Modern Lovers were, forevermore, America's original proto-punks.

But, as the years passed, and Richman grew into a familiar, friendly alt-music figure —a kind of goofy indie uncle— the Modern Lovers started to seem less and less punk. Listening to their one-and-only album, there's little aesthetic/thematic similarity to punks before or after. Sure, Richman is entirely steeped in Velvetsy jangle, but there's no nihilism, politicking, rabble-rousing, or irony; just a really, really earnest, sincere guy telling stories through songs, longing to be loved and sad at the fact that it may never come his way.

Like Letters and Sodas

Sure, there are anthemic authentic-rock-history moments; most of all "Roadrunner," the raucous opening gambit that's become such a staple that it's been covered by The Sex Pistols, Joan Jett, Phish, and MGMT; that cry of "I'm in love with rock'n'roll and I'll be out all night!" a perfect encapsulation of youthful exuberance in thrall to the power of amplified music.

But then there's "Hospital," five-and-a-half mournful minutes where a forlorn Richman trails after a self-destructive girl; and "Girlfriend," an exceedingly-sweet piano ballad where Richman (when not spelling it out "G-I-R-L-F-R-E-N") longs not after any specific girl, but a true companion for his days. Then there's "I'm Straight," a proud proclamation of being not-stoned that, when penned in the early-'70s, must have been like its own kind of coming out.

These aren't songs that fit the prevailing narrative of the rock'n'roll outlaw. Instead, they reveal a different kind of outsider. Years later, earnest young nerds with broken hearts could feel safe in indie's established culture, but, in an early-'70s era defined by hard rock, Richman's loneliness isn't just personal, but artistic. He may've once studied at the school of Lou Reed, but, here, this pupil sounds like a man as island.

Record Label: Beserkely
Release Date: August 1976