“They don’t write ’em like that anymore”
And they surely don’t.
Greg Kihn and his band were on Beserkley Records, famous up to this point for the initial Modern Lovers album, partially produced by John Cale, the group contained David Robinson, long before he had success drumming for the Cars, and Jerry Harrison, and this was 1976, before “Talking Heads 77” with “Psycho Killer” was released.
“The Modern Lovers” was a legendary punk album when the Ramones had no sales traction, only press, and we read the press incessantly, when if you were a little left of center you could still be noticed, being off the radar screen was not anathema, never mind being lost in the sea of songs of today.
And it’s not like you ever heard “The Modern Lovers” on the radio. You had to buy it to hear it. I read about the record, the band that had already broken up, so much that I finally laid down my cash.
And I was titillated and surprised.
Now when the history of punk is written, and in truth it’s been written time and again, mostly by acolytes, it should be noted that the two breakthrough icons of early punk, the progenitors, were both Jewish, Joey Ramone and Jonathan Richman. And that’s important, because their lyrics evidenced a Jewish sensibility, a sense of humor, the perspective of an outcast looking in. And despite being basic, the music possessed an intellectual quality absent from today’s hit parade. Where you were coming from, what you were saying, were very important. As was attitude. And no one but the critics and a few insiders got it. Believe me, even with their third album and “Rockaway Beach” almost no one was listening to the Ramones, and Richman went in such a wacky direction, an acoustic folk singer rendering his tunes around the summer campfire…
But when you dropped that needle on “The Modern Lovers”…
All the ink was about “Roadrunner,” the opening cut, but the essence of the album came at the end of the first side, with “Pablo Picasso.”
All I can tell you is, “Pablo Picasso was never called an a**hole.”
“Pablo Picasso” was a secret handshake, if you knew it you were on the inside, if you didn’t…you didn’t have a clue.
“The Modern Lovers” was a club. And it has continued to get praise over the decades, but in truth few people know it, and they should, but it’s hard to understand sans context. This was at the height of AOR, bands in spandex taking themselves seriously, meat and potatoes, and then came THIS?
I’ve seen Jonathan Richman many times. I thought his inclusion in “There’s Something About Mary” would break him wide, but that did not happen. Just like Graham Parker in “This Is 40.” However Parker had his moment, on Arista, even though the first two records on Mercury were the best.
So, why not?
Well, when you see Jonathan Richman, when you listen to the records you wonder if it’s a put-on. But it now appears that this is who he really is, just like another Jewish musician, Gene Simmons. But Richman looks inward, Simmons outward. But if you want to know which way the wind blows, you’d be better off listening to Richman.
All of which hipped me to Beserkley Records.
And I went to see the Rubinoos at the Whisky.
If it was on Beserkley, there was thinking involved. Matthew “King” Kaufman wasn’t only in it for the money, although you could hear the influences of Zappa in the records he released.
But no one expected Greg Kihn to be the breakthrough. For him and his band to be all over MTV. It would be like some influencer on Threads being as well-known as Taylor Swift, but unlike the stars of today, EVERYONE KNEW THE LYRICS TO JEOPARDY!
But that came later. And got a second life when Weird Al reconstructed it as “I Lost on Jeopardy,” one of the pinnacles of the comedic performer’s oeuvre.
And the thing about “Jeopardy” was that keyboard, a direct descendant of Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition.”
“Our love’s in jeopardy, baby”
Because she’s absent, can’t be found in those pre-cell phone days.
Once again, today the script has been flipped. If you’re a male on the hit parade you cannot show weakness, vulnerability, but that’s what made these records great. Greg Kihn wasn’t that far removed from you and me.
But “Jeopardy” came later, ’83, before that there was “The Breakup Song.”
It started with a guitar riff and sound which Bryan Adams would amplify into his breakthrough on “Run to You.”
“We had broken up for good just an hour before”
A straight derivation from the sixties. As typical of Beserkley records. They were referential to that era when we’d all grown up, our formative years, especially those Top Forty singles we knew by heart.
They didn’t write ’em like that anymore, even in 1981, never mind today.
“We’ve been living together for a million years”
Unlike our parents we didn’t get married, we needed no piece of paper from the upstairs choir keeping us tied and true.
And when you break up, it does feel so strange out in the atmospheres. Not sure I’d heard that word in a song before or since.
So Greg Kihn and his band were not a typical MTV breakthrough, they’d put out albums previously, unheralded and unknown. But they were in the right place at the right time, and with exposure, they made it.
And then it was over. It always is. And then what do you do?
Some go back to college, some fall into drugs, others rob 7-11’s and…
Greg Kihn became a deejay. We knew this. But we didn’t hear him. Because radio was local, you may not remember that when Howard Stern was syndicated across the nation that was a huge breakthrough.
And now Greg Kihn is dead. As are two other members of his band. That’s what you check first these days, whether the members are even alive, never mind whether they get along and go on the road together.
Furthermore, they say Kihn had Alzheimer’s. I didn’t know. Maybe it was somewhere, maybe it was secret. But that long goodbye is such a bizarre way to go. You fade away and you don’t radiate.
And I’m not sure Kihn’s music will either. I mean it’s amazing what licensing can do for you, look at “My Sharona” and “Don’t Stop Believin’,” placements made them legendary.
And you can read the facts in the obituaries, but they won’t give you the feel.
Even at this late date, at the turn of the decade, from the seventies to the eighties, we still believed.
Music drove the culture. Forget Patti Smith, how many people listened to “The Modern Lovers” and started a band!
There was something to dig your teeth into. And it was all rooted in what had come before, rock and roll.
These songs had more than one chord, they had changes, choruses, and it was surprising that Greg Kihn was the Beserkley artist to strike lightning, but he did.
And for a while there, at the advent of the internet, everyone was around. You could look them up, eventually on Wikipedia, see where they’d been, maybe even follow them on Facebook.
But that era is ending. It’s the final chapter for our heroes, and then us.
And Greg Kihn was a hero. Do you know how hard it was to get a record deal, never mind have a hit, two? Nearly impossible. People didn’t sit at home with no skills and believe they’d become household names. Maybe you had fantasies, but you knew it was unrealistic.
But there were some who picked up the guitar after seeing the Beatles on “Ed Sullivan,” who played in high school bands, and then stuck with it. It wasn’t glamorous, they were falling behind while their brethren were building careers, never mind families, but this was the path they needed to go down, to stick to.
And the audience was ready for you. All those people who couldn’t follow the artistic path, they bought records, went to the club, music was the grease our world functioned on. The most nimble and influential art form.
And sure, we can all bow our heads in prayer when an icon dies, Freddie Mercury, Bowie, Glenn Frey… But they lived above us, we couldn’t reach them, they were gods.
But Greg Kihn was us just one step removed.
But it’s Greg Kihn and the rest of the two hit wonders, legendary album makers, non-stars, who not only fill out the canon, but our hearts.
It’s always weird when you find out about these passings. You power up your phone, you’re surfing the news, or you get an e-mail, and then your entire past is laid out in front of you.
And we think back and say…
They don’t write ’em like that anymore.
Definitely not.
