Jonathan Richman's guitar shreds the space-time continuum

Video evidence surfaces shedding light on the origins of my bad-ass Ibanez hollow body.

That Bakelite pick guard spontaneously combusted sometime a decade or so ago.

Jonathan Richman sat shivering with his Modern Lovers in a freezing basement in suburban Boston in 1978. The four of them stared at the shiny new guitar in their midst. There, in a cardboard case, with plastic covering, lay a gorgeous Ibanez hollow body electric guitar. The birds-eye maple pattern gleamed in the light of the tiny space heater, and the bass player spoke up first:

“Um, Jonathan, don’t you think maybe it would have been better to have paid the Boston Edison bill instead of buying another guitar?”

“I’m going to paint it.”

“Dude, it’s painted already, let’s head down to the Cumby Farms for some smokes, hit the packy off Route 128 for road sodas and get down to the gig where it might be just a little bit warmer.”

“I will paint her with office supplies.”

“Brah, they turned off the heat, radio is finally playing Road Runner, we might actually stand a chance of making it in this wicked pissah business and you are painting a guitar?”

“With office supplies.”

“I thought you didn’t do drugs?”

“I am an artist.”

“I am questioning my life choices.”

“Office supplies.”

I have no knowledge of this scene ever taking place. But how else on God’s green earth this amazing artifact, purportedly painted by Jonathan Richman, could have come to be? Just look at the picture. The craftsmanship required to hand paint such tiny patterns is astonishing, as is the choice of the shittiest materials available. White out, red sharpie, and some kind of teal enamel applied in psychedelic swirly patterns, lightning bolts and hearts. It seems the Seventies were a particularly wacky time, and Richman a particularly wacky dude. Quel surprise, that the mind who produced Pablo Picasso (Was Not Called An Asshole), Lonely Financial Zone, and Abominable Snowman in the Market would enjoy combining his visual arts skills with his nascent music career.

Sometime in the late Eighties, my friend Adam’s older brother Ira (Kaplan, founding member of Yo La Tango) mentioned that his other brother Neal had a guitar he was trying to sell. Something about Jonathan Richman, of whom I was a great fan, but I didn’t really understand what he meant when he said the guitarist had painted it. What, slapped a coat of Captain’s varnish on there? 

The first day I opened that case, and got an eyeload of that, that tableaux, I just knew. I had an acoustic, really wanted an electric too, but saw this and immediately cleaned out my savings to come up with the princely sum of $350 and took it home. 

And let’s face it, the first thing you notice, before even playing (or hearing) it, is the wacky psychedelic graphics. It needed service once and I took it to Matt Umanov, the legendary guitar repair guy on Bleecker Street. The moment I opened the case, he muttered, “We’ll never get that shit off…” and I slammed the case shut, explained, and made him promise not to try and “clean it up.” He had come around by the time the repair was done: as they brought it out from the back the staff all sang the Darth Vader theme from Star Wars whilst performing Wayne Campbell bows. 

The second thing, ultimately far more important, is that to plug that big piece of wood and brass into an amp, turn all the knobs to eleven is to learn that this axe is a bad ass fascist and eardrum killing machine. It’s a hollow body, so you can enjoy it acoustically, but it rips gaping holes in the fabric of space-time when plugged in. Shortly after I acquired the Jonathan guitar, I was chatting with some people at a party across the courtyard from my apartment on Greenwich Street. 

“You are that asshole with the electric guitar? Jesus Christ, you are so terrible could you at least shut the window?” I had a cool guitar, but the rockstar dream remained unattainable. I’ve gone on to annoy generations of neighbors with that guitar, it never fails to elicit joy.

A few years later, I had a grade-school acquaintance over for coffee. In the interim (hadn’t seen him for decades) Justin Lees had become something of a heavy hitter as a jazz guitarist. And he kind of idly picked up that guitar, didn’t bother to plug it in, started to play and my jaw dropped. I am among the worst guitarists in the world, it is known that were there to be a licensing board I would never be allowed near another stringed instrument, painted or otherwise. But when Lees picked that Ibanez up, angels sang in fifteen part harmony and I realized why that guitar is called the George Benson model. THIS was the way that guitar was meant to be played, all sweet tones, lyrical passages, soft harmonies: it was a revelation. I should have given that axe to my old friend right there and then. I certainly never heard it make sounds liie that, before or since. It was absolutely amazing to realize the gorgeous notes that could be elicited by the right player. 

Jonathan Richman playing a boring old guitar at Maxwell’s in 1985.

My wife had met Richman after a show in Berkeley some time in the nineties and mentioned the wildly painted Ibanez. 

“What?! Yes, I painted that! Where’d he get that?” nonplussed and a bit flustered.

 I was pretty sure of its provenance (I think there was a pawn shop in between Richman and Kaplan’s other brother) but it’s been in my possession for forty some years. Short of running into Jonathan Richman and asking I didn’t figure on ever getting proof either way.

Screen shot from Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers on TopPop 1977

Until this weekend. My old Grateful Dead tour buddy Andrew, doing work for Jerry Harrison (formerly of the Modern Lovers) had come across a video clip and texted me to ask was that my guitar? Why yes, it certainly is, no doubt about it. December 4th 1977, there’s Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers on TopPop on Dutch television. Clear as day, there’s my Ibanez.

This internet that is ruining all our lives is pretty cool sometimes. Check the screenshot or better yet, click the link to see the video on YouTube. There’s a second one where the other guitarist is playing it, but I’m thinking this is nonetheless the keystone to the arch of authenticity and I’m calling this definitive proof. And calling myself glad apocryphal Jonathan Richman and the freezing cold Modern Lovers made the choice to eschew heat to be able to afford the office supplies that sacrificed themselves to create this universe-rending killer hollow body which I expect to be pried out of my cold dead fingers after I’m beaten to death by an angry neighbor.