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Proto-punk band The Modern Lovers accompanied by music journalist Danny Fields, c. 1973
Members include:
Jonathan Richman, Jerry Harrison (of Talking Heads), David Robinson (of The Cars), Ernie Brooks (worked with David Johansen, Arthur Russell, Elliott Murphy, and Gary Lucas) and John Felice (of The Real Kids)
(C) Photographer currently unknown
The Real Kids - My Baby’s Book (1977)
Legendary Boston rock & roll - tough, energetic and melodic.
REAK KIDS - Baby's Book
REAL KIDS - She
Modern Lovers With John Felice
The Modern Lovers performing at Cambridge Common, 1971. Photos by Steve Nelson.
John Felice Interview, Part Two
Photo by Lindsey Anderson
Ryan: The Real Kids seemed to coalesce around 1976.
John: Yeah. By then I had already started writing the songs that would make their way into the Real Kids set list. "All Kindsa Girls," "Solid Gold," and "My Baby's Book" were written sometime in '75. As soon as I decided that The Heartbreakers wasn't going to work, I worked really hard on getting my own band together. (Original Real Kids drummer) Kevin Glasheen, who was my best friend growing up, we got together with a couple of other guys and decided that the Real Kids was going to be our focus. Kevin was happy that I hadn't joined the Heartbreakers. He knew Sylvain and John and what kind of life I would have been living in New York. I was still learning how to write songs. I wrote a lot of songs but also tossed a number away.
Ryan: "All Kindsa Girls" and "My Baby's Book" are incredible first efforts.
John: Those songs were written very early on. "All Kindsa Girls" still holds up today. Once you get a few tunes out, they start to come out at a pretty good clip. A lot of Real Kids standards were some of the first songs I ever wrote. It was weird how those flood gates opened.
Ryan: You nearly had a complete body of work right from the beginning.
John: It was totally unexpected. You've got to remember: The Modern Lovers was always Jonathan's band. I didn't mention this earlier but there were other problems within the Modern Lovers.
The Modern Lovers all lived in a house on the beach, just south of Boston, where we'd also rehearse. When no one was around I'd start working on my own songs. In turns out Ernie (Brooks), Jerry (Harrison) and David (Robinson) liked some of the songs I was coming up with and wanted to play them. Jonathan had a real problem in giving up any of that territory. That's understandable. If someone said to me, "Hey, I want to start writing songs for the Real Kids," I'd tell them, "No you're fucking not! Go start your own band." (laughs) I got where Jonathan was coming from but it wasn't going to stop me from writing. If you've got songs inside of you, they're going to come out one way or another.
Ryan: The Real Kids have always been popular in France. But just how did the first Real Kids single "All Kindsa Girls"/"Common at Noon" (1977) end up on a small French imprint, Sponge Records?
John: The French thought Jerry Lewis was the greatest thing since toilet paper. I've got to admit that being loved by the same people who loved Jerry Lewis concerned me. Philippe Garnier, the guy who did Sponge Records, loved us. He printed up one thousand copies of our first single. I don't recall where he heard us, but my best guess is he caught us in New York—probably at CBGB's. He decided he was going to invest some money in us. He was a writer for Rock & Folk magazine. Have you seen that publication?
Ryan: No, I haven't.
John: It was a super-slick, high-quality magazine. It would run incredibly well-researched, twelve-page articles on bands. I mean, I don't read French but this magazine was obviously heavy duty. I can't think of anything in the States that compared to it or even came close.
Philippe put us in the studio where we recorded "All Kindsa Girls" and "Common at Noon." That single is worth a fuck load of money now, if you can even find one. I don't own a copy of it and I doubt I ever will. I'll be goddamned if I spend more than fifty cents on a Real Kids record. (laughs) That single captured a moment in time. I don't know what it was but the guy (Philippe Garnier) wrote this incredibly nice and very long article about us in Rock & Folk. I was impressed. I thought that would be it with the whole French thing. It wasn't.
Willie Alexander and his band, who were friends of ours—Matthew Mackenzie and Ricky Rothchild, both of them are gone now but they played with me and Billy (Cole) in a version of the Taxi Boys a little later on—they went on tour backing up Willie in France. Matthew and Ricky got back and told us, "You guys are so big in France. You have no idea. You should be capitalizing on this." Next thing I know, New Rose—who had worked out the deal with Willie to go over to France—started talking with us. Patrick Mathe was the main guy at New Rose.
When I think of France I just don't think of rock 'n' roll. Their language doesn't translate well to rock 'n' roll, with the exception of Plastic Bertrand—but he was a Belgium guy singing in French.
Ryan: He was in Hubble Bubble.
John: Yeah, he kind of rocked at the time. It was a surprise to me that the French took to us as well as they did. When we did tour over there, they loved us. We were on radio stations and all that kind of stuff. Certain pockets of Europe really latched on to the Real Kids. We did well in Japan, Australia and Scandinavia too.
Ryan: The Real Kids' Self-titled debut is a classic. What happened around the time of its release? Did Marty Thau's Red Star go out of business before the planned second album could be recorded?
John: Our relationship with Red Star fell apart. Marty Thau's backing for Red Star dried up almost instantly. He put out Suicide's album and then our record. After that, the people who put up the money withdrew it. There were no hard feelings; it wasn't Marty's fault and I never blamed him for it. We had to figure out what we were going to do. Our first record had only been out for a little while and then we found ourselves without a label. Before Red Star went under, we had planned to do another record with them. The tracks that would have been on the second Red Star album are the songs on this new record (Shake...Outta Control). After the first Real Kids record, I played in the Taxi Boys. By the time The Real Kids got back together to cut our second album, Outta Place (1982), I had new songs that I wanted to record. All of the songs that had been planned for the second Red Star record got filed away. I'm glad that we were able to revisit them recently with (Ace of Heart's) Rick Harte (for Shake...Outta Control). I think Rick did a fucking amazing job.
People ask me about the first Real Kids record all the time. I have mixed emotions about it. I listened to it the other day for the first time in nearly twenty-five years. The last time I played it was when Norton reissued it (1991). I love the songs on it a lot. The production on that record leaves a lot to be desired though. Nobody in the studio knew what they were doing at all. We didn't have a producer per se. We were all just winging it. That's why I have a hard time with it, although my views might be a bit skewed due to personal prejudices to the way it sounds. But the listen I gave it the other day changed my attitude quite a bit. It holds up pretty well after all these years. I didn't hate listening to it. I was surprised.
Ryan: A lot of bands cutting records in the late '70s, especially on upstart independent labels, were given the same sort of treatment in regards to studio time: "Your session starts at midnight and you've got twelve hours to get it done."
John: Yeah. I don't think we would have fared any better had we signed to Sire. Sire tried to get us to sign with them. They were signing a lot of Boston and New York bands at the time. Like you said, they were just doing quickie, get-their-record-out-and-see-if-it-sticks sort of deals. That seemed to be their attitude. That's why we wanted to be on Red Star. They weren't Sire. We didn't feel like we were being used. I actually believed in what Marty was doing with Red Star. He had a vision for the label and I bought into it heavily. Had Red Star been given a chance, it would have been a successful label.
Ryan: I see where you're coming from with not wanting to sign to Sire. Ork Records is another label from that period that had incredible taste but died on the vine. The smaller indies had their ears to the ground.
John: Marty knew what he wanted. He had a reputation going back to the '60s for picking up great bands. He had worked for Buddah Records where he signed groups like the 1910 Fruitgum Company. If I thought anyone was capable of putting together an interesting label, it would have been him.
I remember while we were cutting our first record for Red Star, Marty brought the B-52's up to New York from Athens, Georgia, to play a showcase gig. That would have never happened without Marty. He knew what was fucking good.
Ryan: Suicide and the Real Kids are two incredible bands.
John: And they're on the opposite ends of the spectrum. We played a couple of gigs together and it worked. Marty had the vision.
Ryan: Were the Real Kids on hold while you were playing in the Taxi Boys?
John: The Real Kids had morphed into the Taxi Boys and then we changed back again. There was no real difference between the Taxi Boys and the Real Kids. When we first started doing the Taxi Boys thing, Billy Cole played bass; Matthew Mackenzie played lead guitar instead of me; and Ricky Rothchild played drums. It was just a different approach to the same band. I didn't really change my style of songwriting. We did what we could do with the group.
Ryan: The second Real Kids record, Outta Place (1982), was released by a Boston label but was later picked up by New Rose, correct?
John: Dave Pierce, who ran a label called Star Rhythm, decided to help us out. He was a friend of ours who ran a record store. He worked out a deal with New Rose so that it would be available in Europe while he took care of the United States.
Ryan: Outta Place and Hit You Hard (1983) are both excellent albums that seem to be overshadowed by the Self-titled record.
John: I have a problem with that. I'd be lying if I said I didn't. I don't think the first record is so great that it should dwarf everything else we've done. The first album is good but I think the other Real Kids records are good too.
Ryan: "Senseless" on Outta Place is one of my favorite Real Kids originals. Your cover of the Everly Brothers' "Problems" is a great reinterpretation of the song.
John: Thanks. There's good stuff on those records. You just can't ignore them. Hit You Hard was never available outside of Europe. It was only available on New Rose. Their distribution wasn't all that great. With the Taxi Boys, we did an EP for Star Rhythm and an EP for Bomp! We were doing little one-off deals to keep busy and hopefully not get lost in the shuffle. But like you said, things didn't turn out that way. Our records did get lost in the shuffle. No matter how hard we tried to prevent it, we couldn't stop it from happening. What can you do? I think that we produced a bunch of good work under the circumstances. The Real Kids never had a label with real backing, so we couldn't do much. We just kept trying to put one foot in front of the other, hoping to get the next record out. That was what it was all about. But getting records out became harder and harder to do as time went on. We did two records with New Rose: the live album (All Kindsa Jerks Live) and Hit You Hard. I don't think they were commercially successful. I would have liked to have seen Hit You Hard get more recognition. Instead it's treated almost like a footnote to the band, something that I really hate. I dislike that people have to search for those New Rose records, scouring for a copy on ebay. That shit isn't available. "She's a Mess" (on Hit You Hard) is a really good song.
Ryan: "Where I Want to Be" is another great track.
John: Yeah. Again, there's a bunch of good shit on that record. New Rose couldn't get their distribution act together. It was very frustrating, to say the least.
Ryan: You've had bad luck with labels and distributors. Red Star went under. New Rose couldn't get Hit You Hard out in the States. And then with the Lowdowns record (1988's Nothing Pretty) you cut, I had heard that Ace of Hearts' distributor went out of business the week it was released.
John: The distributor went under right when it came out. The Lowdowns record sat on the loading dock, waiting to be shipped out with no place to go. We were surrounded by bad luck. That shit happened to us a lot. After the distribution mess with the Lowdowns record, I became really frustrated. It wasn't easy to take that one sitting down. It was particularly painful because we had put a lot of effort into making it. Of all the records I've released, that one is my favorite.
Ryan: Your catalog is solid the whole way through. It's a shame when good LPs don't get out there. The proverbial example of that is Big Star.
John: We're certainly not the only ones it has happened to. Hopefully things will change with this last one (Shake...Outta Control) we did. The record seems to be well received. We're not expecting anything earth shattering, but stranger things have happened.
Ryan: It must have been cathartic to finally properly record these songs. For decades they were only available as live tracks on Grown Up Wrong (1993).
John: As I say in the liners to Shake...Outta Control, hearing those songs on Grown Up Wrong was like chewing on tin foil. That was due to them only being available as live tracks. I wanted to get these songs done properly as I had intended to decades ago. Rick (Harte) was able to do that. We gained a bigger and better vision with him helping us. I was determined to make this record.
Ryan: As you write in the liner notes, a new Real Kids record seemed highly unlikely.
John: Absolutely. It'd been thirty years.
Ryan: What was the impetus to get these songs recorded? Was Rick the catalyst?
John: No. It was our idea. Rick came to the party late. We had already started recording it and we were in trouble with the people we had working with us at the time. We needed to find another way to get it done and Rick stepped in and saved the day. He was the right person for the job. Rick and I have something of a partnership. We had worked together about twenty-five years previously on the Lowdowns record. Rick and I are able to get things done. We are on the same wavelength. I think we'll have a good future ahead of us. The next record is already in the works. And this time we will have Rick involved in the planning stages, whereas before he had joined when things were already underway. That's a comfort to us. Rick understands my music and what I'm trying to do better than anyone I've ever worked with. No one else has even come close.
Ryan: Shake...Outta Control is a great record. Everyone knew the lyrics to "Who Needs You" from the live version on Grown Up Wrong, but to hear it fully realized is a very special thing.
John: Thank you. Shake...Outta Control meant a lot to me. I finally got the material out there properly. "Common at Noon" was never recorded correctly. It was scheduled to be on the second Red Star album; "All Kindsa Girls" was on the first record and we were going to rerecord the B Side of the Sponge single ("Common at Noon") for the second record. The only songs on the new record that wouldn't have been on the second Red Star one are "Tell Me What You Want Me to Do" and "That Girl Ain't Right." "Tell Me What You Want Me to Do" was the song that we wrote for Mary Weiss that she recorded on her last album (2007's Dangerous Game). When you get a chance to hear the remix for the vinyl version (of Shake...Outta Control), it sounds incredible. Rick did a great job of mixing and mastering the album. "That Girl Ain't Right" is a newer song. We wanted to put something of a tease in there, a newer song to show people what's in store for the next album.
Ryan: There's also a Jonathan Richman cover ("Fly Into the Mystery").
John: That actually would have been on the second Red Star record. That was a regular fixture in the Real Kids set list. We covered that all the time, going back to the early days with Kevin Glasheen—before Alpo, Howie Ferguson and Billy Borgioli joined the band. Looking back on it, I don't know how that song became a standard for us. But it was a lot of fun covering it for this record.
Ryan: The Real Kids have been active again. You've been playing around Boston a lot.
John: We're trying to. We're currently doing a month-long residency at a club in Boston, breaking in some new songs for the upcoming record. Nothing really tightens things up like playing it in front of an audience. You can rehearse until your hands bleed; it doesn't mean much. It's playing in front of people that really makes the difference.
recorded at Harvard University, 1971 (maybe 1972) w/ John Felice
