more j. rich!

The sound is fuzzy but this is some pretty awesome super 8 footage from summer 1981 in sproul plaza berkeley. Here's a good story from this website

JoJo - True Kid on the Block
Jonathan had called to say he was flying in for the Boston Music Awards to make a presentation to Bill Nowland of Rounder Records- my former Fort Apache landlord. I knew they weren't jetting him all the way from his home in Nevada City, California just to hand over a plaque, and I told him I thought he must have won an award, too. He would get to play a song as part of the ceremony, and asked "what song do you think I should play". I suggested my favorite cut from the new record, Fender Stratocaster, whose lyrics are full of wonderful similes and humorous- but perfectly precise -observations (it's got the ancient Egyptian script; it's got the wang bar from the crypt!). Agreeing, he asked "what kind of guitar do you think I should play?"- we both had a laugh when I suggested a Fender Telecaster, offering to loan him one so he didn't have to risk flying with a guitar (he was already familiar with my '66 Teli: during a romantic emergency in 1980 he'd loaned me the money to buy a ticket to Pakistan, receiving the guitar as collateral; times were tough, and I repaid the loan painfully slowly until he generously waived the last hundred dollars or so and returned my guitar). This was the second year in a row that the New Kids on the Block were prominently featured at the awards. Just as in the previous year the audience was split into two groups: the usual Boston rock crowd and a flock of 13 year-old teenie boppers who screamed their heads off whenever the NKOTB were mentioned or appeared onstage. The "usual suspects" were disgruntled at their ceremony being usurped by a prefab music biz creation like NKOTB. Before long whenever the teenies screamed the other half of the room would hiss. It was getting ugly. The rock acts that played left the New Kids crowd silent, and the mood was not pleasant. Then Jonathan came out and did his thing. True to plan he was playing "Fender Stratocaster" on my red Telecaster. Also true to form he placed the guitar down on the stage after a verse or two and did most of the rest of the tune using only his voice accompanied by "drums" made from pounding his fists on his chest. He was doing his little Jonathan dance, a joyous Jewish Jackie Wilson sort of affair, replete with hip thrusting and pelvic rotations. And...to my utter amazement...the teenie boppers went wild!!! They started screaming like it was Shaun Cassidy circa 1976. This was the only time at that awards show that both halves of the room grooved to the same act. So nothing really surprises me anymore where Jonathan is concerned.