​During my discussion with the fellows behind The Classical, the forthcoming sports site named after the Mark E. Smith composition that reportedly cost the band a recording deal with Motown thanks to the slur about 35 seconds in, I asked why there aren't many punk or post-punk songs about sports. They fired back with an impressive list of songs disproving that premise.

Said Classical member Tim Marchman, who's written about baseball for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Sun (and disdains Yo La Tengo's cover of "Meet the Mets"): "All those guys like Jon Langford, Mark Smith and John Lydon were huge soccer fans. My theory is that they didn't write more about sports because they were obsessed with American culture and didn't know how soccer fit in with that. Meanwhile, the Americans were generally fake Brits. Darby Crash would have written about Arsenal if he had Fox Soccer Channel." More brains on punks on jocks below.

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​Tonight is going to be unpleasant politically. Watching the results in real time on television/the Internet is going to do nothing for your health, your soul, your complexion, your ever-diminishing sense of childlike wonder. I hereby recommend you go out instead, to the Bell House, where Jonathan Richman, whose sense of childlike wonder has not diminished in 35+ years, will distract and soothe and quite frankly delight you, as he has done so many times before. He will sing "Springtime in New York," and you will forget that it isn't; he will sing "I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar" with multiple breaks to recreate said dancing, and you will join the crowd in hooting uproariously and forgetting all about Russ Feingold or whoever. Here, in fact, is Jonathan on the Late Night With Jimmy Fallon set, doing "Lesbian Bar" with extra-long dance interludes:

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via EAR FARM's photostream

Jonathan Richman
Bowery Ballroom
June 18

"Blame me, don't blame them", said Jonathan Richman about a third of the way into his close to two-hour set last night, "I did it." Sweat was beginning to prickle the crowd, and the rare funk of grown-ups could no longer be ignored. Jonathan enthusiastically confessed that he'd had the air conditioning turned off in the name of ambiance, something that means a lot to him. "I got a plan when it gets too hot, though, I got a secret plan." Immediately playing an extended version (with reprise!) of the eternal party starter "I Was Dancing in The Lesbian Bar" did not seem like that good of a plan.

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I could easily link you to a streaming version of this tune, but the irony makes me extremely uncomfortable. (The guy hosting it has noted this irony as well, and suggests, as I heartily do, that you just buy the record.) And anyway if ever there was a song that demanded to be listened to on 7-inch, it's Mr. Richman's defiant anti-technology screed, which, after like two weeks (if not two years) spending 70 percent of my waking hours staring at a computer screen, strikes me as shockingly brilliant and important. Musically it ain't no "I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar," but try not to nod your head to this:

When I'm on the beach
I'm on the beach
No you can't call me there
And when I'm on a walk
I'm on a walk
No you can't call me there
And when it's breakfast time
It's breakfast time
What more can I say?

From there he refuses to even call clubs on cell phones in the event he's late to a show, even if it means skipping sound check, which apparently Jonathan doesn't like either. Can't comment on that, particularly, but the notion of eating Frosted Mini-Wheats unharrassed by modern technology is blowing my mind.