Violent Femmes

Anyway, I've just been listening to that album, after not having heard it for at least five or six years. They get me on their side pretty early on, and the first three or four tracks are strong, but I find the rest of it hit-or-miss, though "Gone Daddy Gone" and a couple others stand out. Still, I like their approach and sense of humor -- it's just that some of the songs just lack focus.

Great bass lines, btw.

seriously I almost got kicked outta high school in 1990 for playing add it up over the school speakers....

beautiful stuff, and when i saw them in 92 they whooped nirvana's butts (nirvana were the support act)

That said, I'm willing to go on record as believing that that first record is both a classic and a landmark, the most accurate and eloquent expression of geeked-out pissed-off awkward maladjusted unpopular teenaged-boy-dom in the history of recorded music. What will forever boggle my mind is how, over the years, the band was adopted as a novelty act for precisely the sorts of people who should have had the least experience of that phenomenon; no cultural juxtaposition is quite as criminal as hearing "Kiss Off" coming through the window of a frat house rather than a weedy teenager's rusted-out compact car. It's also worth noting, in rockist terms, how utterly on that record was, from the tight, blazing performances to the thoroughgoingly perfect honesty and realness and this is what we're saying and that's just it-ness of it. It's pathetic and it's snotty and defiant about being pathetic. It is basically hip-hop for frustrated, socially irritable suburban kids.

The rest of the catalog wavers steadily downward -- the older they get, the more you're forced to read them as a novelty -- but I'd submit that records like Why Do Birds Sing are worth taking seriously.

Did you ever hear of Gordon Gano's gospel project THE MERCY SEAT? I cannot find it anywhere on cd!? Todd

btw I´m talking og the first record

I really like that first album, but I can understand why so many have bad associations. I grew to love it before it became some kind of post-Reality Bites GenX touchstone. It still sounds great to me.

The project with Zorn has "Black girls" on it, which is tremendous. They went off from teen problems to children of the corn territory pretty quick -- parallel to X in period, sound?

even when spanking each other's asses with paddles in order to ensure their acceptance in the Kool Klub!

"Hallowed Ground" is also often unfairly overlooked in favor of the debut.

And no, the re-issue is DAMN expensive, so don't convince me to buy it.

So ya crank yer amplifiers.

So I found a thread and revived it - and what do I find, in January 2002, but Tracer Hand saying 'inna pinefox style'? I don't know what Hand meant; though of course I am touched by his thinking of me.

I am not sure that anyone has mentioned how much like early Lou Reed the singer sounds, or is trying to sound like.

Frat boys can suck it because little girls own this album.

IN COURT!

http://blogs.indiewire.com/gabe/archive/014361.html

"trashing the band's reputation" is a bit much. I'd say New Times did a pretty bang up job of that already.

s/t and Hallowed Ground are two of my most favoritest albums EVER though.

Good for Gano - get that money, baby!

"Blister in the Sun" (not my favorite from that record, by a long way, though still great obv) is on a TV ad for Foster's beer. Several brightly-lit men drink beer on a brightly-lit beach, trying to keep in the shade. Presumably to keep the cans of ice-cold Foster's beer from warming up to the point where the men would actually taste it. The words of the song have been changed so that "strung out" is replaced with "hung out".

http://www.myspace.com/violentandcrazy

On the fence about this one.

god i love american music

yes, that song

woah

I saw this thread had been updated and my thought was "Oooh I'll go post on there about how American Music came on one of my Mix CDs when I was driving the other day and it made me all happy and I was seat dancing in the car." Spooky. Anyway yes, American Music. <3

omg my coworker just laughed at me cuz i was seat dancing to it at my desk

Listen Surm, ignore that fool - we know what's up. *knowing glance/head nod*

;) word

god i love american music

― boo (surm)

^^^

I've only heard their debut album, which an American pen-friend sent over to me on cassette sometime in the mid-90s (with a letter attached saying something along the lines of "this is my favorite (sic) album, it's incredible". Before then, I hadn't heard of them at all, not even 'Blister In The Sun' which is meant to be their (for better or worse) "signature song". They seemed to make pretty much zero impact in the UK, outside of a (I assume) very very very very small audience.

I said everything I needed to say six years ago! How about that.

Every single girl in my all-girls Catholic school 7th grade class knew all the words to the entire s/t album -- this was 1987. We used to sing it on fieldtrips. We used to get in trouble. Big trouble. It was beyond awesome. I can't hear this album without wanting to spazz out like the 7th grade me.

Frat boys can suck it because little girls own this album.

― The Milkmaid (of Human Kindness) (The Milkmaid), Monday, November 28, 2005 8:20 PM (6 years ago) Bookmark

Come on dad, gimme the car tonight
Come on dad, gimme the car tonight
I got this girl
I wanna *boioioioioioioing*
Come on dad, gimme the car!

This is probably the least-discussed band on ilm in proportion to how much my friends and I listened to them in high school and college. Perfectly respectable new tune.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/premieres/hear-violent-femmes-first-new-song-in-15-years-20150304

How weird! I was cleaning the kitchen and singing the chorus of 'Lies' to myself about an hour ago.

I like the new song. Could be an outtake from the classic debut, which is a very good thing.

I saw this band maybe 15 years ago and could not believe how good they still were, I went in with zero expectations and their avant garde horn section (with Darren Brown of Die Kreuzen/Boy Dirt Car and other crazy dudes) went really out there in the best possible way

It's been that long for me too (1999 at Bumbershoot) and yeah, they were really great.

hey I was at the '99 Bumbershoot as well! Not where I saw the Femmes though. Great weird Sonic Youth show that year.

Ha, small world! I have the vaguest recollection of SY, I've never been much a fan, so I likely wandered off somewhere else. Didn't they play after Master Musicians of Jajouka?

nah that was Lee sitting in with them iirc

I also saw Cat Power do a great "wavering on the high wire" solo set

Yeah, I love them. I saw them play at SUNY Albany with TMBG in 1997ish? They always make me happy when I listen to them. Was singing "American Music" the other day.

haven't seen the violent femmes since the US tour for the blind leading the naked, sometime in (the fall of?) 1986. went with a bunch of high school friends; we'd all graduated the year before. the femmes had "the horns of dilemma" along, a saxophone destruction unit consisting (i think?) of peter balestrieri and steve "funhouse" mackay. noisy, atonal, free as fuck. most of my friends hated them, said they'd ruined the show, but i loved everything about it.

haha yes that was the horn section I was referring to, had forgotten their name but you are OTM and it was great

I very distinctly remember a young woman, probably in her early 20s at the time, holding her hands over her ears yet still staring, fascinated

new song is cool, sound & arrangement reminiscent yeah of the 1st lp, energy level is much reduced tho

first saw them at Folk City, January 1983

it's 2015 and i'm here to apologize for using the verb "spazz out"

First saw them in Providence in 1984. The marched through the crowd with snare drums, then broke into "Prove My Love." Awesome. New song is pretty forgettable, though.

Saw 'em around 83 or so . Loved them then, lost interest later, and haven't checked back (yet) for no real reason. But maybe I should.

JK Rowling reviews the first album, apparently for real:

http://ramalbumclub.com/post/150765863879/week-75-violent-femmes-by-violent-femmes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDpcVKtxB4g

i was listening to the radio the other day and i heard this song that sounded like some kind of fake Donovan ethno hippie weirdness, but definitely not '60s. i had this feeling that maybe i was listening to animal collective, because it sounded like what i always imagined animal collective might sound like. or i thought it was king lizard, and i felt a pang because i didn't want to admit i liked that band, lol. well, reader, it was the violent femmes! pretty good. i didn't know they made music like this and probably would've been more eager to check out the discog if i'd heard this before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XidZ1sY8ujw
Candlelight Song

The original lineup talks about making the first record and how they got together in Milwaukee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIu-QeO5Y3I

This was really good. Thanks.

I listened to the "Life of the Record" episode about the s/t, and boy did I learn a lot. For example, how the spoken part of "Add it Up" was inspired by the rap in Blondie's "Rapture," or how "Gone Daddy Gone" explicitly nods to Roxy Music's "Re-make/Re-model." Or how Gordon Gano wrote most of the songs when he was 15 (!) and a huge fan of Johnny Thunders. So much more. It's always been a classic gateway album, but it really is the perfect alt-rock link between the VU and the Pixies (who themselves owed a huge debt to the Femmes).

Cool! Thanks for the heads up. Never heard of that podcast.

xpost oh wait, is that it embedded right up there? I thought that was something else, lol

seconding Josh's recommendation. what's also nice is the pod basically weaves together interviews with the band rather than tons of chat from the host or others commenting about how cool/important the album was. the origin story for the band & album is as idiosyncratic as the music sounded in 1983

Oh man, did yall see this? VF 40th Anniversary w Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra actually works---preview on top, scroll down for 55 minutes etc.: https://www.pbs.org/show/violent-femmes-40th-anniversary-with-the-milwaukee-symphony/

At the beginning of "I Hear the Rain," when it's just Victor and Brian singing, one or the other of them sounds exactly like H. Jon Benjamin. Somebody please validate this dumb observation for me

lol, the low voice I assume

Every time I hear it I just immediately picture Bob Belcher or Ben Katz holding wire brushes or an acoustic bass

I really enjoyed New Times when it dropped. I still like it. No idea why there's no riding for it on here