Category: Violent Femmes

Album: Violent Femmes – Violent Femmes
Review: Rolling Stone, 23 June 1983
Author: J.D. Considine

Violent Femmes is the unnervingly precocious debut of a Milwaukee trio that not only acts like it just reinvented rock & roll but somehow manages to sound like it as well. It isn’t just the band’s unlikely instrumentation – electric guitar, acoustic bass and a solitary snare drum–that flies in the face of rock tradition; everything from Gordon Gano‘s adenoidal lead vocals to the group’s flamboyantly absurd name (the Femmes are all male) indicates that this outfit ought to be both pretentious and utterly ineffectual. Yet there’s a genuine dynamism to this music, a raw, gutsy power that is as enlivening as the best garage rock.

To a large extent, it’s the directness of Gano’s lyrics–he’s given to sharp, simple images and blunt, euphonious rhymes–that keeps his songs from getting above themselves. In “Add It Up,” for example, he doesn’t mince words in describing his lack of romantic success: “Why can’t I get just one fuck?” he deadpans. “I guess it’s got something to do with luck.” As straightforward as his couplets are, however, Gano is clever enough to keep adding to his imagery until he’s pushed his songs to delightfully unexpected conclusions.

Still, it’s the music that makes Violent Femmes worthwhile. Brian Ritchie spins out bright, frisky bass patterns that mesh with Gano’s semi conversational vocal delivery. That interplay, combined with Gano’s spare rhythm-guitar lines and Victor DeLorenzo‘s unobtrusive drumming, gives the Femmes a full sound one usually doesn’t associate with a mostly acoustic format. Consequently, the Femmes can rock with conviction, turning out music that’s more than just a convenient display for lyrics

JC adds…….

This was an album that I fell head over heels for way back in 1983 when a flatmate came in and said the rest of us had to listen to something he’d picked up after hearing it played while he was in a Glasgow record shop.  It turned out to be something I’d never heard the likes of in my life before, and as a young man who was kind of getting fed up with ever failing adventures in terms of love und romance, it really hit the spot.  Still an album I often listen to it all the way through almost 40 years on.

mp3: Violent Femmes – Add It Up
mp3: Violent Femmes – Prove My Love
mp3: Violent Femmes – Gone Daddy Gone
mp3: Violent Femmes – Blister In The Sun

 

Violent Femmes’ self-titled debut album, released in 1983, is one that has been played in Villain Towers as much as any other in the thousands of record in my ownership. I’ve written about it before, suggesting that it is almost the perfect album, containing not a single duff track across its ten cuts that take just over 36 minutes from start to end. It was a ground-breaking folk-punk record which married angst-ridden and miserable lyrics with infectiously enjoyable tunes.

The successive albums that followed never quite matched its brilliance although all of them had more than a handful of tracks I’ve never tired of – the only reason I haven’t ever turned my hand to an ICA is that it would be dominated by tracks from the debut, but I’m going to address that sometime reasonably soon.

For now, I want to offer up some some thoughts on the album Hotel Last Resort, released in 2019 and which I put on the list for Santa despite me not hearing or checking out any of its tracks beforehand, and if you’ll indulge me, there’s a bit of scene-setting required.

Hotel Last Resort is the band’s tenth album, only three of which have been released since 1995. Every album has featured Gordon Gano (guitars and lead vocals) and Brian Ritchie (bass and backing vocals); Victor DeLorenzo drummed on the five albums released between 1983 and 1991, while Guy Hoffman did the duties on the three recorded between 1994 and 2000. Gano and Ritchie had a huge falling out in 2007 when the former, who wrote all of the songs, decided to sell advertising rights to a hamburger chain for the use of the band’s best known song, Blister in the Sun. Ritchie accused the vegetarian Gano of a total sell-out of the band’s heritage on culinary, political, health, economic and environmental grounds and he filed a lawsuit seeking half ownership of Violent Femmes’ music and access to royalties. It was no surprise that the band broke-up shortly afterwards.

The reformation came in 2013 with DeLorenzo back on board, but only for a short period during which they appeared in the bill of a number of festivals in America. He was replaced by Brian Viglione, formerly of the Dresden Dolls, and this trio would continue to play live for the next three years before Viglione, through his Facebook page, announced he had quit, possibly from the tensions in the studio as work commenced and was completed on We Can Do Anything, the first new album in sixteen years.

The 2016 album received mixed reviews and I shied away from it. I hadn’t actually picked up that, with another new drummer in tow in the shape of John Sparrow, and a fourth member in saxophonist Blaise Garza, they had released another album in 2019 until I saw it mentioned in a year-end list ‘best of’ by one of the independent record shops I keep an eye on. That was enough to have it put on my Xmas wishlist……

The most surprising thing about Hotel Last Resort is that it sounds as if it could have been written and recorded at the same time as the debut album back in 1983. Gano’s voice is identical and the tunes he has composed aren’t a million miles away. Ritchie continues to make essential contributions on the bass and backing vocals and Sparrow sounds as if he has modelled his technique on that of DeLorenzo. I would normally be a bit pissed off if I picked up an album and found that a band hadn’t gone forward over a 36-year period, but the Violent Femmes never did make a facsimile of the debut, with moves into different sounding territories and genres on each release, and so I was happy enough with what I was hearing.

The latest album is an enjoyable listen.  If the debut had scored 100 on an imaginary index, then HLR would come in somewhere in the region of 66-75.

It’s a record that has, at its heart, the signature folk-punk sound that so enthralled me in my early 20s, with lyrics that go beyond angst-ridden and incorporate the satirical and occasional self-deprecating stuff which populated the later albums. There’s also a bit of politics too, with sideway swipes at how America has changed so much for the worse over the years, highlighted in particular with a unique take on God Bless America, the patriotic tune composed by Irving Berlin in 1918 that really came to prominence in the late 1930s…..Gano and co. turn it into a funeral-paced dirge.

It’s not an album that will win them any new fans, but it is one that those of us who have been around the block a few times will take great pleasure. There’s a guest appearance on guitar from Tom Verlaine which adds a touch of class to the title track, which at more than 5 minutes long is about twice the length of most the other 12 songs, (only three tracks clock in beyond three minutes) .

Overall, I’m glad I checked into the Hotel Last Resort – if Trip Advisor had a section for music albums, this one would come recommended.

mp3 : Violent Femmes – I Get What I Want
mp3 : Violent Femmes – Hotel Last Resort
mp3 : Violent Femmes – This Free Ride

JC

 

Gone Daddy Gone was the debut single by Violent Femmes back in 1983. It also appears on one of the finest of all debut albums.

It’s a reminder that many of the songs were written by Gordon Gano when he was an angtsy teenager, one for whom life wasn’t going smoothly or according to plan. Especially when it came to landing himself a girlfriend. His pain is even more palpable from the fact he actually had wooed the girl of his dreams, only for her to call it off and disappear out of his life, to where, he says, he can only guess.

But then again, given some of the other crazy thoughts and lyrics that Gano would bring our way in subsequent releases, it could well be the case that the reason his love has gone away is that he has killed her and put her in a shallow grave or the likes…….

It’s a tremendous debut, sung with just the right sound of puzzled desperation over a tune which, as its highlight features a xylophone solo. Not too many tunes in the history of rock’n’roll can make that sort of boast.

mp3 : Violent Femmes – Gone Daddy Gone

Also worth noting that bluesman Willie Dixon would later on, long after the single was released, receive a co-writing credit, thanks to the lyrics including a verse from his 1954 song “I Just Want to Make Love to You” which was originally recorded by Muddy Waters but is probably most famous in the UK for its use in a Diet Coke advert in 1996 with a vocal by Etta James.

The UK version of the Violent Femmes debut 45 came with a superb b-side, one which is arguably even better than the single, and a track which can also be found on the debut album:-

mp3 : Violent Femmes – Add It Up

Copies of this 45, which came out jointly on Slash and Rough Trade Records, are quite rare and the only one for sale on Discogs is looking for in excess of £50. (and no, I don’t own a copy!!)

JC

Some 21 years ago, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds recorded a sinister, brooding, manic, dark and occasionally intentionally laugh-out-loud LP called Murder Ballads. The album title gives it away somewhat in that all the songs dealt with sudden, brutal and violent death. The record, rightly, received all sorts of critical acclaim, with many highlighting just how Cave’s amazing stories were perfectly matched by the tunes that he and his band members had conjured up.

But for all that the record did contain some gruesome and almost unthinkable tales of wrongdoing, none of the songs were as shocking or audaciously jaw-dropping as this from 1984:-

mp3 : Violent Femmes – Country Death Song

Five minutes of music in which there are two deaths; the murder of a young child at the hands of her father and his subsequent suicide, both of which are deeply disturbing. Like Cave’s songs more than a decade later it was a tale in which the tune captured your ear perfectly but such was the sheer horror of the lyric that it was a difficult thing to say the song was enjoyable. Blister In The Sun it most certainly wasn’t.

It took me many years to understand and accept the concept of the murder ballad, mostly thanks to an increasing awareness and acknowledgement of the darker and more brooding side of the country/folk genres but back when I bought the sophomore album by Violent Femmes, I really should have initially dug a bit deeper into the lyric and tried to seek out the true meaning.

Country Death Song isn’t just about a psycho dad gone mad who commits an act of filicide. It’s a genuinely horrific and sad tale of a man, so racked with guilt at being unable to ensure the land he keeps can fend for his family, makes a decision that his daughter would be better off and happier living alongside angels in heavan that enduring a miserable existence on Earth. His love for her is such, that he’s willing to pay the price of himself being eternally damned in hell. Religious beliefs don’t often make sense to me. But all too often, people acting on them send shivers down my spine.

JC

PS…..Here’s the anticipated schedule over the festive period:-

Saturday 23 December : Saturday’s Scottish Song #105
Sunday 24 December : The New Order Singles (Part 11)
Monday 25 December : A Xmas Day Song
Tuesday 26 December : A Boxing Day Song
Wed 27 – Fri 29 December : Three postings from the vaults
Saturday 30 December : Saturday’s Scottish Song #106
Sunday 31 December : The New Order Singles (Part 12)
Monday 1 January : 30,20,10
Tues 2 – Friday 5 January : Four postings from the vaults
Saturday 6 January : Saturday’s Scottish Song #107
Sunday 7 January : The New Order Singles (Part 13)

After which, normal service should resume……

 

Inspired by Jez from the excellent A History Of Dubious Taste who, in featuring a song by Violent Femmes, said this about their debut LP

one of my favourite albums ever, all killer no filler, but most people only seem to know “Blister in the Sun”, the opening song from the album. For me, though, “Add It Up” is the best thing on there.

This was an album that I covered in some depth over on the old blog back in January 2008 and again in 2013 just before Google closed me down. As I more or less said on both occasions….It is a true classic which has gone onto to sell millions but yet rarely appears in any long lists of best ever records by critics in magazines.

I’ve a great memory of my first time hearing the record. To my ears at least, American music was really appalling in the early 80s. Maybe I was so accustomed to the punk/post-punk/new wave/indie stuff that I was wrapped up in my student flat that I missed some things. But America was, at time, all stadium anthems from the likes of Broooooce, Van Halen, Fleetwood Mac and the like.

One day, a flatmate came in and demanded we all listen to a new album he had picked up. It was from an American band called Violent Femmes. Not expecting much, the other four of us gathered round the turntable and speakers …wow!!

This was something truly different. Songs of unrequited love, misery and suicide but not like we had heard before. These tunes were upbeat…the lyrics were funny….you could even dance to them!! It was a truly innovative record – it was the first time that I realised a ‘punk’ record could be made with acoustic instruments.

Over the years, this is a record that has made it into the collections of many, and yet the band have never really gotten anything beyond cult status. Seemingly, it reached platinum status in the US ten years after its release – and remains the only record to have sold over 1,000,000 copies without ever breaking into the Billboard Top 200.

This record is now more than 30 years old and it still sounds fantastic today. The full track listing of Violent Femmes:-

01 Blister In The Sun
02 Kiss Off
03 Please Do Not Go
04 Add It Up
05 Confessions
06 Prove My Love
07 Promise
08 To The Kill
09 Gone Daddy Gone
10 Good Feeling

It’s almost the perfect album. There’s not a single duff track on it, and the whole thing ticks over in just 36 minutes. I love it so much that I’ve got a vinyl copy, a CD copy and a remastered CD copy that came with extra tracks.

A groundbreaking effort in all sorts of ways. Who could have realised that angst-ridden and miserable lyrics could be so infectiously enjoyable??

The opening track, Blister In The Sun, is just a fantastic pop song – and is probably the best-known song the band have recorded, thanks to its use in the John Cusack movie Gross Pointe Blank. But.like Jez,  I don’t think that you can beat Add It Up – simply the best song ever written about not being able to have sex. I always thought it would have been great fun if, at the height of their fame, The Smiths had recorded Add It Up as a cover version.

mp3 : Violent Femmes – Blister In The Sun
mp3 : Violent Femmes – Add It Up
mp3 : Violent Femmes – Prove My Love

But all in all, it offers ten superb songs that would make a perfect ICA, except that it exists in reality.

Bonus cover and acoustic versions:-

mp3 : The Wannadies – Blister In The Sun (live)
mp3 : The Schla La Las – Add It Up
mp3 : Violent Femmes – Prove My Love (acoustic live)

Enjoy

A few weeks back I featured Violent Femmes take on Do You Really Want To Hurt Me? while many moons ago over on the old blog I had an in-depth look at the band’s self-titled debut LP. It struck me when reading S-WC’s contribution from yesterday, and the fact that he is 11 years and 363 days younger than me, that many readers may have missed out on the greatest band to ever come out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin given that their best and most enduring material dates back to the early-mid 80s when the likes of S-WC and his peers were maybe just too young to pick up on bands that never had the slightest hope of making it onto Top of The Pops.

They began life as a busking trio consisting of Gordon Gano (vocals and guitar), Brian Ritchie (bass) and Victor DeLorenzo (drums/percussion) in their home town. Legend has it that in August 1981, the late James Honeyman-Scott of The Pretenders caught them performing on the day his band were playing a show in Milwaukee and invited the trio to open for them. This led to a fair bit of publicity and requests to open for other bands touring the USA and before you know it their records were coming out via Warner Bros.  The American Dream in full swing……

The debut LP was released in April 1983. It is the ultimate definition of a slow-burner as it took eight years to be certified platinum, by which time the band had released 5 albums and 9 singles, none of which charted in any meaningful way, although the critical acclaim and the fact that they always put on an entertaining live show meant that they had a fair-sized fan base, particularly in the UK and Australia.

The music at its best has an acoustic bent blending pop, country and folk with many of the songs reflecting on how life doesn’t always turn out as planned. By 1992, the band had gotten a bit tired and briefly split-up reforming again after about 15 months but with Guy Hoffman coming in on drums. This incarnation of the band was very busy throughout the remainder of the decade on the road and in the studio with a further three LPs. It was during this period that the band perhaps got their biggest ever exposure when long-time fan John Cusack had featured the band’s songs in the cult movie Gross Point Blank.

This led to a newer younger fanbase discovering Violent Femmes and so it was no surprise that 20 years on from the release of that amazing debut LP that plans were made to re-release it with a whole number of extras of demo versions, non-LP singles from the period and live tracks. Unlike many such re-issue editions, this didn’t in the slightest detract from the quality.

There was a further fall-out in 2009 when their most famous and enduring song, Blister in The Sun, was licensed for use in a TV ad in the USA. The fact that it was used to promote a burger chain particularly infuriated Brian Ritchie and he attacked Gordon Gano, who ironically is a vegetarian, for putting the band in a situation where this could happen. The band broke-up…

It looked as if that would be it, but in 2013 news came that they were getting back together again in 2013 to promote the 30th Anniversary of the debut LP. Some of you might think that’s just taking nostalgia too far, but believe me, this debut LP is one of the best records ever released and fully deserves to be acknowledged by its makers in every possible way. But in one last surprise, it was revealed that Victor DeLorenzo was not going to be part of the plans, and his place behind the drum kit was taken by Brian Viglione of the Dresden Dolls.

The band is still going strong and tomorrow night are playing here in the UK in London before appearing at a series of folk/roots/blues festivals across North America in the summer.

Here’s one track from each of the first five LPs plus a live track taken from a 1999 acoustic tour of their home state:-

mp3 : Violent Femmes – Blister In The Sun
mp3 : Violent Femmes – Country Death Song
mp3 : Violent Femmes – Special
mp3 : Violent Femmes – Lies
mp3 : Violent Femmes – American Music
mp3 : Violent Femmes – Prove My Love (live)

Enjoy

The bio of Violent Femmes in the on-line edition of the magazine Rolling Stone says:-

“..too bad the Violent Femmes‘ tuneless take on Culture Club’s “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?” actually makes you pine for Boy George”

It’s such sentences that remind me irony isn’t always a strongpoint of Americans.

At the risk of stating the obvious…..IT’S MEANT TO BE A TUNELESS TAKE DUMBASS.

Personally, I never did care much for the music of Culture Club. That’s one of the reasons I have a great deal of fun listening to a wonderfully bitter, twisted, and yes tuneless, cover version:-

mp3 : Violent Femmes – Do You Really Want To Hurt Me? (7″ edit)

The original took the world by storm. It was #1 or #2 in twelve different charts around the world selling who knows how many millions of copies. But that doesn’t make it a good song.

It’s trite, it’s inspid and, well boring is the word that springs to mind. It’s also wholly unrealistic.

The protagonist is heartbroken because a love affair has come to an end. And he’s willing just to let it slip away and take all the agony, pain and heartbreak imaginable without wishing any ill on the other person. The lyrics are sickly, syrupy and unreal:-

You’ve been talking but believe me
If its true you do not know
This boy loves without a reason
I’m prepared to let you go

If its love you want from me
Then take it away
Everything is not what you see
It’s over today

Do you really want to hurt me?
Do you really want to make me cry?
Do you really want to hurt me?
Do you really want to make me cry?

Gordon Gano on the other hand, with just a few little word changes here and there, ends up turning into a quite shocking tale of someone revelling in the hurt, pain and misery of a break-up:-

I’ve been talking but believe me
I know that its true now that there no more
I’m in love and loves the reason
I’m not prepared to let you let me go

So if it’s love you want
Then take all of me
It’s this love I want
I can finally see

Do I really want to hurt you?
Do I really want to make you cry?
Yes, I suppose I want to hurt you
You told the truth but it was still a lie

Methinks the man from Rolling Stone didn’t actually listen to this re-interpretation before making his ill-advised comments.

C’mon…..whose take on the song is closer to reality?????  Here’s the other tracks on the CD single:-

mp3 : Violent Femmes – Do You Really Want To Hurt Me? (full length)
mp3 : Violent Femmes – Dance Motherfucker Dance!
mp3 : Violent Femmes – To The Kill (live – November 1990, The Palace, Melbourne, Australia)

Enjoy

(Originally posted on 7 August 2008)