Photo by Neal Katz
Violent Femmes
“Why can’t I get / Just one decent reunion concert?”
Turns out I can, and did, on Sunday, August 16 at Waukegan, IL’s beautiful and acoustically outstanding Genesee Theater. In fact, all 2,400 of us got one hell of a 45th Anniversary Tour performance by Milwaukee’s hometown heroes of 1980s punk, the Violent Femmes. The beloved band’s long, generous set was, in a word, Femme-tastic.
My opening line above (awkwardly) paraphrases “Add It Up” from the VFs’ eponymous ’83 debut album. For whatever reason, it’s this barely contained blaze of unrequited longing and lust, more than any other Femmes song, that’s been running through my head for the past 10 days, ever since the moment the band wrapped up a gleeful two-song encore and strode off stage to the cheers of a fully earned standing ovation. No question: “Add It Up” is a stellar slice of punchy punk-pop song-craft—and, as it turned out, still proves ideal for below-stage slam-ish dancing (of, nowadays, the not-so-Violent variety). Likewise, the other two-thirds of that same album’s hat-trick-of-hits—“Blister in the Sun” and “Gone Daddy Gone”—sounded just as smashing and, somewhat miraculously, just as fresh as ever.
Still, I’ve always considered the VFs’ second and third albums to be their “double masterpiece,” more than fulfilling (while also folking-up) the percolating punk promise of their first. Lucky me—lucky all of us—for at the Genesee, Hallowed Ground (’84) and The Blind Leading the Naked (’86) were both well represented.
Playful Banter, Killer Riffs
The latter album—flawlessly produced by Talking Heads’ Jerry Harrison, another Cream City native—is celebrating, as was noted from the stage by Bassist Supreme Brian Ritchie, an anniversary of its own: the big 4-0. (Ritchie, by the way, provided just the right amount of playful patter in between killer riffs played on a bizarre custom mega-bass aptly described by this writer’s wife as looking like “a pregnant sea serpent.”)
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The trio-plus—which kicked things off in stripped-down mode but eventually brought on stage all manner of skilled side men and ancillary instruments, in assorted, variable combinations—didn’t miss a beat. How could they, with stand-up (in both senses) drummer John Sparrow ensconced at center stage, sticks and brushes awhirl, pummeling his BBQ-grill-based kit at hummingbird-wing speed?
Clad in a subtly psychedelic, paisley-patterned caftan-cum-robe, singer-guitarist Gordon Gano may not bop and jerk—nor “crack wise”—like he did in his 20s. (Who among us does?) But never has he been in better voice. The definition of “an acquired taste,” Gano’s sneering vocals have, in days of yore, sometimes made me wish the band were fronted by a Siouxzie Sioux—or Joan Jett-type—or perhaps, given the Femmes’ Milwaukee heritage, by the Red Ball Jets’ Molli Putz. But of course, that wouldn’t be the Femmes; Gano’s alternately smarmy/sincere utterances—oft described elsewhere as “adolescent” and/or (hyperbolically) “adenoidal”—do, finally, delineate the band’s singular sound. And anyway, his careening cadence has grown on me, as it doubtless has done on many others since the VFs hit the scene, all those years ago. Plus, Double-G no longer goes flat—well, except (on occasion) for effect.
Positively Unique
“Their sound remains unique” may seem like a damning-with-faint-praise kind of compliment. In fact, it’s anything but—as long as the uniqueness at hand is, as here, positive (as opposed to, say: “a uniquely disastrous, infantile U.S. presidential administration and cabinet”). Everyone out there who says “very unique” or “most unique” or “more unique than” or “nearly as unique as”, etc.—Please: stop. There aren’t degrees of being one-of-a-kind; something either is or isn’t unique—period. The Femmes aren’t “more singular than,” say, the Little River Band. Sure, “Reminiscing” is decent-enough cocktail pop, but while the LRB are definitely not unique (give a listen to any number of other so-called yacht-rock acts of the mid- to late-’70s: Gerry Rafferty, Christopher Cross, the Doobie Brothers, Ambrosia, Pablo Cruise, Gino Vanelli, Kenny Loggins … See my point?), the Violent Femmes always have been, still are, and—if Sunday was any indication—always will be unique. In the word’s best possible sense.
Four decades on, all three VFs have achieved such musical mastery that their playing now seems—each, at his respective instrument—downright definitive. This mastery serves their by-now-hella-eclectic catalogue exceedingly well, from the hop-along bleakness of their backhills murder ballad “Country Death Song” to the hippies-on-speed rave-up “Jesus Walkin’ on the Water,” and from the soaring, frankly gorgeous “I Held Her in My Arms (But It Wasn’t You)” to the alt-gospel jubilee “F.A.I.T.H.”—complete with (twice!) the rousing sing-along F-A-I-T-H Call (“What’s that spell?!”).
Ritchie’s slithery-swift xylophone solo on “Gone Daddy Gone” remains as eccentrically haunting as ever. The driving, jazzily tongue-in-cheek “Black Girls” brought down the house. And the hardcore-punk, light-speed, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it blast “Old Mother Reagan” sounded even faster—and, weirdly, felt even more relevant—now than it did during the actual Reagan Era. Similarly, the Femmes’ long-celebrated cover of T-Rex’s “Children of the Revolution” seemed, as they defiantly banged it out once more, to take on new meaning …
… which brings to mind the power held, now as then, by the band’s very name. Their cheeky claiming/re-purposing of the infantile schoolyard put-down “You’re such a femme!” felt, 45 years ago, like a bracing fuck-you to all bullies everywhere—and served, back then, as a shot in the arm for all of us young Milwaukee (and then beyond) freaks, geeks, punks, “femmes,” etc.: the outsiders.
In today’s dystrumpia-verging-on-Trumpocalypse—in this downright bully-ocracy, this cruel uber-schoolyard of national proportions—the survival and, better yet, continuing brilliance of the Violent Femmes counts as something of a triumph. The daring genius of this, our ever-bracing hometown band, still feels a little dangerous—as if the boys (-at-heart) just might provoke, even now, a much-needed riot or three.
Or four …. Or more?
Add it up.
