EERE i ee

 

The Violent Femmes

February 1, 1985 PAGE 13

Sex, death and religion

Demented? Deranged? Decadent?
Yes! Yes! Yes! And who are we
talking about, you ask, with baited
breath. The Violent Femmes, of

by JOEL HAGEN and
DAVE WATSON

course, Wisconsin’s one and only
internationally reviled folk-punk band.
Vile as they may be, they have a
devoted cult following, and the
Vancouver, section swarmed to the
Luv-a-fair last Thursday to scream at
their favourite band.

The Violent Femmes burst onto the
music scene in 1983 with their unique
blend of folk, punk, rockabilly, gos-
pel, blues, country and heavy psyche-
delia (a la garage band). Only two
albums young, the Femmes began
their distinguished career by being
expelled from high school after per-
forming in a talent competition, and
they’re still pissed off about it. Their
first big break came when they were
entertaining a crowd lined up for a
Pretenders concert, Chrissie and com-
pany saw the band and invited them
up on stage to play a few tunes. The

 

_ Femmes’ days on the street were

over.

Gordon Gano, lead guitarist and
writer, is still full of the adolescent
angst that drove some of his more
unfortunate peers to heavy metal.
Repressed pubescent neurosis, the
child counsellor’s nightmare, makes
up the subject matter of the first
album, and the Femmes’ second
effort, Hallowed Ground, is a tale of
American fundamentalism gone awry.

Gano is only an average guitar
player. The driving force and frequent
lead instrument in the Femmes’
sound is Brian Ritchie’s bass. In
combination with Victor DeLorenzo’s
offbeat drumming a very danceable
beat.is created and Gano’s anguished
and angry voice cuts through it with
precision.

Bringing their own brand of anti-
-establishmentarianism with them

The Violent Femmes’ guitarist Gordon Gano.

to Vancouver, the Femmes surpassed
their studio work on stage.

The show finally got started at
about 11:00 p.m. (our tickets said
9:00) with opening act Emily. Creative
but uninvolving, Emily relied on
rhythmic synthesized noise as a back-
drop for avant-garde singing.

Finally, at quarter to twelve, The
Violent Femmes took the stage. Soon,
the whole crowd was bouncing off one
another in an impressive display of
alcohol induced gregariousness. _

Opening with Do What | Can, the
Femmes offered a perfectly crafted
concert, building like an economic
development zone (hee hee). The
band gave a memorial for their
acoustic bass, Ernie, who had died
earlier that day. As a result of this
unfortunate incident, only electric
instruments were used and the show
was punchier than it might otherwise
have been.

Following Gone Daddy Gone, with
the concert scarcely begun, the band
underwent mitosis, doubling in size as
the ‘Horns of Dilemma’’ entered
from the wings. The added input of
the Dilemmas was immediately no-
ticeable. During Faith, they managed
to play bari and alto sax, keyboards,
conch shell, and medieval heralding
horn. The Femmes hit their stride
with Jesus Walking on the Water, a
very different gospel song, and ended
their set with Add It Up: ‘’Why can’t |
get just one kiss/Why can’t | get just
one kiss/Believe me its something |
wouldn’t miss/But | look at your
pants and | need a kiss.’’

The Femmes’ first encore was a
concert in itself, with the band asking
the audience to stand for the Canad-
ian national anthem, Procul Harem’s
A Whiter Shade of Pale. An amusing
alternative, yes? Before the joke got
stale, Gano kicked into Blister in the
Sun, inciting a near riot in the crowd.
The first encore ended with an
extended version of Kiss Off. To the
delight of the audience, the band

 

photos by Dave Watson

slipped The Batman Theme into the
middle of the tune before returning to

‘ the countdown of Kiss Off.

The taped music came back on and
about a third of the crowd left,
assuming the show was over. How-
ever, the Femmes were only taking
the ‘‘pause that refreshes’’, and

surprisingly returned 10 minutes later
for an audience participation number.
‘‘When we say dance, dance you

Bassist Brian Ritchie is the driving force behind the Femmes.

mother f———ers!’’ Despite the
veiled insult, the crowd obliged,
bopping like popcorn.

Wired for sound, the audience
refused to let the band leave, but the
club management flooded the sound
system with pre-recorded music. The
Femmes good naturedly mimed along
to. half of the Gun Club’s Sex Beat
before departing, but the show was
over.

 

Poisoned - Non Toxic
Rock and Roll

Art Bergmann has been bouncing
around the Vancouver music scene
since Jimmy Carter was U.S. Pres-
ident.He: used to throw parties at

by DAVE WATSON

 

Shmorg Manor in White Rock that
kept people in Delta awake.Next he
formed a punk band,The K-Tels,
which was threatened with a lawsuit
by another K-Tel. A quick name
change to the Young Canadians ended
in a similarly quick breakup.Art then

became a member of Los Popularos
but was kept in a secondary role as
back up guitar and vocals.Worse than
that,his own writing was_ largely
ignored.

You might not have heard of
Bergmann or any of his bands.Except
for the notoriety of the YC’s Hawaii
| hadn’t either.Art’s new bandPoison-
ed sure caught my attention though.|
was tipped off by a feature on the
band in Les Wiseman’s column. in
Vancouver magazine.His recommend-

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