Violent Femmes “Violent Femmes” 1983. Slash Records. Yesterday we got to see a small acoustic set by the Violent Femmes here in their hometown at 88.9 Radio Milwaukee prior to their big concert with Echo and the Bunnymen. In an intimate setting, maybe 75-100 people, with only custom 360 mikes to amplify Gordon Gano’s guitar and vocals, Brian Ritchie’s acoustic bass and (newish) drummer, John Sparrow – who actually did not play the drums but rather bashed on a tricked-out Weber grill with brushes.

Sparrow is one of many replacement drummers over the years; the original drummer Victor De Lorenzo is still around, playing out here and there with various other musicians in Milwaukee. We got to see him back in August 2013 at an even more intimate venue: a rooftop sculpture garden concert on the MSOE campus hosted by WMSE with about 40-50 people in attendance. (In the photo below De Lorenzo is on the left.)

During the show at 88.9, the Violent Femmes played three songs, one from their debut album Violent Femmes – “To The Kill,” a song that Gano introduced as probably the only song that wasn’t popular from the LP. He also told a hilarious story about playing it solo while still in high school (or soon after) at a local disco for a battle of the bands concert. It won second place but he was puzzled why no one thought it was a dance song. (It’s not) Their acoustic rendition of “To The Kill” was powerful, amazing. It literally brought tears to Joe’s eyes (he gave me permission to write that).

If you grew up in the 80′s in Wisconsin and were even remotely interested in punk or offbeat music (check, check and check) it was a given – you listened to the Violent Femmes. Violent Femmes was THE soundtrack to every Wisco alt-teen experience. Punk-folk songs with a sound unlike anything you’d ever heard: “Blister in the Sun,” “Kiss Off,” “Prove My Love,” “Gone Daddy Gone” and of course “Add It Up” (oh how we loved screaming along “Why can’t I get just one fuck?!”) are etched into our collective memories. For me, Violent Femmes provided part of my soundtrack to the the summer of ‘86 (an epic summer that has popped up in many of my posts); I went on a canoe trip to the Manitowish chain of lakes in northern Wisconsin for a week with my Girl Scout camp (I was telling this story to Joe yesterday on our way home from the Violent Femmes show and he commented that canoeing seems to be another running theme here; summer camp was a big part of my youth I guess). One of the camp counselors smuggled along a portable cassette deck and one tape – Violent Femmes. So that’s what we listened to for the entirety of the trip. And it was amazing.