It’s Sunday night at the Riverside Theater, and we’re running the gauntlet of the vaguely recognizable Milwaukeeans (Did I? Did we? Are you? etc.). Though our Gen X peers continue to age at varying degrees of speed, Violent Femmes founding members Gordon Gano (guitar, lead vocals) and Brian Ritchie (bass, backing vocals) sound straight out of 1984. One of the most vital American bands of the 20th century arrives with an oversized Picasso-blue behemoth bass; a frontman playing (among other things) banjo and violin; occasional xylophone; accompaniment from the Horns of Dilemma, and a stand-up drummer brushing the hell out of everything. Oh yeah, and they call themselves “an acoustic punk band” whose “goal was to rock harder than any other acoustic act on the planet.”
It’s time to pick your Milwaukee favorites for the year!
If you’re anything like me, you first experienced the Femmes self-titled debut in a very small, dirty room, increasingly excited by the freshest, weirdest American music since the Velvet Underground first peeled their banana in 1967. The old story is that everyone who bought the Velvet Underground’s first LP started a band, and the Violent Femmes were certainly one of them, but history should also make clear that Milwaukee’s Violent Femmes were among the few to give birth to whatever the Pixies were, and by extension Nirvana, not to mention Arcade Fire and all points strange from 1985 through indie rock infinity.
First Half of Show: Hallowed Ground (1984)
Beneath the red glow of the rectangular recessed Riverside ceiling, a chandelier dangles above a family of four, presumably seeing Wisconsin’s best-ever band to teach their kids how to properly request keys to the family vehicle. Following an incredibly useful preshow announcement that detailed the order of events, the stage’s backdrop is engulfed by Mary Nohl’s “farm-raised surrealism” cover art for Violent Femmes’ second album, Hallowed Ground, and the band begins the night with a song fit for Halloween in the Badger State.
Is there a more impossibly rural-Wisconsin spooky song to ever open a concert than “Country Death Song”? And while we’re shaking our heads “no” in unison, consider a folk-punk band, just removed from their first album’s unshakable “Blister in the Sun”, choosing to begin their sophomore record with a song that details a farmer murdering his daughter: “She was screaming as she fell, but I never heard her hit.” Not sure if we should take heart that the farmer did hang himself in shame shortly thereafter, but a future stadium sing-along this song is not. “Never Tell” continues the harrowing snarl, tied taut with country Mingus bass lines bobbing under Gano’s tale of going down in the river three times and only coming up twice.
“Jesus Walking on the Water” is the church song my childhood self always deserved but had to wait until adulthood to hear. Rollicking, questioning, loving and longing with fast fiddle, propulsive homemade percussion and timeless groove. Next is “I Know It’s True But I’m Sorry To Say”, which carries on the lyrical pantheon of Lou Reed’s tragic beauty ballads like “Candy Says”, which sound like Sunday morning, but ring just as true this Sunday evening:
Oh my body has been punished
Lord, I think I’ve had enough
Oh my body has been punished
With too much and not enough
Oh lordy, is Hallowed Ground a religious record? “Will you sleep with me or something” is as spiritual a question as ever been posed, so yeah, the Femmes put on the charm in “Sweet Misery Blues”, which turned the crowd back on after the shattered curtain of murder and punishment. After the uncertain “Black Girls”, we’re back to the gospel for album closer “It’s Gonna Rain”, which the band sang as they jauntily left the stage to end part one of the show.
Second Half of Show: Violent Femmes (1983)
In 1983, Violent Femmes, their first album, like Television’s debut self-titled LP before it and The Strokes Is This It after, arrived in full flower with maximum power, all killer and no filler. If for some reason you’ve read this far without listening to the Violent Femmes’ entire debut album, please stop here and listen as loud as you can stand.
The second half of the show launches, without warning, into “Blister in the Sun”, the best song ever produced by a Wisconsin artist, the clap-along favorite that may or may not be about self-pleasure but is 100% stuff-strutting its way into rock ‘n’ roll eternity, thanks to stadium PAs and forever use in film and television (as it should be). From here, we get a joyously unstoppable barrage of “hit” songs that keep the crowd on their feet: “Kiss Off”, “Please Do Not Go” and the teenage howl for all time “Add It Up”, in all of its uncensored glory.
And this ain’t no by-the-numbers BS. This is an avalanche of Wisconsin weird, and like the guy down a few rows from me in the Bucky Scribner jersey, I’m rocking like it’s 1984, and it couldn’t have sounded any better back then than it does tonight. These here country punks are still pissed off. For an encore, they deliver “American Music”, a perfect song Buddy Holly might have wrote as his plane suddenly veered true, if he survived to be a punk. I vote for “American Music” to be included in the next Voyager Golden Record. Can you ask for a more deliciously defiant noise than what we can currently hear from Wisconsin’s one and only on this Sunday night at the Riverside? Hell no. Support local artists, now, then and forever. Amen.
Correction: The story has been updated with the correct hometown of Violent Femmes and release year for their self-titled debut.
