tbf the Pixies did have 2 top 40 singles in the UK so yeah
― Just noise and screaming and no musical value at all. (Colonel Poo), Friday, 3 June 2016 23:14 (seven years ago) link
No they weren't, if they were popular here it was with a painfully tiny percentage of music nerds. The Violent Femmes were nothing here.
You were there at the time, were you? LOL a painfully tiny percentage of music nerds, that's indie bands for you.
― Larry 'Leg' Smith (Tom D.), Friday, 3 June 2016 23:32 (seven years ago) link
Pixies were far, far bigger in the UK than Violent Femmes ever were.
First prize to the eminent Historian of US Indie Rock Trends in the United Kingdom (1983-1993).
― Larry 'Leg' Smith (Tom D.), Friday, 3 June 2016 23:35 (seven years ago) link
So you agree with me that in the big scheme of things they were nothing. Okay then, that's that sorted.
― Turrican, Friday, 3 June 2016 23:46 (seven years ago) link
That sort of depends on the criteria for being Something in the Big Scheme of Things. But eye bow 2 the superior knowledge U have of music of all ages and all nations.
― Larry 'Leg' Smith (Tom D.), Friday, 3 June 2016 23:50 (seven years ago) link
Thank U.
― Turrican, Friday, 3 June 2016 23:54 (seven years ago) link
I didn't realise this was such a contentious issue tbh
― Just noise and screaming and no musical value at all. (Colonel Poo), Saturday, 4 June 2016 00:01 (seven years ago) link
Neither did I, fwiw!
― Turrican, Saturday, 4 June 2016 00:10 (seven years ago) link
Violent Femmes first album stayed big with generations of Australian young teens too, and rightly so, as it's one of the best / most teenage albums ever.
literally just had an argument with a friend who's a year old than me bc he said "illmatic is boring. it was written forever" but also he's not a critic
speaking of young teens, I bought a leather De La Soul medallion from an import record shop in 1989, and Illmatic is really boring
― glandular lansbury (sic), Saturday, 4 June 2016 00:14 (seven years ago) link
whiney was utterly otm on twitter
― mookieproof, Saturday, 4 June 2016 00:25 (seven years ago) link
about bagels?
― glandular lansbury (sic), Saturday, 4 June 2016 00:35 (seven years ago) link
yeah whiney thank you for all of that
― who is extremely unqualified to review this pop album (BradNelson), Saturday, 4 June 2016 00:37 (seven years ago) link
iirc he didn't mention montreal bagels, so no
― mookieproof, Saturday, 4 June 2016 00:37 (seven years ago) link
This is pretty bad CONSIDERING IT'S NOT EVEN A DEATH GRIPS SONG
http://i67.tinypic.com/24euirc.jpg
― Frozen CD, Saturday, 4 June 2016 01:14 (seven years ago) link
I thought Violent Femmes were Australian when I first heard them, which was on a mixtape sent to me by a Melbourne pen pal.
― maura, Sunday, 5 June 2016 00:08 (seven years ago) link
They were really popular in the UK for their first couple of albums! Big venues. Full concert on the TV. Lots of radio play. Continually played in the prefects common room at my high school. This was 83-84 so up there with the Cramps, Ramones etc. Sorry no idea why you guys are debating this but they were. After the third album they broke up and disappeared and the non-chart music scene changed so they got sidelined permanently. Things moved faster then. Add It Up, Gone Daddy Gone, Ugly, Blister in the Sun etc were mainstays of student discos till the end of the 80s though.
― everything, Sunday, 5 June 2016 01:36 (seven years ago) link
i apologize for inadvertently starting a blighty kerfuffle.
― scott seward, Sunday, 5 June 2016 02:39 (seven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUbFtHr3vCE
― scott seward, Sunday, 5 June 2016 02:41 (seven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJXDEynfgR0
― scott seward, Sunday, 5 June 2016 02:47 (seven years ago) link
^ remember it well!
― everything, Sunday, 5 June 2016 05:40 (seven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gproa6vzgws
this song is so great. i imagine it sounded very refreshing in 1983. probably went to #1 i'm assuming.
― Treeship, Sunday, 5 June 2016 06:01 (seven years ago) link
Sorry no idea why you guys are debating this but they were
One guy.
― glandular lansbury (sic), Sunday, 5 June 2016 07:39 (seven years ago) link
Thank you, everything! (xps)
― Larry 'Leg' Smith (Tom D.), Sunday, 5 June 2016 11:35 (seven years ago) link
i was sure that was right but i didn't start going to lolternative clubs until the late 80s so could only vouch for "Add It Up" getting played every week then. oh and knowing a bunch of peeps who had those albums.
― Noodle Vague, Sunday, 5 June 2016 11:46 (seven years ago) link
The Violent Femmes were huge among teens in Oslo circa late eighties. They played festivals here and I heard drunk people singing their songs well into the late nineties.
― human and working on getting beer (longneck), Sunday, 5 June 2016 11:50 (seven years ago) link
i came of age in the early 90s and remember the 4 big songs from the first Violent Femmes album being in WHFS rotation for the entire decade (plus "American Music" and "Breakin' Up" were pretty big).
― some dude, Sunday, 5 June 2016 12:48 (seven years ago) link
in fact i remember it being big news in the early 90s that the first VF album finally went platinum, nearly a decade after its release.
― some dude, Sunday, 5 June 2016 12:49 (seven years ago) link
in high school in the early '90s "Blister in the Sun" was like "Rock Lobster" -- slotted with whatever big pop/dance hits got played at parties.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 5 June 2016 12:51 (seven years ago) link
oh god I just remembered they covered "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me"
It was supposed to be funny, right? ugh. violent femmes near the top of my (very) short list of surly, smug, uncooperative interview subjects
― indie fresh (m coleman), Sunday, 5 June 2016 14:08 (seven years ago) link
I don't think it was meant to be funny.
― glandular lansbury (sic), Sunday, 5 June 2016 14:20 (seven years ago) link
One of the violent femmes has become an honorary Australian, owns a tea shop in Tasmania and plays improvised lute jams in it or something like that
― badg, Sunday, 5 June 2016 15:01 (seven years ago) link
Flute! http://www.fastcompany.com/1682132/brian-ritchie-violent-femmes-bassist-turned-tasmanian-tea-slinger-japanese-bamboo-flutist
― badg, Sunday, 5 June 2016 15:03 (seven years ago) link
He always dressed like an Antipodean tea shop owner anyway.
― everything, Sunday, 5 June 2016 21:06 (seven years ago) link
Brian Ritchie is a really nice guy who is very into using his band as a way to deliver avant-garde stylings to unsuspecting audiences. saw the Femmes in the late 90's with their anarchistic horn section "Horns Of Dilemma" and although they were past their commercial peak (which, echoing other posts, was HUGE in the 80's), they totally killed it. I mean, they had a dude from Boy Dirt Car playing trumpet! I remember a well-dressed college gal holding her hands to her ears during one of their mid-song free jazz freakouts, but she was still staring, fascinated, at the stage.
― the 'major tom guy' (sleeve), Monday, 6 June 2016 00:25 (seven years ago) link
(sorry for continued derail)
i'm learning a lot about the femmes here.
― De La Soul is no Major Lazer (ulysses), Monday, 6 June 2016 00:53 (seven years ago) link
owns a tea shop in Tasmania and plays improvised lute jams in it or something like that
he used to own a second one in Sydney - back before the Femmes split up the second time, their website's list of tour dates and ticketing links would be like nine weeks of European clubs, three folk festivals in the US, one shakuhachi recital by Brian in his Surry Hills tea shop, five weeks of US clubs.
as a (non-honorary) Australian, he's also in an instrumental surf band with the Australian musicians of Midnight Oil, and curates this music and arts festival for an art museum, MONA, every year
― glandular lansbury (sic), Monday, 6 June 2016 04:34 (seven years ago) link
the reason the guy from the Dresden Dolls has now Spinal Tapped into the re-re-formed* Violent Femmes' drum stool is that someone dropped out of the festival, and on three days notice the Dresden Dolls, Ritchie, Mick Harvey and John Parish covered the Femmes first album as a fill-in act *they split a second time after Brian sued Gordon, in the middle of a nine-month-or-so tour, for selling Blister In The Sun for a commercial. possibly the one that was the only time anyone had ever heard of them in any country in the world, 26 years after it was released. the next reunion, six years later, lasted three shows before the original drummer - who'd first left c. 1985 - quit due to being screwed over money by the other two.
― glandular lansbury (sic), Monday, 6 June 2016 04:52 (seven years ago) link
sorry, update: dude from Dresden Dolls quit this year because it's too hard being in a trio with two guys who hate each other and literally won't speak to each other
(this is probably the reason that m coleman found them near the top of my (very) short list of surly, smug, uncooperative interview subjects)
― glandular lansbury (sic), Monday, 6 June 2016 05:00 (seven years ago) link
I'm finding the repeated assertion that Violent Femmes were a big band in the UK hilarious at this point, quite frankly. I don't care if you knew 2 people that owned the record - more cold, hard numbers as opposed to anecdotal evidence and maybe I'll begin to be convinced.
― Turrican, Monday, 6 June 2016 10:37 (seven years ago) link
Who are you, the President of the Anti-Violent Femmes League?
― Larry 'Leg' Smith (Tom D.), Monday, 6 June 2016 10:45 (seven years ago) link
x-post:
But yeah, I'm aware that they were a thing in Aus.
― Turrican, Monday, 6 June 2016 10:51 (seven years ago) link
first album was absolutely massive in the US iyrc
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Monday, 6 June 2016 12:33 (seven years ago) link
I still like them a lot. III is really underrated as coked-out weirdo pop record. Also you can still hear their influence in lots of herky-jerky, neurotic-sounding, nasally-voiced songwriters (like, say, Ezra Furman, who I don't think was alive when the s/t Femmes album was released)
― Wimmels, Monday, 6 June 2016 12:59 (seven years ago) link
i heard the 2nd album first. college radio station i listened to played country death song a lot. i played that album a ton in 1984. quickly bought the first album after that. played that a ton. then never really listened to them again.
― scott seward, Monday, 6 June 2016 14:44 (seven years ago) link
they were a band
― the world over the crotch. (contenderizer), Monday, 6 June 2016 14:45 (seven years ago) link
https://medium.com/@sfj/why-i-liked-david-turners-de-la-soul-piece-9d69360ee66e#.3n70h3fu2
― tylerw, Monday, 6 June 2016 14:49 (seven years ago) link
wtf is this horseshit
― who is extremely unqualified to review this pop album (BradNelson), Monday, 6 June 2016 15:03 (seven years ago) link
is this piece what was in those trucks
― who is extremely unqualified to review this pop album (BradNelson), Monday, 6 June 2016 15:04 (seven years ago) link