Best viewed with COURIER NEW size 10
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The Quote Of The Day:
Hey sister, have you heard?
Some people stand like trees, without a word
and what that means is that some people don’t talk.
-From Never Tell
-Submitted by neilg
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TOUR DATES (** means new tourdate):
T=Ticketmaster
O=Official homepage
P=Pollstar
**Thr, 04/19/01 – Brown University, Providence, RI (O)**
w/TMBG and Doughty
**Sun, 04/22/01 – 8 pm, Foellinger Auditorium, University Of Illinois,
Champaign, IL, $18 for students (student only show?)
doors open at 7 pm, (O,P)**
**Mon, 04/23/01 – 8:30 pm, Otto’s, De Kalb, IL, $18 (T,O,P)**
doors open at 7 pm, 21+ show
**Tue, 04/24/01 – 7:30 pm, Washington Pavilion, Sioux Falls, SD (T,O,P)**
$20-$25, w/Mason Jennings
**Thu, 04/26/01 – 7:30 pm, Midwest Wireless Center, Mankato, MN, $20,
w/Mason Jennings (T,O,P)**
**Fri, 04/27/01 – Univ. Of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND
w/Mason Jennings
**Sat, 04/28/01 – 8 pm, Duluth Ent. Conv. Ctr. Auditorium, Duluth, MN,
$21-$24, w/Harmony Riley (T,O,P)**
**Mon, 04/30/01 – 8 pm, Irving Plaza, New York, NY, $26.50, $30 at door,
16 to enter; 21 to drink (T,O,P)**
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WHO/WHERE
It feels great to resume this section. If any of you are going to any
upcoming shows, and would like to meet fellow subscribers who are also
going, send your name and what show you will be attending, and I will
put it here.
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WEB PAGES:
Official: http://www.vfemmes.com
Unofficial: http://www.townserver.com/planetblue
-or-
http://townserver.com/planetblue
http://www.bigfoot.com/~planetblue
http://geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Show/6806/
http://www.violentfemmes.net
http://www.homestead.com/lucylittleland/vf.html
http://www.fortunecity.com/campus/bates/377/
http://www.geocities.com/thefemmeking/
Yahoo Chat: http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/newtimesviolentfemmesclub
Message Board:
http://www.insidetheweb.com/messageboard/mbs.cgi?acct=mb870757&TL=
Discussion Group: http://www.egroups.com/invite/vf2000
and click the “JOIN” button
Past Tour Dates:
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Lounge/1725/femmes/femmes.html
Guitar: http://therapy.lost.net.au/femmes
http://www.angelfire.com/hi/VFemmes
Glenn Gano’s Page: http://www.alaska.net/~ggano
Charm Records: http://www.charmrec.com
Victor DeLorenzo’s Page: http://victordelorenzo.com
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ALL CORRESPONDENCE CONCERNING THIS LETTER SHOULD BE DIRECTED TO
AMUSIC
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In Today’s Issue:
More Femmes in 2001!!!
Poster for Sale
Question
Chart Attack Article
MP3
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And just what means this sudden flurry of tourdates, dear readers?
I’m just as much in the dark about it as you. Perhaps a sudden change
in attitude, the twentieth anniversary of the Violent Femmes formation,
or any number of reasons unfathomable by us mere mortals. At any rate,
thank you, Violent Femmes, wherever you are, for adding new dates!
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More Femmes in 2001!!!
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My eyes always light up when I see an email from American Music. These
days, with an eerie quiet concerning the Femmes, I look forward to any
news about my favorite band and often this newsletter is my only
connection with the band. I am thrilled to hear that they are playing
tonite for New Years Eve as although I live on the wet coast of Canada,
far from the Femmes tonite, it gives me hope that at least they are
still playing together and have not broke up as some rumours suggested
a few months ago. Does anyone know what the bands plans are? Will we see
them tour this year? Are they still together? Solo efforts? Anything?
I also want to apologize to Erik for mistakenly sending him a “supervisor
training” video instead of the femmes compilation video. It was an
honest mistake as they looked alike and I didnt appreciate the email
full of profanity and hatred that followed. I’ll be more careful next
time if any other Canadians want a copy.
There is very poor distribution in Canada for both Freak Magnet and
Viva Wisconsin. Although I bought mine when they came out, I have rarely
seen them since. Add It Up is still the most common cd in stores. Poor
cd sales should not be blamed on fans but instead on the promoter or
distributor. Viva Wisconsin is a brilliant cd in my eyes and its a shame
that its so hard to find.
Glenn
pwnordic
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Poster for Sale
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Hello to everyone who loves the VF. I bought their first album – vinyl)
in 1981 when it first came out and LOVED it. I am probably the oldest
subscriber to this list (I saw Hendrix twice and the Doors several
times) but I love the VF and have seen them many times…at least a
dozen times.
They always do a great show.
Anyway, I have a VF poster if anyone is interested. This is a framed
Blind Leading the Naked poster. It is from Germany so all the text is
in German. It must be a collector’s item – but some subscriber probably
knows more about it than I do. Plus, I can’t remember where I got it.
If anyone wants to buy it let me know. Price? I don’t know. The
frame cost me around $80 bucks. Email me with an offer. I will accept
a fair price – I really don’t need the money but I thought a VF fan
should enjoy it as much as I have. Email – Gene4
PS: I have a bunch of brand new Oingo Boing T-shirts too (cause I saw
them 30 times).. if anyone is interested.
Gene
Gene4
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Question
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There is a dead link on the Femmes home page: Viva Wisonsonson Song
Facts (http://www.vfemmes.com/viva.html) Did anyone happen to copy
the info down, and if so, could you email (neilg)
it to me?
Thanks.
neilg
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Chart Attack Article
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http://www.chartattack.com/DAMN/2000/05/2401.cfm
Brian Ritchie: Violent Femme Fatale
Wednesday May 24, 2000 @ 09:00 AM
By: Hanna Guy
Brian Ritchie has finally found his Waterloo; The bagpipes.
It sounds harmless enough, but for the Violent Femmes bassist, it was
a rare challengeto find an instrument he couldn’t master immediately.
So he ditched them.
“I said, ‘This is not worth it’,” he admits.
After a few attempts, Ritchie gave up and acknowledged his defeat,
laying down the tartan instrument. “I’m used to just picking up
instruments and playing them the first time, so that was frustrating
for me.”
Ritchie is seated in a Toronto hotel bar with a glass of whiskey,
while his harried record label representative takes panicked phone
calls. Gordon Gano, guitarist and vocalist for the Violent Femmes,
is still in New York, temporarily stranded due to miserable weather
conditions. This makes it difficult for the band to get on with a
schedule that includes a performance on Open Mike and a concert later
in the evening.
Ritchie seems unaffected by the frenzied activity. After all, this is
routine when you’ve been playing with a band for 18 years.
“When we started, we were younger than the audience and now we’re
older than the audience,” he laughs. “I think it’s pretty strange.”
Since the Violent Femmes emerged in the early ’80s, Ritchie admits
that they’ve seen just about every musical trend go shooting by.
And the latest trends, he says, have ended the last century on a
sour note.
“Now you turn on the radio and you hear nothing but crap,” he says.
“Maybe 10 per cent of the music is worth listening to. I consider
that a bad era.”
This, I discover, is Brian Ritchie’s personal soapbox. For Ritchie,
a lot of popular music is worthless crap, especially with nu-metal,
rap and bubblegum pop dominating the American music industry.
“It’s not a healthy way to approach music, you know?” he says.
“Someone who just listens to rap is like someone who eats nothing
but French fries. Someone who just listens to death metal is like
someone who eats nothing but corn flakes, you know?”
A major weakness in the music industry, he says, is how music has
been going down the same road as fashion, and turning to retro
influences.
“It’s best when new healthy styles of music are being developed all
the time. Like if you look at the ’60s, you know, every couple
months they came out with something new and different, but that was
also good. Now the biggest thing is a combination of rap and
metal, which are two of the worst genres available. So it’s like,
is this good? Is this progress? Or is this, like, a marriage made
in hell?”
And for the Violent Femmes, who describe their music as rock and
roll with jazz, country and blues thrown in, it’s tantamount to
the death of their genre.
“I think rock ‘n’ roll is kinda going away. I mean, rock ‘n’ roll
as I define it,” he admits. “People understand that we have quality
and basically I’m not particularly worried about our survival, but
the style of music we play is definitely on its way out.”
Ritchie grudgingly admits that some of the problems are due to
technology’s greater role in the music industry. But, he argues,
for every ninth person who heads to the drum and sampling machines,
there is one person who returns to the musical mothership of
acoustic instruments.
“Music can’t die off just because of technology taking over,” he
insists.
But while Ritchie supports the growing MP3 phenomena that has irked
some of his fellow veteran musicians, he staunchly refuses to let
the Violent Femmes accommodate popular musical trends. And the
audiences seem to appreciate it, although Ritchie expresses concerns
over possible language barriers between the band and the fans.
“Some of the language we use; maybe they don’t know anymore, but I
don’t know,” he laughs. “Like, for example we have a song that uses
the word ‘cunt.’ And I don’t think they know what that word means
anymore, do they? Do you? O.K., well, they don’t respond to it the
way they used to. So maybe they think that we’re being vulgar. In
the past they thought it was funny.”
Despite everything, the Violent Femmes are still pushing forward with
their latest release, Freak Magnet, an album Ritchie describes as
“hard-driving, aggressive, neurotic.”
“Ever since we started we’ve been different from any other band and
this is our way of saying, ‘Here’s a unique way of looking at music.
It’s our way. Enjoy’.”
And while nothing is ever concrete, Ritchie doesn’t expect the Femme
phenomena to dissipate any time soon.
“It’s just an artistic perspective that we have, you know? I think we
cover a lot of ground musically and lyrically, but there’s a certain
kind of black humour that envelopes the whole thing and that’s what
makes us the Violent Femmes.”
ddearry
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MP3
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Here’s something I found that I think you’d definitely enjoy. At
emusic.com (the mp3 pay-download site) there is a new Violent Femmes
song called “Something’s Wrong” – it sounds kinda like “All I Want”
but just Gordon singing and playing guitar. The best part is that the
song is free! I read on vfemmes.com that they are planning to put out
some sort of online album with emusic in the near future. Hope you
can get the tune.
Josh Katz
heyzeus
http://www.geocities.com/heyzeus212/begin.html
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