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The Quote Of The Day:

you love yourself
have we become what we wanted?
you go ahead, I’ll love myself more.
-From LOVE AND ME MAKE THREE
-Submitted by asliney (am i the only person that
likes this song?)

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TOUR DATES (NEW TOUR DATES MARKED WITH **):

Dec. 29- 8:30 pm, Electric Factory, Philadelphia, PA, $17.50 (P,T)
($0.25 of each ticket goes to charity)
Dec. 30- 9:00 pm, The Boathouse, Norfolk, VA, $15.00 (T)
Dec. 31- 7:30, Patriot Center, Fairfax, VA 52.50 Plus 6.75 service
charge for phone orders!!! Call 800-551-7328 to order (O,P)
(With Pietasters and Squirrel Nut Zippers)

**Jan 22-8:00 pm,The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel, Las Vegas, NV (T)**

NOTA BENE: ‘O’ stands for the Official homepage
‘P’ stands for Pollstar
‘T’ stands for Ticketmaster
‘I’ stands for Insider Info
All other references are subscribers

To book a show, contact Monterey Peninsula Artists.
Serious inquiries only.

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WHO/WHERE
Going to a VF concert? Want to know if anyone
else on the list also going? Check here first!

Philadelphia, PA
—————-
JMES4249 (Jennifer)

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ALL CORRESPONDENCE CONCERNING THIS LETTER SHOULD BE DIRECTED TO
AMUSIC
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WEB PAGES:

Official: http://www.vfemmes.com

Unofficial: http://vf.lasvegasweekly.com/
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Palladium/6918
http://members.aol.com/kittricken/index.html
VF Message
Board: http://red.cscwc.pima.edu/~cstaley/femmes/board.html

Yahoo Chat: http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/newtimesviolentfemmesclub

Past Tour Dates:
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Lounge/1725/femmes/femmes.html

Guitar: http://www.angelfire.com/hi/VFemmes
http://www.smug.adelaide.edu.au/~therapy/violent_femmes/

MP3’s http://members.tripod.com/~GasolineFumes/music.html

Glenn Gano’s Page: http://www.alaska.net/~ggano

Charm Records: http://www.charmrec.com

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In Today’s Issue:

Happy Holidays
RE: Other Bands
Re: Social Commentary
RE: Never Tell
Re: He Likes American Music
Arizona…
List Them All
Cheap CD’s

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Happy Holidays
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+
*
**$
*****
**@****
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&*****#****
***@******^**
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Just wishing every one a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New year 🙂

Smilyaus

-Pat. Says: I was going to save this till next week, but then decided
it would be a good excuse to wish all of you a Happy
Chanukah as well.

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RE: Other Bands
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HI,
I forgot to include one of my favorite bands on my favorite band
list. Cornershop!!
Indian lead singer, they are from Britain and they have some incredible
combinations of instruments. Kind of like Indian rap funk. They are
just too good for me to have forgotten.
Marylee
Rubaiyat

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Re: Social Commentary
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>I was just wondering if Jeff has ever hear the following songs by the
>Femmes: Dahmer is Dead, Dating Days, World We’re Living In, Lies, Lack
>of Knowledge, Old Mother Reagan, No Killing, I’m Nothing, Mirror Mirror
>(debatable on whether it fits in this list)…… I am sure there are
>other clever social commentaries by the Femmes that I just forgot, but
>don’t these fit the bill?

Maybe ‘social commentary’ was the wrong term, but I don’t believe that
any of these songs contain a message or deeper reference of any sort,
other than their superficial theme. Yes, I have heard them all,
hundreds of times. I own every Femmes album, and I love every song. In
comparing them to TMBG, though, as I was, I wouldn’t say that “We don’t
want no killing, Lord” is anywhere close to the brilliant social
attacks of TMBG in songs such as “Purple Toupee.” (Though if one
excludes the comma, that line could have quite a clever double-meaning,
but I don’t think that was intended.) Dahmer is dead. Yeah. He lived in
their town. He was a bad person, and got only what he deserved. They
don’t say any more than that. That song is not intended to encompass
all criminals or ethics or the judicial system, it is just a song about
a famous psychopath who lived near them. “Dating Days”, “World We’re
Living In”, etc., etc., are not much more than songs about sex in the
postmodern world, and not to be taken as any kind of deep existential
insight. I still think that one of their most clever lyrics is the
“seperate my rights from my wrongs” line in “This Island Life,” though
the rest of that song doesn’t suggest that even Gordon was fully aware
of the cleverness of that play-on-words. Don’t get me wrong, they’re all
incredibly cool songs and I love every one of them, but that’s all they
are: songs. The emphasis is more on the music and on what sounds right
then on conveying any message. Nothing Gordon sings about is original in
any way, but it does have a special charm that none of us can deny. This
is his Style, something that we can’t pin down that keeps drawing us
back to buying album after album and listening to Add It Up until our
speakers disintegrate and playing See My Ships over headphones late at
night with the volume turned all the way up and sitting on the floor in
the pitch darkness and letting the tears well up as you think about
everything emotional that has ever happened to you… This is what the
Femmes are for. Not to point out social injustices or flaws in the
political system or even to be able phrase a sentence so it’s
grammatically correct, but to simply connect. To make you feel that
there is at least one voice that understands, though it need not
represent an actual person, and that no matter what happens in life,
“Outside the Palace” is still a really cool song.

Jeffrey_Wilson

-Pat. Says: I haven’t stated my views on this subject for fear of
killing one of the most intelligent and thought-provoking
threads we’ve had in a long while, but I do need to respond
to some things you said a while back:

<>(12-09-98)
<> (12-11-98)

Gordon and Brian are in fact very intelligent people. Yes,
it’s true that neither went to college, unlike the Johns,
but the reason for that was that they were too busy being
rock stars, not for any lack of ability. Gordon, in fact,
was a member of the Honor Society in High School, and last
time I checked it was not so easy to be inducted into that.
Further, I suspect that a test of Brian’s IQ would yield
a result very nearly in, if not firmly in, the genius range.
Despite the lack of regimented higher education, both
obviously chose to extend their knowledge in many areas
independently of some mentor’s recommendation, which can be
a good thing. It forces one to experience his or her own
impressions of something, rather than having to be force-
fed someone else’s opinions. I for one can tell you that it
was very annoying to be given a poor grade on an analysis
of some literary work simply because my views did not
coincide with that of the instructor, or being forced to
read a work somebody else highly admired but which I
considered to be nothing more than a big pile of horse
poopy.
At any rate, try to keep in mind the distinction between
not being able to do something, and being able but choosing
not to do something. If, as you maintain, Gordon’s lyrics
are superficial, that does not at all mean that he is
incapable of writing any other way.
One more thing. I only have one TMBG album, so I can’t speak
authoritatively, but there’s always the possibility of
reading a wee bit too much into the meaning of a song.
That is all.

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RE: Never Tell
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After reading the different ideas about what ‘Never Tell’ is about I
decided to listen to it and see what my own thoughts were. I relized one
thing…..don’t try to figure out violent femmes songs.

Joel
TeamEnos

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Re: He Likes American Music
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Josh, I think you made a good decision by giving your friend Hallowed
Ground (assuming he’ll return it to you). Hallowed Ground and The Blind
Leading the Naked are my 2 favorite Femmes albums. One American musical
genre missing from them is jazz- I mean I know that blues are a form of
jazz, but certainly not the only form.

Catherine
Eor24

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Arizona…
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Hullo all. This isn’t about the femmes as much as it’s about how much
better the arizona concert scene has gotten. Last night(monday night,
during finals week no less) I got what I had been waiting for for a
looong time: Depeche Mode. It was a bitching show, they did two encores
and played a song from “Speak and Spell”(something they said they’d
never do). Anyway, I saw DM just two months(or so) after seeing the
Femmes here. And they were here TWICE(tuscon then tempe). I also
realized something important: most concerts are the same. The femmes
concert was filled with drunken frat boys there to hear blister(and it
made my day when they opened with “Hey Nonnie Nonnie”). DM was the same.
There was an entire row drunken 20-somethings dancing badly and
complaining when they won’t play “Personal Jesus.” Anyway, this was just
me bitching, and bragging about getting to see Martin and Andy and Dave.
Hey, speaking of. Dave is lead guitar for DM, and he is shockingly like
Brian R. both play a wide variety of instruments and really contrast well
to the lead vocals’ presence. Okay, I’m done. No, one more thing. Does
anyone else think that “The Stranger” and “1984” are too similar for
comfort. anyway, I’m gone. no, one more thing: if I could only see
erasure and the cure before I die, it would be nice.
later,

-jason
jholt1

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List Them All
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Just a couple of general questions for those of us who have had to spend
the last couple years in learning free and listening free evironments.
First, would you mind listing all Violent Femmes US and if possible, UK,
releases. Copyright Laws in GB sometimes allow for greater latitude when
choosing live recordings for compilation laws. Second, I read in some
magazine before my prolonged expatriation that Gordon was working with
another band. For some reason, I have come up with fifty mutations of
the name, but for the life of me, I can’t seem to get right. If you
happened to know the label that this other band used, that would be
helpful also. Finally, I am relocating to Boston area. Despite having
had tickets several times, I have never managed to see them play. Since
the move came up suddenly, I have not ascertained through observation
whether they play frequently in Boston or not.

I like the quotes at the beginning, but I would enjoy having the quotes
put into context. Why are the quotes important to the person who
submitted them?

Thanks,
Leean
Lirker

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Cheap CD’s
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Hello All!

I was internet surfing when I ran into a site with the URL:

http://www.when.com

If you register (it’s free!) then you can get $10 off of any purchase at
Music Boulevard. I registered about 5 days ago and ordered the Violent
Femmes CD “3” which I got in the mail today. It only cost me $2.99
shipping because of the $10 credit (CD was FREE!) and I am listening to
it right now! (It’s making me giddy!) They have lots of CD’s there if
you already have completed your VF collection:)

Check it out! The calender service is a little dumb, but you don’t have
to use it. Just sign up for the credit!

🙂
Nicole
nwinn

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