08-28-98

Best viewed with Courier size 10 maximized screen ************************************************************************ The Quote Of The Day: It seems that the problem is vry deep 'cause everytime I try to sleep I have nightmares -From Nightmares PLEASE send your VF quotes to amusic ************************************************************************ WHO/WHERE Going to a VF concert? Want to know if anyone else on the list also going? Check here first! Buffalo, NY ----------- SirBoutros (Joel) ************************************************************************ ALL CORRESPONDENCE CONCERNING THIS LETTER SHOULD BE DIRECTED TO AMUSIC ************************************************************************ WEB PAGES: Official: http://www.vfemmes.com Unofficial: http://vf.scopemag.com if this doesn't work, try: http://206.103.163.50 http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Palladium/6918 VF Message Board: http://red.cscwc.pima.edu/~cstaley/femmes/board.html Past Tour Dates: http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Lounge/1725/femmes.html Guitar: http://www.angelfire.com/hi/VFemmes http://www.smug.adelaide.edu.au/~therapy/violent_femmes/ http://www.olga.net MP3's http://members.tripod.com/~GasolineFumes/music.html Une banane:Send in your top five faves each week to: melancon HERE I AM: Tell me where you live for the Here I Am list. ************************************************************************ In Today's Issue: WVU Show! A Really long Morgantown, WV Review (Gasp!) Ottawa August 27th Wisconsin Tour Re: Tour Dates ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ WVU Show! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ da da da da dahhhh.... exquisite dead guy.... Hello to all Violent Giants and They Might be Femmes attendees! Thanks to everyone who came and made our group the biggest and craziest bunch there!! Well, except maybe for that group who had the tinkerbell girl flitting around :o)!! Special hello to Kathryn (Kittricken) - hey girl I'll "get jiggy wid it" with you anytime! - John (DidacticCP) who wins the long drive award for this show (Chicago to West Virginia!) and Josh (Jish) bringer of TMBG fans to our group! It was hot and rained early on but we still had a great time! This was my second time seeing this line-up. The Femmes really put it to 'em last time, BUT the Giants pulled out all the stops this time and, I believe, narrowly edged out VF Tues. night! (Yikes! I can't believe I said that! :o) Quick set of the standards plus Bad, Rejoice & FM. Highlights were Dance MF Dance & Black Girls. Brian led into Dance by saying they had recently decided to re-work a classic VF tune and had gone into the studio with John Denver and this is what they had come up with! When I say Dance....I'm not sure how to explain it exactly (Kathryn help - you play guitar) - but it was like Gordon was playing a new bass line on lead or something to that effect. And Gordon came in on the second verse with new lyrics (didn't catch them all but I know I head the city & state we were in , in there somewhere). Then Guy came in at the end with some lyrics of his own. Nice change - I enjoyed it very much! Black Girls has definitely been THE song I look forward to this year. I was not disappointed! Johnny O'Brien (welcome back, welcome back, welcome back!) was back on the kit for the kick-ass Hoffman/O'Brien drum solo. Brian also played the Shakuhachi & a weird gourd/horn kind of thing. I may be totally wrong about this, but the Shak Brian was playing didn't seem like the same one he's played all year. It looked longer & had a different tone - I don't know it may have just been the humidity or PA or something. The gourd/horn thing was very interesting. It had a flat bottom which he played with his hands (like a conga) while holding the mouthpiece in his mouth & then at the end he blew through the mouthpiece and it had kind of a Didge sound to it. Has anyone else ever seen this odd little instrument before? Well that's about all I can think of but I'm sure someone else can add more to the story! I hope we can assemble this group again someday - it really was a lot of fun to meet some of the faces behind the names! Deana ddearry ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A Really long Morgantown, WV Review (Gasp!) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Well, I made the trip from Chicago to WV by myself, succesfully. I got off to a rocky start (good thing I left a day early) when I had car trouble and thank god for AAA auto club and podunk Indiana car shops. Regardless, I'm sure Deana and Amber and Kathryn will be giving their 2 cents, I just want everyone to know that you missed out on a pretty solid show. Solid. That's about it. :< Since they'll tell you how good it is, I'll tell you the bad parts...:> First of all, I henceforth deny any show which will take place at a University. Frankly, I'm sick of the college fratboy "it's cool to mosh and crowdsurf" mentality. And the damn surrority brats "like, who is this?"....Granted, you get some of this at every VF show, but at college shows (that take place on campus, not bars), they're just horrid, and this one was horrid-horrid. The reason for this was probably two-fold, it was their first "school-social" event, so of course the freshmen were nervous, add that to the fact that the newly indoctrinated fratfreshmen had to go through all this s*** that their butthead "brothers" made them do: like crowd surfing until they made it all the way up front, and you have given me a HUGE headache..ugh... So from now on, I'm done with college campuses. It just disappoints me. You have two of the greatest bands of recent history ready to perform for you, and you have to put up with the audience's pompous attitude inspired by acute insecurity. With that aside, another down point was the (although expected) lack of either of the two coolest bands in the world playing on stage together. Certainly, this was much more a They Might Be Giants/Violent Femmes show than a They Might Be Femmes/Violent Giants show. In fact, neither band even recognized the other's presence. The last area of disappointment comes from the choice of the local bands who played inbetween TMBG and VF. Well, TMBG came on stage, and of course, they rocked the house. Then, came the band that none of us had heard of... Keb Blow or something? I couldn't understand what they were saying. Well, about two minutes after they came on, I went to the side of the stage so I didn't get punched in the face by someone "raising the roof". This crappy rap group's set was composed entirely of saying "One- Two One-Two" into the mike a million times, having people say "hoo ooo" over and over again, and listening to a guy take snippits of popular songs and play them real loud while everyone said "hoo ooo". How fun was this? Apparently, everyone was enjoying themselves but me. I pride myself on having a wide variety of musical tastes. I can even listen to rap which pushes the outside of the envelope of musical standards, however, this was just another disappointment in my portfolio. I was pleased to hear that VF didn't like them that much either: Brian Ritchie's quote near the end of their set "We'd have played a lot longer for you guys, but the "musicians" before us took a little too long." And this was evidenced by the remaining instruments left to be played -- the didg and the electric fiddle. :< Well, those are the bad parts, in a nutshell. the cynic, john iii DidacticCP ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ottawa August 27th ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Well, I just got back from the Violent Femmes concert in Ottawa and I am pumped! If you don't want to hear about it just skip to the last two lines. It was great. My wife and I ( it was our 2 month anniversary ) walked down early , paid are 5.98$ ( that's Canadian ) to get into the Ex ( the big summer fair here in the Capitol ) and strolled into the VF's free concert. Free is such a good price, but I would have gladly paid to see them. Then again a coke was 4$, large beer 10$. None of our friends showed up on time so it was just us in front row seats. I find I'm getting too old to stand for the concerts, or maybe just lazy. Then again, I wanted to hide the 200$ recording device I had on me. Does everyone have as much security to dodge when recording their bootleg VF shows? I was amazed at the age difference in the crowd, something I'm sure everyone is aware of. The last time the Femmes were in Ottawa they were opening for the B-52's. This time a local band, This Minor Treble or something similar, opened for them. I'm used to everyone complaining about opening bands for the Femmes, so I was pleasantly surprised at the sound of this band. My wife and I enjoyed them quite a lot. But they weren't the Femmes. Lights were good, sound was good considering we were in a large ampitheater underneath a large football field! On a great summer night I just don't understand why we were underground? They came on and the crowd went wild. I liked the crowd this evening, energetic but not overly ( only 3 surfers ), no mosh pit and they new quite a lot of the songs, not just BITS. It was fun for everyone. This is what they played: 1- I'm Nothing 2- Prove My Love 3- Blister In The Sun 4- American Music 5- Out The Window 6- Country Death Song 7- Waiting For The Bus, Brian plays a conch shell I think and his solo really improves this song in my humble opinion, 8- Dahmer Is Dead, Brian does a brief intro to it, 9- 36-24-36 10- Jesus Walking On The Water 11- Dance, M.F., Dance!, Brian's intro," Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes; we come from the country that's just south of your border. And although, it may appear that we are neighbours, the two countries are remarkably different. ( Cheers ) Canadians are extremely polite people by comparison with Americans. They're always asking you," Can I do something for you sir. Oh excuse me sir." We live in NY city and if somebody bumps into you in NY city they would never say " Excuse me sir." Canadians are quite different. So you can image my surprise when I walked into the magazine shop and I asked for a certain magazine and the woman behind the counter said ..." 12- I'm Bad, I was beginning to wonder when they'd play their new stuff, 13- Rejoice And Be Happy, 14- Gimme The Car, 15- Faith, 16- Black Girls, Brian introduces the drummers Johnny O'Brien & Guy Hoffman; the keyboardist from the opening band This Minor Treble, Jason; The Horns Of Dilemna on Trombone Ray Grip, on Bugle Dominic Placco, and lastly Gordon Gano who then introduces Brian Ritchie; most of them played in Faith above, and forgive me if the names aren't quite right (unless Pat fixed them, hint, hint ), 17- Gone Daddy Gone, 18- Add It Up, Encores: 19- Old Mother Reagan, a really slow version, really mellow until Brian starts bellowing, truly hilarious, truly memorable, one of the many highlights of the show, 20- Old Mother Reagan, regular version, 21- Kiss Off There you go, hope I didn't bore too many people. It was my 4th VF concert, and the best. Kinda miffed that the shirts for sale were either old designs ( from my first concert ) or stuff I didn't like, but hey, I went for the music not the fashion. Also, I was so proud that I flipped the tape I was recording on perfectly between I'm Bad and Rejoice And Be Happy only to be disappointed by cutting out the last 30 seconds of Kiss Off! Oh well couldn't be helped. If anybody wants a copy of the show (pretty good quality as far as boots go ) I'll gladly make a trade for other VF stuff ( boots or otherwise ). Just email me at thehappycyclops Erik thehappycyclops ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Wisconsin Tour ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Wow...can't say I wasn't blown away about well...6 times at once by the new tour dates announced. Looks like I'll be seeing the Femmes a lot this Halloween week. Wonder if they'll be wearing costumes at the pabst theatre. I was just thinking it'd be cool to see a show at that place...ya know come to think of it, I could probably walk there from my new place. Thank God I live in their hometown! Wow 6 shows in a row...that'll be 12 Violent Femmes shows in my 20 year life. love, Tom (: boxofrain3 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Re: Tour Dates ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >NEW TOUR DATES: >Oct. 25- Barrymore Theater, Madison, WI (O) >Oct. 26- Opera House, Oshkosh, WI (O) >Oct 27- Grand Theater, Wausau, WI (O) >Oct. 29- Hollywood Theater, LaCrosse, WI (O) >Oct. 30- State Theater, Eau Claire, WI (O) >Oct. 31- Pabst Theater, Milwaukee, WI (O) Damn! This has been one of the only temptations in the last three years to move back to Wisconsin! Again, when are they coming out to Colorado?!? Greg gfellman PS. Just a little tease/warning, i'll offering up a little gift to everyone on the list soon! Wait & See! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~