When I was 15, I saw my first real concert. I took the train from Williston to Minneapolis, I arrived around noon, and I was picked up by some relatives I didn't know very well. This cousin of mine took me to the Electric Fetus, where I bought the brand new Snoop Dogg album ("Doggystyle"). And then, in the evening, they dropped me off at First Ave to see the Violent Femmes. It was a pretty crazy experience, my first real concert, basically alone in the big city, with this band I loved. After the show, my relatives picked me up and put me back on the train that night, heading back to Williston.
In thinking back about that, one thing that strikes me is that I must have really loved the Violent Femmes back then. I mean, I like them now, and this album sticks with me, but I must have really been in love with them, not just to make an epic journey like that, but also to convince my parents to let me do it.
This album was my brother's and my introduction to the Femmes. He heard them first, probably at the International Music Camp we went to every year, and they trickled down to me as music that the older kids were listening to. The album came out in 1983 and I'm sure we didn't hear them until 1990 or so, but we were at just the right age then to feel the rebellious tone of this album. The Femmes were in their early 20's, responding to early punk with a kind of singer/songwriter folk punk rock. They were dirty, but they kind of sounded clean. Your parents would hear it and think it sounded nice and radio-friendly, but when you listened to it closely, you heard the message of sex, depression, and rebellion.
This album sounds like it's weaving us through Gordon Gano's psyche - the opener is the classic feel-good poppy "Blister in the Sun", moving right in to "Kiss Off", a defiant jaded rocking ballad. The mood shifts from song to song, but it feels like a natural range you can easily go with him on. My favorite track is probably "Good Feeling" - that's the one I used to listen to on repeat, especially after I'd been up all night when I was 16, imagining that I was five years older and world-weary. When I saw them in 1993, though, it was on the "Add it Up" tour, so I'll leave you with that track from their self-titled album that shaped my teenage taste in music.
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