Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / [EP 400] The Story of Violent Femmes' Debut: How "Blister in the Sun" Became a Classic with Nic Brown

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[EP 400] The Story of Violent Femmes' Debut: How "Blister in the Sun" Became a Classic with Nic Brown · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

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Speaker 1: That they were going viral via cassette. That generation connected
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Speaker 1: to that album in a real intimate way. When the
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Speaker 1: nineties started to appreciate the songs that didn't fit in
0:11
Speaker 1: the weirdos, you know, all of a sudden there was
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Speaker 1: commercial space for that.
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Speaker 2: We're totally bummed rock and roll, I mean gotta leave you.
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Speaker 1: You're reading Little Hans says it's time to rock and roll, Rock,
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Speaker 1: roll up.
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Speaker 2: We are totally booked. Welcome back to book don Rock
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Speaker 2: conversations with authors, musicians, and insiders revealing the stories behind
0:36
Speaker 2: classic rock's greatest songs, albums, and artists. If you are
0:40
Speaker 2: enjoying the show and you'd like to support it, you
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Speaker 2: for just five dollars a month. You get every episode
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Speaker 2: commercial free and before everyone else. Just use the link
0:51
Speaker 2: in the show notes or visit Booked on rock dot com.
0:54
Speaker 2: Now onto our guests release the Nights in eighty three,
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Speaker 2: with little commercial success, The Violent Family's self titled debut
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Speaker 2: defied convention, blending acoustic instrumentation with punk attitude to create
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Speaker 2: a sound unlike anything else before or since. Overtime, word
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Speaker 2: of mouth and college radio transform the album into one
1:14
Speaker 2: of the most influential records of the alternative era. And
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Speaker 2: today I'm joined by Nick Brown, author of Violent Femmes,
1:21
Speaker 2: part of the thirty three and a third series, which
1:23
Speaker 2: I'm a huge fan of. He explores the story behind
1:26
Speaker 2: this enduring classic. Welcome to the podcast, Nick, thank you
1:30
Speaker 2: for having me excited to be here. Your prologue is fantastic.
1:34
Speaker 2: Let's start there. It gets into your history as a
1:35
Speaker 2: fan of the band, playing on the same bill with
1:38
Speaker 2: Violent fems and even randomly walking past the band's bassist
1:43
Speaker 2: Brian Ritchie. Let's talk about your journey from childhood fan
1:47
Speaker 2: to become the author of this book.
1:50
Speaker 1: As you mentioned briefly there, I'm a musician myself and
1:54
Speaker 1: did have the chance to incredibly share the bill with
1:57
Speaker 1: them once years ago. But basically I fell in love
2:01
Speaker 1: with this record when I was a kid, and when
2:04
Speaker 1: I started working on this book, you know, it brought
2:07
Speaker 1: me back to that moment the first time I heard
2:10
Speaker 1: this record, which was I was at my friend Doug
2:13
Speaker 1: Starr's house after school in nineteen eighty eight. I was
2:18
Speaker 1: age eleven. I heard this incredible sound coming from a
2:22
Speaker 1: doorway down the hall. I walked down the hall. Of
2:24
Speaker 1: course it was his older sister's bedroom helped that she
2:28
Speaker 1: was beautiful. The album was amazing. I had to hear
2:31
Speaker 1: it and get it immediately, and she said, you know,
2:33
Speaker 1: I asked her what it was, she says, the violent films,
2:36
Speaker 1: and you know, I remember every moment of that, like
2:39
Speaker 1: Crystal Clear. And the amazing thing about writing this book is,
2:44
Speaker 1: of course, when I started writing the book, I went
2:46
Speaker 1: back to when I imprinted on that record, and so
2:48
Speaker 1: many people that I talked to remember when they heard
2:52
Speaker 1: this album for the first time in a similar way
2:54
Speaker 1: that I do very clearly, and I mean, in so
2:58
Speaker 1: many ways, it's the same story where you get and again,
3:01
Speaker 1: you know, lots of times it's an older sibling or
3:04
Speaker 1: you know, your friend who has better taste. For a
3:08
Speaker 1: lot of us, I feel like this record was an
3:12
Speaker 1: introduction to you know, for me, it felt like a
3:15
Speaker 1: world of sophistication, right, and just new music that I
3:19
Speaker 1: wasn't otherwise listening to, And so it was great for
3:23
Speaker 1: me to go back and remember falling in love with
3:26
Speaker 1: this record. I still love this record. And then it
3:31
Speaker 1: was pretty amazing to be able to spend all this
3:34
Speaker 1: time with the guys in the band and talk about
3:36
Speaker 1: this album that I remember listening to and being nervous
3:40
Speaker 1: about having my mom hear it when I was, you know, twelve,
3:43
Speaker 1: thirteen years old, and it's still has a lot of
3:48
Speaker 1: magic to it.
3:48
Speaker 2: The album does tell me about that experience of playing
3:51
Speaker 2: on the same bill with him, because a lot of
3:52
Speaker 2: people that are listening to this right now and watching
3:54
Speaker 2: this interview, they've heard your music is particularly one song
3:59
Speaker 2: which was a hit song. I'm back in the late nineties,
4:01
Speaker 2: and I do remember this song the band Athenaeum.
4:04
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, that's right. Yeah, So I was a drummer
4:07
Speaker 1: in believe it or not. That band formed to play
4:10
Speaker 1: my eighth grade dance and those were my best buddies
4:15
Speaker 1: in high school and we stayed together and we signed
4:18
Speaker 1: a big record deal with Atlantic Records right out of
4:20
Speaker 1: high school and had a hit song in nineteen ninety eight,
4:23
Speaker 1: not a huge hit, peaked at number fourteen on the
4:27
Speaker 1: Billboard Alternative Rock Sharts. Right, so we it was a
4:30
Speaker 1: real thing. It was my job for a decade or
4:33
Speaker 1: so and it was great. But you know, I'm not
4:36
Speaker 1: a rock star, although I was. I was a working
4:39
Speaker 1: drummer for a long time. And so you know, I
4:43
Speaker 1: think it positioned me well to write this book. Right,
4:46
Speaker 1: So you know, I'm a musician, so I could come
4:49
Speaker 1: to the material in a in a technical way, you know,
4:54
Speaker 1: gave me a sort of a technical entry point that
4:58
Speaker 1: helped to counteract the like little yet eleven year old
5:01
Speaker 1: Nick Brown that kept arising and being like, oh my god,
5:03
Speaker 1: it's the violent films.
5:04
Speaker 2: You know.
5:05
Speaker 1: Then there was the other guy that's the working drummer,
5:07
Speaker 1: that's like, yeah, I played shows with these guys, you know,
5:09
Speaker 1: not that I knew them. They had no idea who
5:11
Speaker 1: I was or my band.
5:12
Speaker 2: You know.
5:12
Speaker 1: That was like a music festival that we did with them.
5:16
Speaker 1: So yeah, it was an interesting, interesting, like way for
5:22
Speaker 1: me to approach this record and really the reason that
5:26
Speaker 1: this book came together because I'm from North Carolina and
5:30
Speaker 1: from that North Carolina music scene. I lived in Chapel Hill.
5:33
Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember the band the Squirrel
5:35
Speaker 1: Nuts Zippers, but yeah, right, they had huge records back
5:39
Speaker 1: in around the same time, and their drummer, Chris Philips,
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Speaker 1: is one of my closest friends. We had the drummers
5:45
Speaker 1: of Chapel Hill, me and you know, Chris and Darren
5:49
Speaker 1: from Ben Folds five. We all lived on the same
5:51
Speaker 1: street within the Blood region. Yeah, Rogerson Drive and Chris
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Speaker 1: Phillips from scroll Nut Zippers went on to be part
5:59
Speaker 1: of the Films management team. And I had a memoir
6:03
Speaker 1: a few years ago where I mentioned my love for
6:05
Speaker 1: this record, and Chris read that memoir and reached out
6:08
Speaker 1: and he's like, hey, man, I didn't know you love
6:11
Speaker 1: the films, you know, would you be interested in doing
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Speaker 1: a project with them? And I was like, are you kidding?
6:14
Speaker 1: I know just what I want to do. And that's
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Speaker 1: how this book came together.
6:18
Speaker 2: That's awesome. By the way. What I didn't know is
6:20
Speaker 2: the single people I'm sure are wondering.
6:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, I liked it. I like to bury it. Yeah,
6:25
Speaker 1: what I didn't know?
6:26
Speaker 2: It's there? Yeah, it's on Spotify. You can check it out.
6:29
Speaker 2: You get into the formation of the band, the origins
6:32
Speaker 2: of the band name in that first chapter give us
6:35
Speaker 2: a brief backstory of the band and the name Violent Fans.
6:38
Speaker 1: Before I even start with this. The great thing about
6:41
Speaker 1: the story of the Violent Films for a writer is
6:44
Speaker 1: every anecdote about the band is like four times better
6:47
Speaker 1: than I thought it was going to be. So We'll
6:49
Speaker 1: start with the name. Okay, the name Violent Films will
6:54
Speaker 1: existed before Gordon Gaino, the lead singer, was ever in
6:58
Speaker 1: Violent Films, right. The Violent Films was the name of
7:02
Speaker 1: the rhythm section of Victor Di Lorenzo and Brian Ritchie,
7:05
Speaker 1: the bassist and the drummer, or drummer and bassist in
7:08
Speaker 1: that order. And they were young men in Milwaukee, but
7:16
Speaker 1: wildly sophisticated really for their age. They were working in
7:20
Speaker 1: experimental theater, they were playing with weird bands, they were
7:24
Speaker 1: playing jazz, They were technically excellent at their instruments, and
7:27
Speaker 1: so they were in high demand as a sidemen in Milwaukee.
7:33
Speaker 1: Brian Ritchie came over to Victor's apartment one afternoon and said, Victor,
7:37
Speaker 1: I have a name for our rhythm section, which will
7:39
Speaker 1: pause right there. No rhythm section names themselves much right
7:43
Speaker 1: like that alone, it was like okay, and so Brian's
7:47
Speaker 1: idea was that they would be named Violent Films. Victor
7:50
Speaker 1: was like, what the heck does that mean? And you know,
7:54
Speaker 1: in the sort of lingo of Milwaukee at the time,
7:58
Speaker 1: being a fem meant that you were sort of like
8:01
Speaker 1: a sissy or an outcast. And Brian just thought this
8:06
Speaker 1: was hilarious, this idea of the Violent Films, and so
8:09
Speaker 1: that's how the name came about. And then when they
8:12
Speaker 1: met Gordon, which I'll explain in a moment, the first
8:17
Speaker 1: shows that they played it was billed as Gordon Gano
8:20
Speaker 1: in the Violent Films, and eventually Gordon's name fell away
8:23
Speaker 1: and the act firmed up as the Trio Violent Films.
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Speaker 1: But when they met Gordon, he was in high school
8:31
Speaker 1: and those guys were not in high school. And Brian
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Speaker 1: Ritchie was the first to see Gordon. He saw him
8:37
Speaker 1: open for Jonathan Richmond and just thought, wow, this kid
8:41
Speaker 1: is pretty amazing. It bumped into him at a punk
8:44
Speaker 1: club a few weeks or a few days later, within
8:47
Speaker 1: a week, i think, and Gordon invited Brian to play
8:50
Speaker 1: with him the next morning at his high school at
8:53
Speaker 1: the National Honor Society ceremony that they were having a
8:59
Speaker 1: weird sort of like talent show as part of it.
9:02
Speaker 1: And so that's the amazing It's like a John Hughes film, right,
9:06
Speaker 1: It is like that they play at this high school
9:09
Speaker 1: talent show. They start playing good Feeling Sorry, They start
9:13
Speaker 1: playing a good Friend, which appeared on the third record.
9:16
Speaker 1: It's a nice song, mid tempo, and they stopped playing
9:21
Speaker 1: that and started playing a song called give Me the Car,
9:26
Speaker 1: which was a bonus track on a later edition of
9:29
Speaker 1: the debut album that has some pretty explosive lyrics in it,
9:33
Speaker 1: and as Brian says, they basically almost caused a riot
9:36
Speaker 1: in the room that day, the principals on the side
9:38
Speaker 1: of the stage telling him to stop, and they did
9:41
Speaker 1: not stop. And so that was the amazing first spark
9:45
Speaker 1: of the violent films.
9:46
Speaker 2: It is true though, it is like it is like
9:48
Speaker 2: a John Hughes film, and just the fact that I
9:51
Speaker 2: mean you're talking about I actually talked to an author
9:53
Speaker 2: who were a great book on street busking, and they
9:56
Speaker 2: essentially were a street busker band, and then they get
9:59
Speaker 2: to discovered by the pretenders through I think, what if
10:03
Speaker 2: you could tell that story. It's through the I think
10:05
Speaker 2: it was the wife of the guitarist.
10:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, Peggy Sue Honeyman Scott was the wife of the guitarist.
10:13
Speaker 1: And so the band was very unusual. Just to explain
10:18
Speaker 1: the listeners, a lot of us know all their songs
10:21
Speaker 1: and have no idea how strange looking the band was.
10:25
Speaker 1: In regard to instrumentation. The bass player played an acoustic
10:28
Speaker 1: bass guitar that's not upright. It is essentially like a
10:31
Speaker 1: mariachi bass. The drummer played a snare drum standing up
10:36
Speaker 1: with brushes, and then a metal basket bucket basically upside down,
10:43
Speaker 1: and then Gordon played guitar and sang. And so they
10:46
Speaker 1: were so unorthodox they had a hard time getting gigs
10:49
Speaker 1: and they so yeah, as you point out, they they
10:51
Speaker 1: played outside all the time, they busked, and they weren't cool.
10:55
Speaker 1: Those guys say when their friends saw them, they would
10:57
Speaker 1: cross to the other side of a street and try
10:59
Speaker 1: to not let them see them, like it was not
11:02
Speaker 1: cool at all. And they just kept doing it. And
11:06
Speaker 1: the Pretenders came to town and were playing a big
11:10
Speaker 1: show at the Oriental Theater in Milwaukee, and the guys
11:16
Speaker 1: in the film just knew that was a great captive
11:18
Speaker 1: audience of the people lined up to go into the theater,
11:22
Speaker 1: so they were playing in front of them. The wife
11:25
Speaker 1: of the Pretender's guitarist saw them outside and basically it
11:28
Speaker 1: was like, this is incredible, went in got her husband.
11:32
Speaker 1: He came out and agreed, and they invited the band
11:35
Speaker 1: to be a surprise opener that night at the show.
11:39
Speaker 1: Which they actually went on after the band that was
11:46
Speaker 1: on the bill to be the opener and before the pretender.
11:48
Speaker 1: So when the curtain came up, the crowd thought it
11:50
Speaker 1: was gonna be the pretenders, and it's the three guys
11:52
Speaker 1: from the sidewalk that they just saw, and some people
11:57
Speaker 1: booed them. You know, it was a weird reception just
12:00
Speaker 1: because the crowd didn't know what to expect. But what
12:02
Speaker 1: really made a difference was the guys could see the
12:04
Speaker 1: pretenders on the side of the stage losing their minds
12:07
Speaker 1: about how great it was, and so it didn't lead
12:11
Speaker 1: to a lot professionally for them. They went back to
12:15
Speaker 1: not getting good gigs, and in fact, a lot of
12:17
Speaker 1: people in Milwaukee resented them for getting that opportunity.
12:21
Speaker 2: That's what I found interesting. Yeah, you would think it
12:23
Speaker 2: would roll right into the record deal and everything they
12:25
Speaker 2: take off from there, but that's not what happened.
12:27
Speaker 1: Well, it didn't professionally, but I think it was the
12:33
Speaker 1: confidence boosts they needed. At exactly that time, Victor and
12:36
Speaker 1: Brian were thinking about moving out of town that summer
12:39
Speaker 1: to go to Minneapolis to form a band with a friend,
12:43
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, I think they realized this
12:46
Speaker 1: is real and this is good and people who are
12:48
Speaker 1: out there in the world doing it recognize it. And
12:51
Speaker 1: so yeah, that was their first big break. I think
12:55
Speaker 1: it was more of a moral boost than a professional one.
12:57
Speaker 1: But it all worked out.
13:01
Speaker 2: They didn't fit the folks scene, they didn't fit punk.
13:05
Speaker 2: They even struggled to find acceptance in Milwaukee, as you say,
13:08
Speaker 2: did that outsider status ultimately become one of their strengths.
13:12
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and I think yes in so many ways. Right,
13:18
Speaker 1: they're still an outsider band. We know their songs, and still,
13:23
Speaker 1: you know, those guys aren't playing the game in the
13:26
Speaker 1: way that a lot of bands from that era do.
13:30
Speaker 1: You know, you don't see Gordon out there, you know,
13:34
Speaker 1: on the on the you know, social media and stuff
13:39
Speaker 1: and doing a lot of press. Those guys they still
13:42
Speaker 1: sort of operate outside of the mainstream. But you know,
13:47
Speaker 1: part of that is it's just fascinating how confident they
13:53
Speaker 1: were in what they were doing at the age they
13:56
Speaker 1: were doing it. Okay, so let's just start with Gordon's songs,
14:00
Speaker 1: which are impeccably great songs. The lyrics are sharp, fascinating,
14:07
Speaker 1: super compelling, super vulnerable. Right, they're real catchy. The songs.
14:14
Speaker 1: They could have worked in any format, right, And that's
14:17
Speaker 1: what Gordon thought was gonna happen. He was gonna be
14:19
Speaker 1: in a band like Johnny Thunders, you know, with two
14:21
Speaker 1: a lot of electric guitars and bass and you know,
14:25
Speaker 1: rock and roll drum set, and the songs would have
14:27
Speaker 1: worked in that format. But the fact that he met
14:29
Speaker 1: those other guys and they started playing in this unusual
14:33
Speaker 1: instrumentation did two things. It made them sound different, right,
14:37
Speaker 1: and that sound also was an intimate sound, especially young Cassette.
14:41
Speaker 1: He listened to Cassette. There's not a lot of sonic
14:44
Speaker 1: clutter getting in the way of Gordon's very vocative lyrics, right,
14:50
Speaker 1: And then you know it it just, I don't know,
14:56
Speaker 1: it made them. It made them different. You know, you
15:01
Speaker 1: remember them in a way that they just don't. Because
15:05
Speaker 1: most of those instruments were acoustic, and the recording of
15:09
Speaker 1: the debut album was mostly just you know, room mics
15:14
Speaker 1: and then performing live, it increases that timeless aspect. Do
15:17
Speaker 1: you hear that record? You don't know if it came
15:19
Speaker 1: from the nineteen fifties, nineteen eighty eight, nineteen eighty three,
15:23
Speaker 1: the nineties, or last week.
15:25
Speaker 2: Very true, very true, yeah. Yeah, and the fact that
15:28
Speaker 2: they were street performers too, that changes the chemistry of
15:30
Speaker 2: the band songwriting all that they in ways that couldn't
15:34
Speaker 2: have happened in traditional club circuit type of band.
15:39
Speaker 1: There is no less forgiving performative space than a sidewalk
15:44
Speaker 1: in Milwaukee, right, right.
15:46
Speaker 2: And there's an example. We'll get to the song of
15:48
Speaker 2: the xylophone in it, you know that kind of stuff,
15:51
Speaker 2: which we'll get to. It's like all that stuff just
15:54
Speaker 2: naturally happens and it becomes part of the song.
15:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that comes back to that confidence that I
15:59
Speaker 1: was talking talking about a lot of producers, a lot
16:01
Speaker 1: of people who heard the band early on knew the
16:03
Speaker 1: songs were good and said we can do something with
16:06
Speaker 1: this if you sound like flock of seagulls, right, and
16:10
Speaker 1: you know or not, you know, just like, hey, let's
16:12
Speaker 1: do a let's do this normal quote unquote. And the
16:15
Speaker 1: guys were like, no, this is what we sound like.
16:17
Speaker 1: And they were right.
16:18
Speaker 2: And there was a lack of technical training, which for Gordon,
16:23
Speaker 2: so their advantage for Gordon, Yes.
16:24
Speaker 1: For Gordon. Yeah, that's interesting. So Gordon was a real
16:29
Speaker 1: precocious songwriter. Some of these songs he wrote like Good Feeling,
16:32
Speaker 1: the final track he wrote when he was fifteen. He
16:34
Speaker 1: wrote that nineteen seventy eight, when he was fifteen, which
16:36
Speaker 1: he said to me, you can tell because I used
16:38
Speaker 1: the word lady in it. Yeah, but he didn't have
16:44
Speaker 1: a lot of technical ability. He was good at playing
16:46
Speaker 1: rhythm guitar. Victor de Lorenzo had a degree in symphonic
16:53
Speaker 1: percussion performance. Of course, he was just playing brushes on
16:57
Speaker 1: a snare drum. But you know, I'm a drummer. I
17:00
Speaker 1: can tell he has good technique, but it's not you know,
17:02
Speaker 1: he's not like Neil Pert. And so it was this
17:06
Speaker 1: unusual situation where Brian Ritchie, the bass player who's technically excellent,
17:12
Speaker 1: became the featured instrument in the band. And as my
17:16
Speaker 1: friend Shannon told me, when I started thinking about this record,
17:19
Speaker 1: he said, oh yeah, that record is all lead bass,
17:21
Speaker 1: and I laughed. And the more I dug into it,
17:23
Speaker 1: and the more I talked about this with the band
17:26
Speaker 1: and listened to it, I realized he's right. The bass
17:28
Speaker 1: is the lead melodic.
17:29
Speaker 2: Instrument, particularly on that hit song too.
17:32
Speaker 1: Oh my god, men do do Doo? I mean that's
17:37
Speaker 1: you know, people have no idea when they're at the
17:40
Speaker 1: baseball games clapping along to that that that was pinned
17:44
Speaker 1: by some art weirdos in Milwaukee in the early eighties.
17:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is wild. My older brother actually, I remember
17:52
Speaker 2: him getting into the song in the early nineties. Somebody
17:54
Speaker 2: put it on a cassette, and then when I was
17:56
Speaker 2: in college in the early nineties, it was played in
17:58
Speaker 2: the clubs along with all the dance songs and alternative
18:01
Speaker 2: rock songs. It just fit perfectly with that time. It
18:04
Speaker 2: was like that was the alternative rock scene. Those quirky
18:08
Speaker 2: songs that wouldn't have been accepted when the song came out,
18:12
Speaker 2: is now accepted almost ten years later. Those recording sessions
18:16
Speaker 2: for that first album were remarkably loose, fast, instinctive, yet
18:21
Speaker 2: they captured lightning in a bottle. Why do you think
18:24
Speaker 2: those sessions produced something so magical that later recordings could
18:30
Speaker 2: never quite replicate? What was it about that moment in time?
18:33
Speaker 1: Well, for one thing, they had been playing those songs
18:38
Speaker 1: just like that on street corners for years and they
18:40
Speaker 1: didn't change anything when they came in to record. They
18:43
Speaker 1: knew that worked, and so there's that. There's the stripped
18:48
Speaker 1: down recording approach. There's no production imprint of the nineteen
18:53
Speaker 1: eighties on it, right, it is timeless in that way.
18:59
Speaker 1: And then, as I mentioned before, Gordon was a incredibly
19:04
Speaker 1: prolific and precocious songwriter. At age seventeen eighteen, he already
19:09
Speaker 1: had written all of the songs that were on the
19:12
Speaker 1: first record, all that went onto the second, some on
19:14
Speaker 1: the third, and a couple shut up up until the
19:17
Speaker 1: fifth record, right. And so Brian Ritchie, the bass player,
19:21
Speaker 1: had the genius idea, I love the Hubris behind this.
19:24
Speaker 1: Before they recorded the first record, they didn't have a
19:26
Speaker 1: record deal. They were playing street Corner as you said, Okay,
19:29
Speaker 1: the first record is going to be all of our
19:31
Speaker 1: poppy rock songs. The second record will be all of
19:34
Speaker 1: our weird country, gospel, jazz, you know stuff. And it
19:39
Speaker 1: was a brilliant idea because they picked it's like just
19:42
Speaker 1: ten perfect little pop rockets you know that take off
19:49
Speaker 1: on that first record. And so that's some of what
19:52
Speaker 1: was at work, you know. And I don't know, you know,
19:57
Speaker 1: I mean, this is something that I've been thinking about
19:59
Speaker 1: for for years.
20:01
Speaker 2: Most of the time the artists themselves will say, I
20:03
Speaker 2: can't explain it. Yeah, everything was just right at that moment.
20:07
Speaker 2: The producer, Mark van heck or Hecky is it Hecky?
20:11
Speaker 2: Mark van Heckey, He deserves a lot of credit as
20:14
Speaker 2: well for this record because he he recognizes something in
20:18
Speaker 2: Violet Fans that others seem to miss. Talk about that
20:21
Speaker 2: and how important was he in preserving that raw sound
20:23
Speaker 2: instead of polishing it, which he could have right.
20:26
Speaker 1: So, as I mentioned before, there were producers and some
20:30
Speaker 1: people in the industry that had gotten interested in the band.
20:32
Speaker 1: They wanted to change their sound. Mark Van Heckey, who
20:37
Speaker 1: was a basically a classical composer in Milwaukee who was
20:42
Speaker 1: working with theater, heard the band and made sort of
20:47
Speaker 1: an amazing realization that the more research I did into
20:51
Speaker 1: the band just makes perfect sense. He saw the band
20:55
Speaker 1: at a small underground like literally it was a basement
20:58
Speaker 1: performance space that seated forty people. In the band was
21:02
Speaker 1: walking around while playing, and he heard the songs and
21:05
Speaker 1: he thought, this is like theater. And when you think
21:07
Speaker 1: about it that way, and these guys worked in theater too.
21:11
Speaker 1: A lot of Gordon's lyrics are sort of dramatic monologues.
21:17
Speaker 1: You know, there's a sophistication to that angle that I
21:23
Speaker 1: just hadn't thought of from that perspective, but Mark van
21:28
Speaker 1: Hecke recognized that they needed to maintain their sound and
21:33
Speaker 1: he didn't want to change their sound. And that was
21:36
Speaker 1: when the band knew he's the right guy to work
21:39
Speaker 1: with us. And he was older. He had Gordon come
21:44
Speaker 1: to his apartment. They worked through the songs. He wrote
21:46
Speaker 1: them out note by note on staff to send to
21:50
Speaker 1: the Library of Congress to properly record them. He was like,
21:55
Speaker 1: you know, it's like they've stumbled into George Martin on
21:58
Speaker 1: the street corner. And he just believed in their sound.
22:01
Speaker 1: Even though people in his circuit were making front of him.
22:04
Speaker 1: They were like, why are you working with these kids?
22:05
Speaker 1: But he knew he is a fascinating guy. I loved
22:10
Speaker 1: talking to him. I mean just you know, wildly intelligent,
22:15
Speaker 1: sophisticated and again with all these guys, unusual in a
22:20
Speaker 1: great way.
22:22
Speaker 2: Find the Bookdown Rock website at booked on rock dot com.
22:26
Speaker 2: There you can find all the back episodes of the show,
22:28
Speaker 2: the latest episode in video and audio links to all
22:31
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22:34
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22:42
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22:45
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22:48
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22:51
Speaker 2: on rock merch. It's all at booked on rock dot com.
22:55
Speaker 2: The album was recorded at Castle Recording Studios, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.
23:00
Speaker 2: So if the same band walks into a modern digital
23:02
Speaker 2: studio today, do you think they could make the same
23:05
Speaker 2: album or Again, it's probably it's that specific moment. It's
23:09
Speaker 2: those musicians, but also those recording conditions that contributed.
23:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, they were recording to tape, so there's that.
23:18
Speaker 1: If you look at the mic lineup, it's not an
23:20
Speaker 1: unusual mic lineup. It's Mike's that I've used. Those are
23:24
Speaker 1: the mics I use when I record. That studio produced
23:29
Speaker 1: a lot of hair metal, right, So it's not the
23:35
Speaker 1: studio itself. But there's something about artistic parameters and limitations
23:45
Speaker 1: that helps make magic. And we see this throughout time, right,
23:49
Speaker 1: And so the fact that they didn't have a lot
23:51
Speaker 1: of money and they had to rush and they didn't
23:53
Speaker 1: go down rabbit holes of let's try it this way,
23:56
Speaker 1: let's try it that way. And they stuck to that
23:57
Speaker 1: sound that worked on the street corner. I think is
24:00
Speaker 1: what directed the recording in the way. They gave it
24:04
Speaker 1: that magic, even more than the actual studio space or equipment.
24:09
Speaker 1: They'd done a series of demos in Mark van Heckey's apartment,
24:15
Speaker 1: four track demos that you can hear on the fortieth
24:17
Speaker 1: anniversary reissue of the record. They're surprisingly close to the
24:21
Speaker 1: recordings from you Know that they did for the album.
24:26
Speaker 1: They're not they don't have the same that they didn't
24:29
Speaker 1: have as good mics. You know, it's not quite as good.
24:32
Speaker 1: But is the band.
24:34
Speaker 2: Gordon Gaino he resists explaining exactly what his lyrics mean.
24:38
Speaker 2: Do you think that's one of the reasons also that
24:40
Speaker 2: these songs have endured that listeners are free to project
24:43
Speaker 2: their own experiences onto them.
24:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, and not just the lyrics. If you think
24:48
Speaker 1: about if you go back to what you said about
24:50
Speaker 1: when you I think got the record, you got a
24:52
Speaker 1: cassette copy, you know, a dub of the tape. I
24:55
Speaker 1: had a guide say to me recently at a reading.
24:58
Speaker 1: He saw the album cover and he said that it's
25:00
Speaker 1: not the album covering. The album cover is the handwriting
25:03
Speaker 1: of whatever dude wrote violent Fems on my Maxwell tape.
25:07
Speaker 1: And so the reason I'm starting with that is just
25:10
Speaker 1: the actual physical copy of the record was mysterious. Who
25:14
Speaker 1: are these guys? Even when you had the album covered,
25:17
Speaker 1: you don't know what the band looks like. You don't
25:18
Speaker 1: know they're playing these unusual instruments. And also, as you mentioned,
25:22
Speaker 1: it really peaked in the early nineties, this album, after
25:25
Speaker 1: it had been out for eight years. A lot of
25:27
Speaker 1: us had no idea that this album came out in
25:29
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three. So the object itself isn't directing us
25:36
Speaker 1: about how to experience it with visual signals, temporal signals,
25:42
Speaker 1: even production cues, and so we're coming to it fresh
25:46
Speaker 1: in that way. Then you encounter the first song, Blister
25:49
Speaker 1: and the Sun, which lyrically is sort of like a
25:55
Speaker 1: high coup. It's so compressed and it's hard. It's inscrutable, really,
26:03
Speaker 1: but not just to us. And Gordon talks about this.
26:07
Speaker 1: He says, I don't know what is that song about?
26:09
Speaker 1: You know what am I talking about? And then he
26:12
Speaker 1: blew my mind when he was like, you know, I
26:15
Speaker 1: sang that song last night. He said, I have this
26:16
Speaker 1: weird thing. He says that he mixes up the vowels
26:22
Speaker 1: A and I, And so when he sings blister in
26:25
Speaker 1: the Sun, he's unsure if he's singing like eye blister
26:28
Speaker 1: in the sun or like a blister in the sun.
26:31
Speaker 1: And okay, you know, that's an interesting anecdote, you know,
26:35
Speaker 1: do we believe it? Like you know, when he first
26:38
Speaker 1: told me, well, come on, you know what you're saying
26:41
Speaker 1: the You know, if you look at the lyrics of
26:43
Speaker 1: the song, it's generally assumed they're saying like a blister
26:46
Speaker 1: in the sun. But then for the fortieth anniversary reissue
26:50
Speaker 1: of the record, they had for the album Liner, they
26:53
Speaker 1: had Gordon handwrite the lyrics and a copy of that is,
26:58
Speaker 1: you know, in the album handwright the lyrics for the
27:00
Speaker 1: whole album, and I pulled it out. And when he
27:02
Speaker 1: did that three years ago, he wrote like I Blister
27:05
Speaker 1: in the Sun. I was like, oh my god. He
27:08
Speaker 1: really goes back and forth on it. And so he
27:12
Speaker 1: says he loves the fact that people bring their own
27:14
Speaker 1: interpretation to those lyrics. I mean, in a way even
27:17
Speaker 1: he is. He cites that a lot of people think
27:20
Speaker 1: the chorus, which I thought originally was let me go
27:23
Speaker 1: wild like a Blister in the Sun's let Me Go On,
27:26
Speaker 1: And then he told an incredible story about doing an
27:29
Speaker 1: interview years and years after the album had been out,
27:32
Speaker 1: and somebody told them that they knew the song was
27:36
Speaker 1: about something that a lot of people assumed the song
27:39
Speaker 1: was about, right, And Gordon was like, what are you
27:42
Speaker 1: talking about? And He's like yeah, and God's like, that's
27:45
Speaker 1: absolutely not what I wrote the song about. And so
27:48
Speaker 1: Gordon loves that people bring their own interpretations.
27:51
Speaker 2: Nick Brown, author of Violent Fans, is part of the
27:53
Speaker 2: thirty three and a third series. Yeah, Blister in the
27:55
Speaker 2: Sun not originally written for the Violent Fans. What's the
27:59
Speaker 2: history behind this? He wrote it for a not necessarily
28:03
Speaker 2: even a friend. It's somebody he doesn't even he hasn't
28:05
Speaker 2: spoken to in years.
28:07
Speaker 1: So he met a woman out of poetry reading when
28:10
Speaker 1: he was in high school, before the Violent Fins existed.
28:13
Speaker 1: He was already writing a ton of songs at this point,
28:16
Speaker 1: and he had songs, but he met this woman. She
28:19
Speaker 1: said she wanted to form a band, that the band
28:22
Speaker 1: was going to sound like the Plasmatics. Was he interested
28:24
Speaker 1: in I think at this point Gordon was like, yeah,
28:26
Speaker 1: I'm interested in everything. You know, he was just playing
28:29
Speaker 1: with whoever, so he said, yeah, sure, and he went home,
28:32
Speaker 1: and then that night he wrote Blister in the Sun.
28:34
Speaker 1: He thought it would be cool if he showed up
28:36
Speaker 1: to practice. It was like, well, I have a song
28:40
Speaker 1: if you want to, you know, to sing one of
28:42
Speaker 1: my songs. And then the lady called him back the
28:45
Speaker 1: next day and the meeting, the band meeting was canceled.
28:48
Speaker 1: He never saw her again, and he had this song
28:51
Speaker 1: in his lap, and he said that if he saw
28:55
Speaker 1: a photo of that woman today, he wouldn't even know her.
28:58
Speaker 1: It was just a chance encounter. But that he heard
29:00
Speaker 1: years later she moved to Canada and joined the cult.
29:03
Speaker 1: He said. His quote was, she has no idea how
29:08
Speaker 1: narrowly she escaped.
29:11
Speaker 2: And from what I recall reading the book, I think
29:15
Speaker 2: the story was the bass part that opened It wasn't
29:18
Speaker 2: initially on the original version, or is it.
29:21
Speaker 1: I mean, clearly it's echoing the melody of you know
29:25
Speaker 1: the lyric right, but no, they Gordon played the song
29:30
Speaker 1: for the band and then right away, like the first
29:33
Speaker 1: time they heard it, Brian Ritchie played that opening phrase
29:36
Speaker 1: on the bass guitar that were so familiar with, and
29:39
Speaker 1: then Victor played the honestly extremely strange drum fill with
29:44
Speaker 1: the after that phrase, and they said it just came
29:48
Speaker 1: together like that, like that's just the first thing they played.
29:51
Speaker 1: And we talked a lot about why it has such lasting,
29:57
Speaker 1: you know power. Again, we don't necessarily have answers, but
30:02
Speaker 1: something interesting that they brought up was that Gordon kept
30:05
Speaker 1: referring to it as a fanfare and that that's why
30:08
Speaker 1: it works at sporting events with a you know, organist,
30:12
Speaker 1: And when I hear it in the stadium, I do
30:14
Speaker 1: think about that. It really does sound like, you know,
30:17
Speaker 1: like this some nights getting ready to trot out on
30:20
Speaker 1: his steed, and like who would have thought?
30:22
Speaker 2: And it's instant, people know it of all in all ages.
30:26
Speaker 1: Exactly is short, it's super unique. You can clap along
30:29
Speaker 1: and it's I mean it's a declarative statement.
30:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it works for all different Again, going back
30:35
Speaker 2: to when when we used to hear the song played
30:37
Speaker 2: in the club Thursday nights, when I was in college
30:39
Speaker 2: with people that are like mosch dancing, you know, when
30:42
Speaker 2: it get into the main course and I'd get involved
30:45
Speaker 2: in it. Two we're all like bouncing off each other,
30:46
Speaker 2: and I was like, yeah, you know. But then again
30:49
Speaker 2: also you can have like, you know, sixty seventy eight
30:52
Speaker 2: year old baseball fan just tappen totally.
30:55
Speaker 1: I have no idea. So, you know, my generation, our generation,
31:01
Speaker 1: we know this record inside out. I teach at Clemson,
31:05
Speaker 1: you know, so I'm around young people all the time,
31:08
Speaker 1: and a lot of them, you know, say, oh, Nick,
31:09
Speaker 1: what's your new book about. So it's about violent films?
31:12
Speaker 1: Like who's volun films? You know, some of them don't know,
31:14
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, you know them, and they all
31:16
Speaker 1: they do. And that goes for any generation, right as
31:19
Speaker 1: you mentioned, like the Grandpas they don't know the violin
31:21
Speaker 1: fems and You're like, yeah, you do. Just clapped along
31:25
Speaker 1: to them. Yeah, So it has become you know, it's
31:28
Speaker 1: funny for us. It was our countercultural anthem, you know,
31:32
Speaker 1: at a time in our lives, and now it's part
31:35
Speaker 1: of the soundtrack for the American Uh Pastime. And I
31:39
Speaker 1: you know something that would song was never a single.
31:42
Speaker 1: That song never charted. As Brian Ritchie likes to say,
31:46
Speaker 1: we don't have hits, we have classics. And he's a
31:50
Speaker 1: he's a machine of great quotes, and that's one. And
31:54
Speaker 1: you think about it, and you're like, you're right, Like
31:57
Speaker 1: these songs are classic, if not radio hits, they're bigger
32:00
Speaker 1: than hits. As their managers as their cultural hits.
32:03
Speaker 2: Didn't they push for it to be the lead single
32:06
Speaker 2: so the label chose a different one.
32:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, I push. I wouldn't say push, because I don't
32:11
Speaker 1: think they were really pushing much to the label at
32:14
Speaker 1: that point. They were so pleased to just have a
32:17
Speaker 1: record deal after really looking like they weren't going to
32:21
Speaker 1: get one, that they thought that Blister and the Sun
32:24
Speaker 1: should be the first single. The label Sire picked Gondaddy
32:30
Speaker 1: Gone as the single, and I you know, it's not
32:35
Speaker 1: that the band was really against that number. You know
32:38
Speaker 1: that tracked being the single either And honestly, like Blister
32:42
Speaker 1: and the Sun is the song we all know, but
32:44
Speaker 1: Gondaddy Gone is a great single too, you know. And
32:48
Speaker 1: the labels thought was that Gondaddy Gone was sonically more
32:52
Speaker 1: appropriate for the radio. It had a few more overdubs
32:55
Speaker 1: that had a bass drum plane on two and four
32:58
Speaker 1: strangely at tambourine and uh and of course a famous
33:04
Speaker 1: xylophone solo.
33:05
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, thanks so much for checking out the Booked
33:10
Speaker 2: on Rock podcast. If you've just found the podcast, welcome.
33:14
Speaker 2: If you've been listening, thank you so much for your support,
33:17
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33:19
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33:22
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33:24
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33:27
Speaker 2: listen to the Booked on Rock podcast, We're on Amazon, Apple, iHeart, Spotify, Spreaker,
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33:36
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Speaker 2: episodes on the Booked on Rock YouTube channel. Find it
33:41
Speaker 2: at Booked on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back
33:45
Speaker 2: to the show. Can you even explain how it goes
33:50
Speaker 2: from a song recorded that kind of gets forgotten and
33:54
Speaker 2: then over the next five, six, seven years, it's now
33:59
Speaker 2: you know, baseball stadiums, and it's in movies and TV shows.
34:03
Speaker 2: I mean, how do you explain that journey from underground
34:06
Speaker 2: college radio favorite to a genuine American pop culture standard
34:10
Speaker 2: at this point? How does it get there?
34:12
Speaker 1: Well, the first way it gets there are those eight
34:14
Speaker 1: years between when the album is released and when it
34:18
Speaker 1: reaches its peak popularity in nineteen ninety one, and what
34:22
Speaker 1: I described in that initial sort of incubation of the
34:25
Speaker 1: band's popularity is that they were going viral via cassette,
34:29
Speaker 1: and I really think that is a good description. It
34:35
Speaker 1: was slow motion, and because of the nature of the
34:38
Speaker 1: object and the way we were listening to music, then
34:41
Speaker 1: that generation connected to that album in a real intimate way,
34:46
Speaker 1: and so nobody was interested when the first when the
34:49
Speaker 1: record first came out, it started with college radio. As
34:51
Speaker 1: you mentioned, this viral sharing for eight years was happening,
34:56
Speaker 1: and then two things happened. One, their album, Whyde Do
35:02
Speaker 1: Birds Sing? Came out and it came out in nineteen
35:05
Speaker 1: ninety one and had a single on it, American Music,
35:09
Speaker 1: which is a great song, and that arrived right when
35:12
Speaker 1: the debut album. You know, forget about the three records
35:16
Speaker 1: that had come out in between. The debut album was
35:18
Speaker 1: peaking then, and I think that spark of Whyder Birds
35:22
Speaker 1: Sing helped catapult the debut as well. That's right around
35:26
Speaker 1: the same time that one hundred and twenty Minutes appeared
35:29
Speaker 1: on MTV and they started playing some more violent films,
35:33
Speaker 1: you know, viol films took Nirvana out as an opening act, right,
35:36
Speaker 1: and so all of a sudden, Nirvana is in the
35:39
Speaker 1: conversation in a way that didn't exist when the album
35:42
Speaker 1: came out. But they have this foundation of organic, intimate
35:48
Speaker 1: buy in, grassroots support, and so all of a sudden,
35:52
Speaker 1: then when the nineties started to appreciate, like you mentioned
35:57
Speaker 1: the songs that didn't fit in the weirdos, you know,
36:00
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, there was a commercial, there was
36:03
Speaker 1: commercial space for that, and the viol films were already there.
36:06
Speaker 1: They didn't even need the commercial space. They'd already done
36:09
Speaker 1: it without any of that, and so that just gave
36:11
Speaker 1: them this launching pad. And then at the end of
36:13
Speaker 1: the day, it's the integrity of the songwriting.
36:16
Speaker 2: Sure. Sure, I always wondered too, was there an initial
36:21
Speaker 2: team or somebody working for a team that said, hey,
36:24
Speaker 2: we should play this, you know, at a minor league
36:26
Speaker 2: team major I don't know, but you wonder about that too,
36:28
Speaker 2: because then all of a sudden it takes off and
36:30
Speaker 2: all the other teams are like, well, we should play
36:32
Speaker 2: that too, you know, like, you know, we can't not
36:35
Speaker 2: play it.
36:35
Speaker 1: At this point, I could not figure out the root
36:39
Speaker 1: of the stadium organist thing, and I tried, you know,
36:43
Speaker 1: Victor says he remembers hearing it for the first time
36:47
Speaker 1: in September two thousand at the baseball stadium, and he
36:53
Speaker 1: said he just couldn't believe it. And so that was
36:56
Speaker 1: the first time that I heard any of the band
36:58
Speaker 1: members had become aware of it. But yeah, I don't know.
37:02
Speaker 1: It is such a strange development.
37:04
Speaker 2: So gone, daddy, Gone. Let's get to the xylophone story.
37:08
Speaker 2: Talk about how that came about. The band played with
37:10
Speaker 2: without their drummer one day and then the bassis decides
37:14
Speaker 2: to put the bass away and play the xylophone. This
37:17
Speaker 2: is makes sense of this story. This is great.
37:21
Speaker 1: It really, this is pure violent fems. First of all,
37:23
Speaker 1: they Gordon the singer and Brian the bass player, had
37:28
Speaker 1: realized when they performed on the street without Victor the drummer,
37:31
Speaker 1: they made more money because Victor was a little bit
37:33
Speaker 1: older and more sort of like put together looking, and
37:36
Speaker 1: so when those two guys played solo, they would get
37:38
Speaker 1: more more money on the street. So they were doing
37:41
Speaker 1: that one day, just the two of them, and Brian
37:44
Speaker 1: had found the xylophone on the side of the street
37:47
Speaker 1: and brought it along with him, and yeah, set the
37:50
Speaker 1: bass down and just started playing. He couldn't have just
37:54
Speaker 1: come out of the gate with that solo. But he
37:56
Speaker 1: was playing a solo and playing that melody, I imagine
37:59
Speaker 1: in the verse he came up with the part that
38:02
Speaker 1: day on the street, and so that was the genesis. Now,
38:07
Speaker 1: of course, you can't play the xylophone and bass at
38:10
Speaker 1: the same time. So when they went into the studio
38:13
Speaker 1: that song they called the Big production number because they
38:17
Speaker 1: had like a few overdubs. All the tracks were tracked
38:21
Speaker 1: on eight track to save money in the studio. That
38:26
Speaker 1: track and Good Feeling were expanded to twenty four track
38:30
Speaker 1: for room for overdubs. But that xylophone part, you know,
38:36
Speaker 1: he was sort of inspired by some of the mallet
38:39
Speaker 1: work that the Stones did. But it is so hooky
38:44
Speaker 1: and so memorable and catchy that I have the same
38:48
Speaker 1: feeling about the xylophone part as I do about Brian
38:51
Speaker 1: Ritchie's bass solos, which is that we didn't know you
38:54
Speaker 1: and I I didn't know. I wasn't thinking that's a
38:55
Speaker 1: xylophone or that's a bass solo. I was just thinking
38:58
Speaker 1: this rocks, Like, this is so great, and it's incredible
39:02
Speaker 1: that they they like sort of masked what was happening
39:07
Speaker 1: for us.
39:07
Speaker 2: It just fits. Next track, kiss Off feels almost like
39:10
Speaker 2: a stream of consciousness, especially with the famous counting sequence.
39:15
Speaker 2: What did you discover about Gordon's songwriting process that made
39:18
Speaker 2: a song like that possible?
39:20
Speaker 1: I listened to a lot of music, a lot of
39:24
Speaker 1: you know, music that people would think was sort of
39:27
Speaker 1: like h edgy for my age at the time, right Misfit,
39:31
Speaker 1: Jed Kennedy's all This. There was no album that I
39:35
Speaker 1: turned down. My mom couldn't have cared less what I
39:38
Speaker 1: listened to go on, But this was the record that
39:41
Speaker 1: I always turned the volume down for. It's because of
39:43
Speaker 1: songs like kiss Off, where Gordon is saying things that
39:48
Speaker 1: feel dangerous and explosive, not because we haven't heard those
39:52
Speaker 1: same words in different songs, but because we have such
39:56
Speaker 1: access to him in that sonic setting, it feels like
39:59
Speaker 1: we're talking to a friend, or as Gordon said, sometimes
40:02
Speaker 1: it feels like you're reading somebody's diary. So I think
40:06
Speaker 1: whether Gordon was aware of that at all times or
40:10
Speaker 1: not when he was talking about the song kiss Off,
40:15
Speaker 1: you know he did. He knew that parts of it,
40:19
Speaker 1: you know, felt edgy, and he wanted it to feel
40:22
Speaker 1: that way. And you know that song has the classic
40:26
Speaker 1: in the countdown, which is incredibly memorable. It has the
40:30
Speaker 1: classic line when he gets to eight where he says,
40:32
Speaker 1: eight eight, I forget what eight was for. And he
40:35
Speaker 1: always jokes to people who are like you always forget
40:37
Speaker 1: what it was for. He's like, I wrote it that way.
40:39
Speaker 1: That's how it's supposed to be.
40:41
Speaker 2: You know, I think when I when I hear his voice,
40:44
Speaker 2: I was thinking of Daniel Johnston the music in general,
40:50
Speaker 2: but his voice. But there was another somebody. Oh, I
40:56
Speaker 2: was thinking of Perry Ferrell. I think there's a bit
40:59
Speaker 2: of that in there.
41:01
Speaker 1: Yeah. Wow, I never thought about that.
41:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
41:05
Speaker 1: I mean, of course, you know his Jonathan Richmond and
41:07
Speaker 1: lou Reid were his original influences, but he doesn't have
41:10
Speaker 1: the same timber of voice, at least as lou Reid.
41:13
Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad you mentioned that because you could hear
41:15
Speaker 2: the Lou Reed influence in this. In this music, you
41:17
Speaker 2: can definitely hear that and the lyrics.
41:20
Speaker 1: It's it's funny, I think for a lot of people.
41:22
Speaker 1: For me, I knew the films first, right, and then.
41:25
Speaker 2: I hear just did an episode on the Violent Fems.
41:27
Speaker 2: By the way, people should check out great new book.
41:30
Speaker 1: You know, when you hear lou Reid after the fact,
41:33
Speaker 1: I was like, oh yeah, lou Reid sounds a little
41:36
Speaker 1: like violent, right is the classic reverse. But once you
41:41
Speaker 1: know that, you go back and you listen and you
41:43
Speaker 1: really hear it.
41:44
Speaker 2: At work, a lot of people they look at Added Up.
41:46
Speaker 2: The next track is the emotional centerpiece of the album.
41:50
Speaker 2: Why do you think it still connects so powerfully with
41:52
Speaker 2: listeners more than forty years later.
41:54
Speaker 1: I think because it was written from a actually a
42:00
Speaker 1: wolf space where Gordon was feeling those things that he
42:03
Speaker 1: was writing about. A lot of people talk about this
42:05
Speaker 1: album as a classic example of teen angst, right, and
42:10
Speaker 1: Gordon says, first of all, I wasn't trying to capture
42:14
Speaker 1: teen angst. I was a teenager, right. But then you know,
42:19
Speaker 1: an important point that he makes about Added it Up
42:22
Speaker 1: and the whole album in general, really is that if
42:27
Speaker 1: those songs were only about teen angst, he'd have a
42:30
Speaker 1: hard time singing them now forty three years later, And
42:35
Speaker 1: a lot of what he's talking about is about the
42:38
Speaker 1: human condition that maybe the volumes just turned up when
42:41
Speaker 1: we're teenagers, but Added Up definitely felt like, you know,
42:46
Speaker 1: when you're in a room of young people and added
42:49
Speaker 1: Up comes on that's our anthem right there. Every line,
42:53
Speaker 1: I was like, I feel you, man.
42:56
Speaker 2: Is there a song? Is this a song that you
42:58
Speaker 2: would say has been overshadowed by Blister and the Sun?
43:02
Speaker 2: Or are there are other songs in this album that you
43:04
Speaker 2: would say have been overshadowed by Blister in the Sun.
43:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know, I think the whole record has
43:13
Speaker 1: been a little overshadowed, overshadowed by Blister in the Sun.
43:17
Speaker 1: But something that is interesting that has come up with
43:22
Speaker 1: me when I was thinking about the record at first,
43:24
Speaker 1: and with a lot of people I've talked to, is
43:26
Speaker 1: that I really I mean, this might sound crazy, but
43:30
Speaker 1: I think I don't think of this album as songs.
43:33
Speaker 1: I think of it as one one continuous song, and
43:38
Speaker 1: I'll get the bridge of Added Up and the verses
43:41
Speaker 1: of kiss Off and other, you know, solo is sort
43:44
Speaker 1: of all They all seem like they're from the same
43:46
Speaker 1: song because it's such a cohesive artistic statement. So I
43:49
Speaker 1: think for people who love the record, we just get
43:52
Speaker 1: the whole thing right tracks one through ten, But Blister
43:57
Speaker 1: in the Sun has a life of its own, you know,
44:02
Speaker 1: beyond any of them.
44:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, Because that's the question, is that the intimacy of
44:05
Speaker 2: the sound of the recording of the lyrics, as to
44:09
Speaker 2: why people connected so quickly with it when they finally
44:14
Speaker 2: when it finally came around to them, because it took
44:17
Speaker 2: so long, It took years for it to wind up
44:21
Speaker 2: in the hands of somebody via cassette or whatever it
44:24
Speaker 2: may be. But yeah, it connects so quickly and so deeply.
44:28
Speaker 1: You and I piece of art. Yeah, absolutely, But you know,
44:33
Speaker 1: we can spend a lot of time thinking about, you know,
44:36
Speaker 1: why why did this happen? And we do, right, I mean,
44:39
Speaker 1: that's our job. And I was talking to those guys
44:42
Speaker 1: about the same question a lot, and Brian Ritchie was
44:44
Speaker 1: the one who finally said, yeah, you know, at the
44:46
Speaker 1: end of the day, the songs are they're catchy and
44:49
Speaker 1: they kick ass, and I'm like, you know what, right not? Yeah,
44:55
Speaker 1: all that other stuff is at work too, But if
44:58
Speaker 1: the songs.
44:59
Speaker 2: There's something. But it's I like looking at see I
45:00
Speaker 2: view all these songs and these albums as I'm sure
45:03
Speaker 2: you'd do as like a it's like a looking at
45:05
Speaker 2: a painting on a wall and there's something. Sometimes I
45:07
Speaker 2: look at a painting and I'm like, there's something about
45:09
Speaker 2: this painting that's just pulling me in and I whether
45:12
Speaker 2: it be just the expression on the face of that
45:14
Speaker 2: person or the way that the colors that have been used,
45:17
Speaker 2: or whatever it may be. Yeah, well, you know they're
45:21
Speaker 2: simplifying it because it's a great piece of art.
45:23
Speaker 1: Right and all that stuff that we can't quantify as
45:26
Speaker 1: of course the real magic.
45:28
Speaker 2: So the Violent Fems became successful almost entirely through grassroots momentum.
45:34
Speaker 2: In today's streaming era, do you think the album, an
45:38
Speaker 2: album like this could still build that kind of following
45:42
Speaker 2: or was it a product of a very specific moment
45:45
Speaker 2: in music history?
45:46
Speaker 1: Great question, something I thought about a lot. So you know,
45:51
Speaker 1: my first answer would be that this route that happened
45:54
Speaker 1: with the films really could only have happened in the
45:58
Speaker 1: eighties going into the nine, especially in the just the
46:01
Speaker 1: physical delivery of the album, which with the cassette dubbing
46:05
Speaker 1: culture and all that, and so you know that's where
46:10
Speaker 1: I start. But I pose this question to Jeff Castle
46:13
Speaker 1: as who's their manager. He's president, former president of Electric Records,
46:17
Speaker 1: and he is, you know, has a perspective on the
46:20
Speaker 1: industry that I don't have, And I said, could could
46:23
Speaker 1: a record like could this happen again today? He said, Yeah,
46:27
Speaker 1: that's Phoebee Bridges, it's Billie Eilish. Those are two examples
46:31
Speaker 1: of how that happens today. I have a daughter who's seventeen.
46:34
Speaker 1: I was thinking about her getting into both of those artists.
46:36
Speaker 1: And it's different, right, It's different than us getting the
46:39
Speaker 1: cassette tape.
46:40
Speaker 2: But I think but TikTok has replaced the cassette tape.
46:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess so, you know, Yeah, it's just all
46:49
Speaker 1: about sharing. Yeah, that's I think. I love that.
46:51
Speaker 2: That's a great TikTok has brought on a resurgence of
46:55
Speaker 2: interest and love for Fleetwood Mac's rumors. You know, they're books,
47:00
Speaker 2: the articles written about that.
47:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a way of sharing what you're into in
47:05
Speaker 1: a way that isn't radio or you know, Apple Music
47:08
Speaker 1: or Spotify. But yeah, I just not this was a
47:14
Speaker 1: real product of its time, and I love that.
47:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a beauty in that. Yeah, you're talking to
47:23
Speaker 2: a grateful Dead fan. So the the that's the similar
47:27
Speaker 2: concept of sharing the recordings of these shows. It's exactly
47:33
Speaker 2: how I became a grateful Dead fan through that same
47:35
Speaker 2: older brother who had violent femmes blistering, So he had
47:39
Speaker 2: the whole album mind Cassette is a Deadhead and handed
47:44
Speaker 2: me New Haven seventy seven Grateful Dead and instantly became
47:48
Speaker 2: a fan. Yeah, but you know again that's TikTok is
47:51
Speaker 2: that kind of thing.
47:52
Speaker 1: So well, you know, I've been thinking about, uh, this
47:56
Speaker 1: sounds high minded, but I've been thinking about the value
47:59
Speaker 1: of art, Like how do you quantify the value of art?
48:02
Speaker 1: And when you say value, you know, it brings to
48:05
Speaker 1: mind like financial value, and of course that's something that
48:07
Speaker 1: art has, and there's a lot of money in it.
48:09
Speaker 1: But I think, I like a lot of the value
48:12
Speaker 1: in art is actually community. If you think about people
48:15
Speaker 1: who fall in love with a song or an art object,
48:18
Speaker 1: A lot of that happens in the museum. People who
48:20
Speaker 1: love music coming together. You know, that weird magic of
48:24
Speaker 1: people coming together and experiencing art together is I think
48:27
Speaker 1: the ultimate value of art. And a lot of that's
48:30
Speaker 1: what you're talking about with the Grateful Dead sharing culture,
48:33
Speaker 1: and same with that slow burn of the introduction, the
48:37
Speaker 1: intimate introduction of hey man, listen to this, you know who?
48:41
Speaker 1: That is real potent.
48:45
Speaker 2: The book Don Rock podcast is part of the Boneless
48:48
Speaker 2: podcasting network. If you're a fan of classic rock and
48:50
Speaker 2: classic film like I am, go to boneless dot lovable
48:54
Speaker 2: dot app to find over twenty great shows there that's
48:57
Speaker 2: boneless downlovable dot app, or just go to booked on
49:00
Speaker 2: rock dot com the Bonus podcasting network. It is what
49:04
Speaker 2: you want to be listen with confidence. You titled the
49:09
Speaker 2: epilogue and Dreams Begin Responsibilities, borrowing the phrase with a
49:14
Speaker 2: rich little history, and there's also a great lou Read connection.
49:18
Speaker 2: Why did you feel that was the right way to
49:20
Speaker 2: conclude the story of this Violfem's debut album.
49:23
Speaker 1: I was just talking about community and art, and I
49:27
Speaker 1: guess a different way from me to phrase that would
49:30
Speaker 1: be connection between people with art, right, And that was
49:34
Speaker 1: what I was thinking about in that final epilogue, Gordon
49:38
Speaker 1: told me. And when I was interviewing him, he was
49:40
Speaker 1: talking about lou Reid, and in an aside, he said,
49:42
Speaker 1: you know, lou Reid asked every writer who was going
49:47
Speaker 1: to interview him to first read the short story and
49:49
Speaker 1: Dreams Begin Responsibilities by Delmore Schwartz, a poet who had
49:53
Speaker 1: been one of Lou Reed's professors at Syracuse and interesting anecdote,
50:00
Speaker 1: I made a joke that I'd never read it, even
50:02
Speaker 1: though I'm an English professor, and then we moved on
50:04
Speaker 1: with the interview, and then, you know, a month later,
50:07
Speaker 1: when I was driving to see the guys in person,
50:09
Speaker 1: it came to me in a flash in the car.
50:12
Speaker 1: I thought, what if Gordon asked me about that story?
50:16
Speaker 1: Like I felt like it was secret homework. And I
50:18
Speaker 1: read the story right before I saw them, just in
50:22
Speaker 1: the hotel room before the uber picked me up, saw
50:25
Speaker 1: the show went backstage. It was the first time I'd
50:27
Speaker 1: seen Gordon in person since we'd spoken about that. He
50:31
Speaker 1: had two friends in the room with him, he said Nick.
50:33
Speaker 1: I said hey. He introduced me to his friends and
50:35
Speaker 1: maybe twenty seconds had passed and he said, hey, man,
50:37
Speaker 1: did you ever read that Delmore short story? And I
50:39
Speaker 1: felt like I'd studied just the right you know, a
50:42
Speaker 1: topic for a pop quiz. And I said, yeah, man,
50:45
Speaker 1: that is an incredible story. And his friend said, oh,
50:48
Speaker 1: what's it about? And I gave this plot summary, a
50:51
Speaker 1: three sentence plot summary four cent you know, very short.
50:54
Speaker 1: But it was the best plot summary ever because I
50:56
Speaker 1: just read it and I described to his friends what
51:00
Speaker 1: the story is about. In Gordon, so I just got goosebumps,
51:04
Speaker 1: and I thought, this is incredible that this thing that
51:07
Speaker 1: lou Reid wanted to share with people was then passed
51:11
Speaker 1: on to Gordon, who passed it onto me, and then
51:14
Speaker 1: I just cycled it back to Gordon and like a
51:18
Speaker 1: magical goosebump inducing connection that's sourced from Delmore Shortz to
51:23
Speaker 1: lou Reed to Gordon Gayana to me is about as
51:27
Speaker 1: good as it gets.
51:28
Speaker 2: What a great moment. Yeah, magical, truly it was.
51:32
Speaker 1: And then honestly I pretty much left then. I mean,
51:35
Speaker 1: he was doing he didn't need to hang out with me,
51:36
Speaker 1: but I knew it's not gonna get much better than this.
51:40
Speaker 1: For a minute or two, I said, thanks man, I'll
51:41
Speaker 1: be in touch you guys. I'll see you. I went
51:44
Speaker 1: back and then this is true. I went back to
51:46
Speaker 1: the hotel, got a whiskey, went up to my room,
51:48
Speaker 1: turned on the Dodgers game, and uh, right then the
51:52
Speaker 1: organists played blisters.
51:54
Speaker 2: Is that cool? That's that is in the book, by
51:56
Speaker 2: the way, that's awesome. Yeah. The album Violent Fems The
52:01
Speaker 2: book titled Violent Femmes, part of the thirty three and
52:03
Speaker 2: a third series. It's out now and people could find
52:06
Speaker 2: it wherever books are sold. You could also look forward
52:08
Speaker 2: at your nearest independent bookstore and see if one's there.
52:11
Speaker 2: If they don't have one, tell me to get one.
52:12
Speaker 2: You can go to a book down rock dot com
52:14
Speaker 2: to find your nearest independent bookstore. And Nick, where can
52:17
Speaker 2: people find you online?
52:19
Speaker 1: They can find me at nick Brown dot net. And
52:21
Speaker 1: that's Nick with nic spelled nic.
52:24
Speaker 2: Nick, thank you so much for coming on. I love
52:28
Speaker 2: this thirty three and a third series, and you know,
52:31
Speaker 2: all these books are just so cool because they're for
52:33
Speaker 2: people like myself who just want to dig deep into
52:37
Speaker 2: this and really get into like the emotional core of
52:39
Speaker 2: these albums, not so much how the songs are made,
52:42
Speaker 2: which I'm fascinated with, but so much more than that.
52:45
Speaker 2: And you nailed it on this one.
52:47
Speaker 1: Thank you. And this was a super cool conversation too.
52:50
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. That's it. It's in the books.