Friday, Nov. 1, 1985
University Daily Kansan
Campus/Area
7
Violent Femmes, a band from Milwaukee, is scheduled to play to a sellout crowd of 1,200 tonight in the Kansas Union Ballroom. The band members are, from left, Victor DeLorenzo, Ganon Gano and Brian Ritchie.
1.200 to see Femmes tonight
By Mike Snider Of the Kansan staff
One band — but a myriad of sounds
That's the easiest way to describe the music of the Violent Femmes. Most people label the band "progressive," but the Femmes cover more territory than that.
"Our music is more organic," bassist Brian Ritchie said Wednesday in a telephone interview from St. Louis. "We don't sit down and decide to change our form of music. Blues, jazz, gospel, Arabic music and funk. Whatever music it is, someone in the band loves it."
The Violent Femmes are scheduled to invade the Kansas Union Ballroom at 8 p.m. today to play to a salloub crowd of about 1,200 in a concert sponsored by Student Union Activities.
The band's members — lea
vocalist Gordon Gano, bassist Brian
Ritchie and drummer Vincent
Delorenzo — are covering the
Midwest campus circuit. They will
play the second sellout concert in
SUA Special Events Standing Room
Only series, which began with
another progressive band, X.
The show has been sold out since Monday evening.
The Violent Femmes thrive on different types of music to produce their
They blend their own brand of blues in the song "Sweet Misery Blues." The hard, pulsating "To The Kill" shows a more rock-oriented facet of the band. They update gospel music in "Jesus Walking on the Water" and "It's Gonna Rain."
Ritchie said, "We don't limit what we listen to, so why should we limit what we play? Instead of limiting what we play, we blend different styles of music, and it's more interesting."
own brand of freestyle rock. That variety shows up in their two albums, "Violent Femmes" and "Hallowed Ground."
Reduce the group's components to bare bones, and one wonders how it creates moods like the melancholy ambiance of the song "Hallowed Ground."
Gordon Gano's voice has the presence of Mick Jagger, especially on "Blister in the Sun" and ballads including "I Know It's True, But I'm Sorry To Say" and "Good Feeling."
Gano reminds listeners of Jim Morrison in the prose recitation before "Hallowed Ground" and the soliloquy that precedes the onslaught of "Add It Up."
But don't get the idea that the Femmes' instrumentation plays second fiddle to Gano's vocals. Without Ritchie's tight, thumping bass and Delorenzo's innovative percussion.
the moods couldn't be set. "Please Do Not Go" is a perfect example of how they set the atmosphere for Gano's pleading character.
KJHK-FM program director Alan Kloster said yesterday, "The Violent Femmes are probably one of the most requested bands we have. We get at least four to six requests a day, mostly for their first album. That's a lot."
When the Violent Femmes, from Milwaukee, started playing together in 1981, they would play on the streets because they couldn't get jobs in nightclubs.
"That's how we arrived at our acoustical approach." Ritchie said.
The group added The Horns of Dilemma, a brass backup group led by Peter Balkstriere on saxophone, for their second album, providing a seasoning to the Femmes' music that already had been spiced up by their increased use of keyboards, banjo and autoharp.
Bitchie said the fuller sound would be evident when they play music from their new album, tentatively titled "The Blind Leading the Naked."
The album, to be released in January, was produced by Talking Heads keyboard player Jerry Harrison.
Ritchie said the band had enjoyed playing the Midwest.
---
On the Record
A 22-year-old student reported to KU police Monday that a camera lens valued at $500 was taken from his camera bag at Stauffer-Flint Hall. KU police said yesterday.
A 39-year-old woman told Lawrence police Monday afternoon that an amber necklace and a pair of gold earrings, together valued at $1,950, and video equipment and miscellaneous items valued at $350 were taken from her home in the 200 block of Pine Drive, police said.
A 18-year-old woman told Lawrence police Monday evening that cassette tape valued at $176 and a brown vinyl tape case valued at $30 were taken from her apartment in the 1200 block of Kentucky Street, police said.
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