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VIVA WISCONSIN
Violent Femmes
In lieu of a long-overdue new studio album -- their last one was six years ago; their last half-decent one nine years ago -- The Violent Femmes offer up this 72-minute live album recorded in their home state of Wisconsin in late 1998. Fourteen of these 20 tracks hail from the first three years of their recording career, fuelling suspicions that the trio's best days are long behind them, but obviously they remain a potent live act with a repertoire that's very much their own. Not many acts could make a crowd happily sing along to a tune about a father who hangs himself in a barn after pushing his "lovely daughter" in a deep, dark well, then make the same crowd go really wild with an ode to the embarrassing aftermath of masturbation. Then again, not many acts have a frontman-songwriter like nasally voiced Gordon Gano, whose fondness for backwoods murder ballads, Baptist spirituals, Willie Dixon, The Velvet Underground and black humour permeates all of his songs. He may be getting a little long in the tooth to be singing Gimme The Car, an early B-side about a teen whose lust turns into psychosis, but the beautiful, VU-inspired ballads Good Feeling and the deep, anguished blues of Confessions are songs for the ages, while American Music is not only a joyous strum 'n' shuffle, but also the Femmes' feel-good manifesto.
Track Listing
1.Prove My Love
02.I'm Nothing
03.Country Death Song
04.Blister In The Sun
05.Gimmie The Car
06.Don't Talk About My Music
07.Confessions
08.Hallowed Ground
09.Life Is An Adventure
10.Old Mother Reagan
11.Ugly
12.Good Feeling
13.Dahmer Is Dead
14.American Music
15.Special
16.Sweet Words Of Angels
17.Black Girls
18.Gone Daddy Gone
19.Add It Up
20.Kiss Off