You just might stop to check this out
March 11, 2015 8:59 AM   Subscribe

Violent Femmes have just released "Love, Love, Love, Love," their first new song in 15 years. It's one of four songs from their new EP, Happy New Year, scheduled to be released in June.
posted by Room 641-A (46 comments total) 29 users marked this as a favorite
 
Oh this is GREAT news! Excellent title, by the way.
posted by a hat out of hell at 9:04 AM on March 11, 2015


Oh hell yes.
posted by Palindromedary at 9:08 AM on March 11, 2015


Going one better than Love, Love, Love.
posted by sobarel at 9:11 AM on March 11, 2015


My husband and I just had a discussion about them. We were trying to decide if we loved Violent Femmes because they represent a certain age and time in our lives or because their music is actually really good (or both). In other words, is their music just okay but we can't tell because we have so many other connotations wrapped up in it? We couldn't decide. A new song is just the way to get a new perspective on them.

. . . Now I'm afraid to listen to it.
posted by barchan at 9:14 AM on March 11, 2015 [7 favorites]


I think it's because they're good. Gordon Gano is one of those singers. You know it's him as soon as you hear it, and you can't help but feel the emotion in his voice. And they've written so many songs that nobody else could or would ever do.
posted by jeffamaphone at 9:28 AM on March 11, 2015 [5 favorites]


I saw them live last summer at a festival in Toronto; it was a pretty fun set. They first played their entire first album from front to back, and then a smattering of their more fantastic later songs (country death song, old mother reagan, and nothing at all from New Times).

This new one is a pretty excellent song! I like the horn, and it gets at the kind of teen angst that the Femmes were the best at capturing back in the day; I think their touring has maybe gotten them in close touch with their early catalouge. And I think that lately it's a much more respectable move for an awesome band to flesh out and revisit their sound than to try to completely reinvent themselves. I approve.
posted by kaibutsu at 9:29 AM on March 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


This is awesome.
posted by Mchelly at 9:49 AM on March 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


There are some bands/songs which make you nostalgic for an idealized teenagehood, the kind you wanted to have or maybe even actually had for a moment here and there. The 'Femmes sang about being a teenager like it actually was, at least for me. I can listen to their first album now and still enjoy it without getting misty-eyed about "lost youth" from my bad-knees, middle-age viewpoint.

They seem like three very talented people, Ritchie on bass is certainly in the very top tier of rock bassists. They're also one of the few bands where I really could care less whether pandora plays a live version or a studio version--both are strong, unlike some acts whose live stuff is often just phoned in.

And they do great covers. I don't think their cover of "Crazy" is better than Gnarls, but it's good and different. Their cover of "Did You Really Want to Hurt Me?" remains my favorite of that song.
posted by maxwelton at 9:50 AM on March 11, 2015 [6 favorites]


Welp ...... Looks like I'm going to listen to nothing but Femmes today ....
posted by sciurine at 9:57 AM on March 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'm still a bit miffed at Amanda Palmer's sidelining of The Dresden Dolls, but having Brian Viglione involved with Violent Femmes is a worthy alternative. He's really an amazing drummer / performer.
posted by markkraft at 10:00 AM on March 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


Looking forward to hearing this. Was Victor DeLorenzo involved?
posted by Joey Michaels at 10:10 AM on March 11, 2015


1. This is much better than I expected. The VF's alternative post-punk has mellowed just enough, not too much.

2. Wow they have a lot more albums than I would have guessed. (Most of Violent Femmes was burnt into my adolescent brain, clips and cuts of it bubbling up through the muck thereafter. But I haven't heard anything from anything after Hallowed Ground.
posted by chavenet at 10:31 AM on March 11, 2015


Was Victor DeLorenzo involved?

He was initially involved in this reunion cycle, but split somewhat acrimoniously again in 2013.
posted by anazgnos at 10:34 AM on March 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


oooooo, saw them on July 4th, 1991....excellent...!!!!!!!!
posted by Confess, Fletch at 10:35 AM on March 11, 2015


My favorite band. I'm pushing 50, and they are still my favorite (modern) band. I have everything they've ever recorded, even the stuff that's terrible. I listen to Viva Wisconsin in the car.

I have never seen them live. They are coming to my city in June (with BNL and Colin Hay, of all people). I feel like this is probably (no hyperbole) my last chance to see them live before either Gordon dies or I do.

I can't go. We have a prior commitment. Adulting sucks, I just can't tell you.
posted by anastasiav at 10:38 AM on March 11, 2015 [5 favorites]


I listen to Viva Wisconsin in the car.

Wow. Dedication.

I was a little disappointed this morning when I saw that Add It Up (1981 - 1993) wasn't on Spotify.
posted by jeffamaphone at 10:41 AM on March 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


Wow. Dedication.

It makes it feel like summer even in the dead of winter here.
posted by anastasiav at 10:45 AM on March 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


There are some bands/songs which make you nostalgic for an idealized teenagehood, the kind you wanted to have or maybe even actually had for a moment here and there. The 'Femmes sang about being a teenager like it actually was, at least for me. I can listen to their first album now and still enjoy it without getting misty-eyed about "lost youth" from my bad-knees, middle-age viewpoint.

Hell yes, maxwelton.
I have a friend who is over a decade younger than me and we were driving somewhere and he put in their first album with extra songs added and he couldn't understand my visceral response to the extra songs. They were WRONG. (But then, I was drunk and being driven around by some young dude late at night, so it was completely like being a teenager. Except I am married and not lovelorn. But damn if I didn't feel lovelorn that night.
I listen to their music and I know the emotions. I feel them again and they aren't hackneyed.
posted by Seamus at 10:46 AM on March 11, 2015 [2 favorites]


Going to see them live this summer. They're opening for Bare Naked Ladies... which made me sad. I don't think of Femmes as an opening band.

This is good stuff, this song.
posted by edheil at 10:50 AM on March 11, 2015 [2 favorites]


I like the new song. It makes me want to hear more.

It did make me go to Spotify to listen to some of their music and I was reminded again how much I hate spotify. Why can't I sort sort albums chronologically. I want to listen to their music in the order I heard it.
Their self titled album makes me think of riding around in a '79 Celica with the canoe on the roof to go down to get high under a bridge over the Chattahoochee.
Hallowed Ground makes me think of a bus on a long, overnight school trip. Not sure where, just the open windows and the rumble.
The Blind Leading the Naked reminds me of a certain friend's basement.
Three reminds me a certain ponderosa forest in NM and some forelorn wanderings.
And on and on and on
BUT I WANT IT IN ORDER
Damn you modern world and your limitations on my instant gratification.
posted by Seamus at 10:53 AM on March 11, 2015 [3 favorites]


So the song is actually called "Love, Love, Love, Love, Love" rather than "Love, Love, Love, Love" which poses the following problem: how does one construct a play list of increasing love?
There seems to be one entry missing...

Love - John Lennon
Love-Love - Popol Vuh
Love, Love, Love - Donny Hathaway (or alt: Love Love Love - Lenny Kravitz)
???
Love, Love, Love, Love, Love - Violent Femmes
posted by Hairy Lobster at 11:11 AM on March 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


You can get this earlier if you get it on Record Store Day
posted by rhizome at 11:44 AM on March 11, 2015


We like all kinds of music.
posted by dr_dank at 12:11 PM on March 11, 2015 [2 favorites]


Might I also recommend Pansy Division's "Luv Luv Luv" ?!
posted by markkraft at 12:35 PM on March 11, 2015


Tasmania's own Brain Ritchie. We let him out for a while to work on this new material. You're welcome.
posted by Jimbob at 12:37 PM on March 11, 2015


In other words, is their music just okay but we can't tell because we have so many other connotations wrapped up in it?

I feel the same. Listen to it. It is great. It is both good music AND also brings back all the connotations, for good or for bad.
posted by vacapinta at 12:58 PM on March 11, 2015 [2 favorites]


I just listened to The Violent Femmes for the first time in like 20 years, and if you haven't lately, and you were born between 1965-1975, you should. Yes, it is partly nostalgic, there has been very little like it before or since, but it is still astoundingly good, the kind of good that gets better with age and a greater appreciation of nuance. Gano is one of rock's best lyricists and no one has ever better conveyed the frustration of being a teenager. The rest of their early catalog is/was widely unappreciated as well, but The Violent Femmes has got to be one of the best debut albums by a band ever.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 12:58 PM on March 11, 2015 [6 favorites]


I love these guys. I think they ere the only band I can claim to to have seen before they had made it to the big time. Back in the very early 1980's, they would crash street festivals in Milwaukee - set up in a doorway and play until they were kicked out. One of the advantages of (or maybe reason for?) being acoustic. They were always a great, random surprise.
posted by rtimmel at 1:08 PM on March 11, 2015


Okay. At this point in my life I have surely by now played a thousand or two shows. Out of them all, the one where I and a couple friends covered their entire first album front-to-back maybe my fondest and most emotional. I pulled triple duty: I sang (one of my super-rare vocal jobs, but Gano's voice is one of the few I can absolutely nail), played bass (acoustic of course), and we even scored a marimba for the occasion and I learned the Gone, Daddy, Gone solo note for note. I tell you; all my shows, all my audiences, and I never felt any more ecstatic to be on stage as when I pegged that first note on "Add It Up" and heard the audience just light up. I know it was a cover night, but still...

I have always posited that their first album was a type of concept album: our narrator isn't getting any and he's miserable. Then he finally gets some and sings "Good Feeling". Yeah, it's a simple story, but it's cohesive.
posted by sourwookie at 1:26 PM on March 11, 2015 [4 favorites]


Going one better than Love, Love, Love.
---
Love - John Lennon
Love-Love - Popol Vuh
Love, Love, Love - Donny Hathaway (or alt: Love Love Love - Lenny Kravitz)
???
Love, Love, Love, Love, Love - Violent Femmes
---
Might I also recommend Pansy Division's "Luv Luv Luv"?!


The Mountain Goats also have a "Love Love Love". So far a pretty great little playlist!
posted by jason_steakums at 1:33 PM on March 11, 2015


I have always posited that their first album was a type of concept album: our narrator isn't getting any and he's miserable. Then he finally gets some and sings "Good Feeling". Yeah, it's a simple story, but it's cohesive.

Now I'm going to have to listen to it AGAIN today! (That's teenagerdom in a nutshell, isn't it?)
posted by chavenet at 1:40 PM on March 11, 2015 [3 favorites]


Gordon Gano and Frank Black/Black Francis: both singers who tried to sound like Lou Reed but their voices were too high.
posted by larrybob at 1:46 PM on March 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


I could swear that I read an article in the late 90s/early aughts in which either one of the Femmes or a "source close to the band" said frankly that they didn't like each other much any more, but had to ride out their major label deal because they had families and needed the money. It didn't come off as crass or sellout, either. It was more like an admission that being a working band can be a drag, but: responsibilities. I wonder if they get along again, or if they just have an uneasy truce to keep the band going for everyone's sake.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:58 PM on March 11, 2015


Gordon Gano and Frank Black/Black Francis: both singers who tried to sound like Lou Reed but their voices were too high.

I don't think either guy was trying to sound like anybody. They just started hollering and that's the sound that came out.

To me Gano has a trembling, seething quality that's miles away from Reed. Reed has a 2 AM weariness, there is a quiet in his voice. Gano often sounds like he's on the brink of emotional collapse, like he's backed into a corner and too freaked out to hit one goddamn note that isn't true. When he really goes nuts, he sings like James Dean's freakout in Rebel Without a Cause. "YOU'RE TEARING ME APART!"
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:14 PM on March 11, 2015 [2 favorites]


I feel the same. Listen to it. It is great. It is both good music AND also brings back all the connotations, for good or for bad.

I did! It is great and to my wonderful surprise I found that the band has grown up with me. Or that the lyrics were still relatable and hit how I feel now as a non-youngster. Or something along those lines, not quite describing it. Also memories. Anyway, now I am happily looking forward to the album.
posted by barchan at 2:24 PM on March 11, 2015


Hey Gordon remember that song yall did with the counting and stuff you should hearken back to that for a nostalgia hook

CHECK

And try to sound more like Patti Smith

CHECK

Horn blats?

CHECK

We got ourselves a single boys
posted by BitterOldPunk at 2:39 PM on March 11, 2015


I could swear that I read an article in the late 90s/early aughts in which either one of the Femmes or a "source close to the band" said frankly that they didn't like each other much any more, but had to ride out their major label deal because they had families and needed the money. It didn't come off as crass or sellout, either. It was more like an admission that being a working band can be a drag, but: responsibilities. I wonder if they get along again, or if they just have an uneasy truce to keep the band going for everyone's sake.

Oh, just look at their wikipedia page. There have been lawsuits, public mudslinging, songs sold to commercial interests, open admissions that the band was no longer a viable artistic entity and would only be a cash cow for touring or corporate gigs. It's all pretty much laid out there. And this current cycle, which started with what was outwardly a renewed bonhomie with all original principals on board, immediately hit the rocks with Delorenzo walking/being pushed out after two shows, grousing about money and ruined relationships. By all indications, they're still a mess!
posted by anazgnos at 2:45 PM on March 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'm so pleased to see this, and pleased that it's good and still takes me to that same teenage place (or set of places), and even more pleased to see you guys all in here feeling the same. Thanks for posting it.
posted by LobsterMitten at 3:12 PM on March 11, 2015


For about five years I had a MIDI Blister in the Sun as my phone ringtone. One day I ran into a guy who also had it, and was like "I totally have that ringtone!" Awkward broken eye contact silence ensued. It was the best!

Once in a while I catch myself singing Add it Up for no reason at all.
posted by BrotherCaine at 3:57 PM on March 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


violent femmes is probably the best thing i got out of my late teens 3 year relationship. he was wrong about so much but utterly right about the femmes.

i enjoyed this! also, go brian viglione!
posted by nadawi at 4:14 PM on March 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


Played this on my radio show and couldn't help myself from saying how much I love, love, love, love, love this song (the desperation for smooth not-quite-witty-but-close-enough on-air banter is very real).
posted by that silly white dress at 4:28 PM on March 11, 2015


I saw the Femmes in 1990 with The Pogues and Mojo Nixon/Skid Roper as opening acts. It was pretty boss, though passing-out-drunk Shane MacGowan and the boys sort of blew them off the stage. I love the band and they were very, very good but after 50 minutes of drunken Irish revelry, the Femmes lacked a little in the passion department.

But, I mean, after playing more or less the same set of songs for eight years, who can blame them?
posted by Joey Michaels at 5:07 PM on March 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


My husband and I just had a discussion about them. We were trying to decide if we loved Violent Femmes because they represent a certain age and time in our lives or because their music is actually really good (or both). In other words, is their music just okay but we can't tell because we have so many other connotations wrapped up in it? We couldn't decide. A new song is just the way to get a new perspective on them.

Pandora keeps feeding me their songs, and for me their music really is of that moment in time. It doesn't do much for me now other than give me flashbacks to being that age. It's fun music and I am glad to see that they are still making music, but it isn't (for me at least) music that is sufficiently inherently compelling as to make me keep listening to it now.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:41 PM on March 11, 2015


Love Love Love - Lenny Kravitz (or alt: Love, Love, Love - Donny Hathaway)

FTFY.
posted by headnsouth at 6:57 PM on March 11, 2015


I had been to see big shows before, but the very first club show I saw was Violent Femmes at 688 (opening was Michael Stipe's sister's band Oh OK.) My first serious boyfriend and our first going out in the world real date was that night. Apparently I had a fever and passed out and had to be dragged out front. I still remember coming back in I guess, because I remember the the show. It was great!
posted by mkim at 7:21 PM on March 11, 2015


I've seen them 4 or 5 times, most memorably on a double bill with Nirvana where I took my 14yro sister, much to her delighted & enhanced credibility over the years since.
My other favourite was a small show at Sydney Uni. We could only get hold of a couple of tickets so while the girls (including my now spouse) distracted the bouncers the boys charged past into the heaving crowd. Good times.
The last time was well into my 30s, but the front of stage still had plenty of squealing teen girls, so I like to think the Femmes cut across generations.
posted by bystander at 12:09 AM on March 13, 2015


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