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Violent Femmes
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The Violent Femmes are a rock n' roll band, originally forming in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the early 1980s. Gordon Gano (singer/guitarist), Brian Ritchie (bassist) and Victor DeLorenzo (percussionist) founded the group and were discovered by James Honeyman-Scott (of The Pretenders). They signed to Slash Records and released a self-titled album in 1983. The music was an innovative combination of folk and punk. The group quickly had a small, cult following that never burgeoned into widespread popularity, although a few songs from this album did get some fame, the songs being "Add it up," "Blister in the sun," and "Kiss off." The debut album went platinum ten years after its release.
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Violent Femmes concert tickets are available, and these legends of alternative rock and roll have been thrilling crowds large and small for more than 20 years. They are seen as innovators and pioneers of the alternative rock scene, and their priority has always been playing high-level live shows. The Violent Femmes tickets will bring you back to a time when their music was creating big waves on the scene, and remind you why they remain the legends that they are.
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After their debut album, Violent Femmes released Hallowed Ground, which moved the group towards a country music sound and introduced spiritual themes. Their third album, The Blind Leading the Naked, produced by fellow Milwaukee native Jerry Harrison of the Talking Heads, was more mainstream and pop-oriented, resulting in a minor hit with "Children of the Revolution," originally by T. Rex. The group disbanded, with Gano releasing an album in 1987, the result of a gospel side project Mercy Seat. Ritchie ... released several solo LPs. The group came back together in late 1988, releasing 3 and then Why Do Birds Sing? (1991), after signing to Reprise.
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As one of the premiere cult albums of all time, Violent Femmes helped kickstart the college and alternative rock movements that began in the 1980s with bands like R.E.M. (Reckoning - 1984), The Replacements (Let It Be - 1984), Hüsker Dü (Zen Arcade - 1984), and later the Pixies (Doolittle - 1989) and Sebadoh (III - 1991) and peaked with the mainstream success of Nirvana (Nevermind (1991) and other grunge bands in the early 1990s. Quirky songs like "Kiss Off" and "Blister in the Sun", with sing-along choruses and a fast-paced, tension-building beat, helped define what eventually became known as alternative rock. The distinctive, catchy and powerful riffs and choruses established the album as power pop, influencing later bands like Weezer (Weezer - 1994) which similarly used teenage, outcast angst to fuel quirky, pop-oriented songs and establish a devoted audience who sympathized with the outsider point-of-view. In addition, as the inventors of folk punk, Violent Femmes ... influenced later folk musicians such as David Gray (A Century Ends - 1993).
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Violent Femmes was founded by bassist Brian Ritchie and percussionist Victor DeLorenzo. They became a full-fledged band upon the arrival of Gordon Gano, lead vocalist and guitarist. In its early days, the band frequently played coffee houses and street corners. They were discovered by James Honeyman-Scott (of The Pretenders) on August 23, 1981, when the band was busking on a street corner in front of the Oriental Theatre, the Milwaukee venue that The Pretenders would be playing later that night. Chrissie Hynde invited them to play a brief acoustic set after the opening act.[1] The band signed to Slash Records and released a self-titled album that they had recorded in July 1982. The music was an innovative combination of American folk music and Punk rock, and commonly referred to as "folk-punk".
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EMusic.com features top artists in all musical genres, such as Alternative (They Might Be Giants, Bush, Violent Femmes, Tom Waits), Punk (Green Day, Pennywise, Rancid, NOFX), Jazz (Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Concord Records), Blues (John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, Buddy Guy), Electronic (DJ Spooky, Sasha & Digweed), Hip Hop (Kool Keith, Blackalicious, The Coup), Country (Kenny Rogers, Willie Nelson, Patsy Cline), Rock (Phish, Elvis Costello, Goo Goo Dolls), World (Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn, Lee 'Scratch' Perry) and Popular Vocalists (Liza Minnelli, Eartha Kitt, Judy Garland).
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