Violent Femmes- Hallowed Ground Live 40 Years Ago- May 16, 1984

 

 Tonight, the Violent Femmes are bringing, "An Evening With Violent Femmes" tour to Winnipeg to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the band's second album, Hallowed Ground. The setlist will consist of performing both the self-titled debut album (released 41 years ago) and Hallowed Ground back to back in it's entirety. Due to unfortunately, being out of town and living on a low budget (see lyrics from the Kinks song), I turned down the opportunity to buy tickets and though I'm not kicking myself in regret, it would have been a cool concert. Yes, I'm being cheap, but to help me ease my sorrows, I had a listen to a show from (almost) 40 years ago to this date when the Femmes embarked on the original Hallowed Ground tour. The album was released on May 14th, 1984 and though I now consider the record one of their best, at the time I wasn't so sure. The debut album was so good and if you read my recent post about that album's 40th anniversary show, you know what an influence that album had on my life musically and it's affect on my listening preferences. Hallowed Ground had a dark, gothic sound to it and I questioned how religious this album was meant to be. At the time, I didn't like it and didn't buy the album (fear not, I taped it from a friend). Jesus Walking On The Water and It's Gonna Rain have a Sunday school vibe to it, which is interesting...but it has some intense slow burning barn-burners, Hallowed Ground and the eerily creepy, Country Death Song, along with Never Tell, which would have fit in perfectly on the first record. Some of the other tracks teeter on filler, but overall it's solid and worth a listen.

The show I'm posting I snagged from archive (org) and though the sound quality isn't the best, it's an energetic and entertaining show. It's taken from a multi-generation audience cassette recording which sounds pretty typical for the time, a bit trebly with crowd noise, but it has that authentic sound of "being there", which I sometimes enjoy more than clear, but flat sounding board recordings. The setlist is made up of songs from the first two albums (if you excel in math, Hallowed Ground was released 2 days earlier) and the highlight is the last song, Kiss Off with a Pipeline jam in the middle of the song! Thanks to Milocampo for contributing the concert to the archive! Hopefully someone will record the show in Winnipeg tonight (often I'm the only taper at local shows) and if so, I'll post it. (if you record it, let me know!)

Enjoy!

Please do NOT sell or profit from the recording!

Do NOT convert to lossy formats, except for personal use.

Please share!

 

VIOLENT FEMMES
Jockey Club 
Newport, KY.
May 16, 1984

HALLOWED GROUND tour

01. intro. - musical procession to stage
02. I AIN'T GONNA WAIT
03. PROVE MY LOVE
04. COUNTRY DEATH SONG
05. UGLY
06. HALLOWED GROUND
07. FAITH
08. CONFESSIONS
09. GONE DADDY GONE
10. GIMMIE THE CAR
11. PROMISE
12. IT'S GONNA RAIN
13. BLACK GIRLS
14. ADD IT UP
15. BLISTER IN THE SUN (encore)
16. KISS OFF w/ PIPELINE jam!!! (encore)
17. outro - musical procession leaving stage
- end of show-

source: 4th gen audience cassette
Taper: ROD/unknown equipment
4th gen aud. cassette>wav>flac(8)
transferred & uploaded by: MILOCAMPO

GORDON GANO: guitar/vocals
BRIAN RITCHIE: bass/vocals
VICTOR DeLORENZO: drums/vocals
with
THE HORNS OF DILEMMA:
STEVE MacKAY: saxaphones
SIGMUND SNOPEK III: various instruments

runtime:80:17

note: very end of track 10 is at beginning of track 11 due to tape flip. 

VIOLENT FEMMES- 1984-05-16, Jockey Club, FLAC. rar

Violent Femmes- New York City 2023, 40th Anniversary of Violent Femmes (1st Album)

 

 It has been 40 years since, the Violent Femmes released their landmark debut album, Violent Femmes. The album was hugely influential for me and I have to say it changed my life, at least musically. Up until 1983, I listened primarily to classic rock (yeah, it was already called that then, pretty much the same music), the Stones, Kinks, Who, Cheap Trick... The sound of the opening bass riff from bass player, Brian Ritchie, on the first track, Blister In The Sun was so new and unique to me, it blew my dumb-stupid mind. The rest of the album was truly fascinating, it opened my mind to alternative sounds far from the commercial radio I soaked in. The song became a hit (yes, a radio hit!) and the album gave the Femmes enough credibility to build their career around this record. It's no wonder the band was back on tour this year to remind us the album is 40 years old...40 freaking years!! I try not to buy into this trend of anniversary records and tours too much, 5 years, 10 years,15 years and so on, but a lot of these bands like to live in the past (it helps financially) and their fans want to be reminded of the band's best works. To be honest, if I saw the Violent Femmes, I would want to hear the early albums rather than the newer songs, it's only natural, right?

Enjoy!

Please do NOT sell or profit from this recording!

Do NOT convert to lossy formats, except for personal use.

Please share!

 

Violent Femmes
Webster Hall
New York, NY
October 17, 2023

Source: master audience recording
Taper: larryrulz
Location: balcony
Lineage: CA-11 (cardioid) > Sony A10 (44/24) > Audacity (tracking) > TLH > FLAC 6 > foobar2000 (FLAC tags)

Video on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXuAIAzZAO4

01 band entrance
02 Blister in the Sun
03 Kiss Off
04 Please Do Not Go
05 Add It Up
06 Confessions
07 Prove My Love
08 Promise
09 To the Kill
10 Gone Daddy Gone
11 Good Feeling
12 Jesus Walking on the Water
13 Country Death Song
14 I'm Nothing
15 Memory
16 Dance Motherfucker Dance
17 I Held Her in My Arms
18 Black Girls
19 drum solo
20 band intros/end of Black Girls
21 Gimme the Car

Encore:
22 I'm Not Gonna Cry
23 American Music

 

Length: 1:29:43

 

Gordon Gano - vocals, guitar, banjo, violin
Brian Ritchie - bass, xylophone, vocals
John Sparrow - drums

Horns of Dilemma:
John Crew - alto flute
Caspar Zack (?) - orange trombone
Todd Joseph - trumpet
Caspar Zack (?) - little pink trombone
Perry Yung - shakuhachi
Jet Young - shakuhachi
Blaise Garza - saxophones

 

VIOLENT FEMMES- 2023-10-17, Webster Hall, New York, NY, FLAC. rar

Hey, We're Twelve years Old!! 12 Days Of Trouble Begins Now! Day One- Early Violent Femmes

Not my actual LP. Taken from discogs.com

Believe it or not, this blog is 12 years old. Despite the takedown notices, copyright infringement violations and general apathy on my part, Teenage Dogs In Trouble is still alive. I know I don't show it all the time, but this music blog is a labour of love, my love of music, live and on record. I constantly surround myself with music that isn't canned shit off the radio or the usual mainstream garbage we are sometimes forced to listen to. Hopefully the people that read this blog can appreciate a similar taste in music as myself or discover music they aren't familiar with before. Through the years I've slightly changed the focus and format of the blog. My original intend was to share music samples from albums and CD's as well as sharing recordings of some the shows I've attended. The takedown notices were in part because of some of the copyrighted music I shared, so in recent years the focus is more on live concert recordings from shows I went to or live recordings that I've downloaded or traded for. I'm also posting in FLAC format instead of lossless mp3. I go to less concerts than I used to, but I have so many live recordings I still want to share so this blog will continue on as long as there is an audience. I appreciate all your comments and I try to reply to as many as possible, so please keep your comments and requests coming.

To celebrate 12 years, I thought it would be fun to challenge myself by posting 12 posts til the end of  August. My track record for frequent posting in the past couple years isn't that good, so this will be very challenging. A popular Instagram/Facebook "thing" are daily or 30 day challenges where the participant will post something (art, music, writing, photos etc.) for consecutive days. I have a friend that just completed a 30 day challenge playing drums to a different cover song everyday as well as a creating a watercolour piece of art. It was amazing and inspiring! (Congrats Kelly!!). I'll be honest, I don't think I can post for 12 consecutive days (I do have a 9-5 job), but I will attempt to write 12 posts from now until the end of the month (in 18 days). I'm coming off vacation and I did a lot of reading (mainly non-fiction music-related) while relaxing at the cottage so many of the posts will reflect the soundtrack of some of what I read or some of the music I listened to on the pod.

Day one begins with an early rare live recording from the Violent Femmes. This recording was ripped from a bootleg LP called, Violence In The Streets which apparently is quite scarce and it was posted on Dime some years back. There isn't an exact date for the concert, but it was from 1983, the same year as the first Violent Femmes album. A friend recommended I listen to their first album right after it was released and it changed my perception of what music could be and it was very influential to my musical taste. For me, it sounded nothing like anything I had heard before. The distinct sound of Brian Ritchie's bass, Gordon Gano's angry vocals, that snare drum sound, that both scared and intrigued me. The lyrics were sometimes religious, was this Christian rock?  Were they anti-religious? I honestly wasn't sure, but really I didn't care, I loved their music! This live recording captures some of the raw energy of the band and it must have been exciting seeing them in a small venue this early in their career. Interesting, the setlist drew from songs from 4 of their first 5 albums as well as a couple songs (Gimme The Car, Ugly) that weren't originally included on the first album (later as bonus tracks on the US CD version). A very good sounding recording that is well worth the listen if you're a fan. Highly recommended!
Enjoy!!

#12daysoftrouble

Please DO NOT sell!
Do not trade this in lossy format.
Convert to lossy for personal use only.

VIOLENT FEMMES
Tupelo's Tavern
New Orleans, LA
XX-XX-1983
very good AUD (on-stage mic?)

Vinyl LP bootleg> CDR> EAC> SHN> CDR> FLAC> rar

01. Kiss Off
02. Girl Trouble
03. Hallowed Ground (called Hello-Girl on the LP)
04. Gimme The Car
05. Country Death Song
06. Gone Daddy Gone
07. It's Gonna Rain
08. Add It Up
09. Special
10. Ugly
11. Prove My Love

VIOLENT FEMMES- 1983-xx-xx Tupelo Tavern, New Orleans, LA FLAC. rar