Gordon Gano is listening to a Rick Berlin album when Vanyaland rings him up. The Violent Femmes frontman knew we were going to be talking about the group’s gig at MGM Music Hall at Fenway this Friday (October 13), so he was properly prepping, having tapped Berlin, a local legend to Jamaica Plain if there ever was one, to open the show with The Nickel & Dime Band.
“I’ve had a sister who’s lived in JP for decades and I’ve been there over the years and then my mom was living close by in Brookline,” Gano explained of his links to the region. “My family has history going back to Boston on my mother’s side, my grandparents lived for some stretch of time in Boston. I think one of them was from Boston or in the area, the greater area, including some other nearby parts in New Hampshire, I think was the roots of that branch of the family. So, it’s just always been a connection there.”
When Berlin co-founded the inaugural JP Music Festival in 2011, he scored a major coup in landing Gano to join him onstage for a few songs. Since then, Gano has played violin on a handful of Berlin’s recordings, performed at a benefit for the fest and popped up onstage at places like The Midway Café and into other local establishments for the odd drink, further cementing his ties to Jamaica Plain and Boston as a whole.
Friday’s gig will see the Violent Femmes perform their self-titled debut in full for its 40th anniversary. A cult and college radio favorite with hits like “Blister in the Sun,” “Add It Up” and “Gone Daddy Gone,” the 1983 album has a special deluxe edition slated to land on shelves this coming December.
Picking up the needle off the Berlin music he was spinning and talking with Vanyaland for a 617 Q&A (Six Questions; One Recommendation; Seven Somethings), Gano went deeper into how his love of JP has blossomed, the original idea behind “Blister in the Sun” and why, despite celebrating the 40th of the Femmes’ debut on Friday the 13th, he’s no fan of nostalgia.
:: SIX QUESTIONS
You’ve got a unique connection to the area, having played the inaugural JP Music Festival and now hometown musical hero Rick Berlin will be providing support for this week’s show. How did that come about?
Well, yeah, he was really tough to talk into doing it. [laughs]. I tried to tell him, “Please, Rick, don’t be shy. Tell people about it.” And he’s really struggling with it. [laughs] Oh man, I had the idea and I’m so glad it just popped in my head. And it’s so obvious. Oftentimes on tours, we have somebody that’s doing the whole tour and this time it’s not like that. And we were just looking for people for whatever they were available for or people we knew and/or people recommended and just doing that whole thing to try to get somebody that’s a nice fit in some way or another. And then Boston was, well… it just popped in my head. I just thought, “I think I know a guy.”
In terms of the JP Music Fest, you’ve provided two of the most memorable moments in its history. The first was when you changed the lyrics of “American Music” to “Jamaica Plain Music” at the inaugural fest in 2011, people still talk about that.
Wow – that’s so great!
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Then a few years later you popped into Tres Gatos for a festival benefit and did “Blister in the Sun.”
Rick worked at Doyle’s [Café, the iconic JP establishment which shuttered in 2019] for a long time, and maybe somebody introduced me to him or he recognized me and said hello. I think my sister went there a lot; she’s the one that probably must’ve taken me there the first time. And I think just over so many years, I think she knew Rick and Rick knew her maybe. So that’s probably how it first happened. And then I had some nights of hanging out and going to the Galway House also, as well as other places around the neighborhood there. In fact, one time we were on tour and just by random chance, somebody in our crew went to Galway House. Do you know the place?
Oh yeah, I know that place very well.
He went to Galway House and I think he might’ve been wearing a Femmes’ jacket or something [and] somebody said, “Yeah, one of those Violent Femmes comes in here,” so I guess I made an impression, because I haven’t been there that often. When I was in the neighborhood, I’d like to go. I guess it made an impression for somebody to say, “Yeah, one of those Violent Femmes…” And let me make mention of the Brendan Behan, that’s the pub where then I’ve probably hung out the most and really had some great nights. One of my favorite Guinnesses is from there, it just particularly seemed to… I don’t know if it was just the right nights, but it just seemed to be especially good.
You’re going to be playing the debut album in full on Friday for the anniversary. In fact, the Boston date is 40 and a half year to the day of the album’s release. Do you tend to be a fan of nostalgia, or are you more, “Well, it’s been 40 years, let’s pull it out?”
I am not nostalgic at all, not at all. I recognize that a large portion, I think, of my fellow human beings are nostalgic and love a lot of things like that. So, I observed that and I don’t think badly about it. It’s fun for us to play the first album through start to finish and we did that, I think almost coincidentally, but maybe not when it was a 30-year anniversary and we thought that that was fun – but we hadn’t announced it, we just did it.
And so, when it was coming around again to the 40, somebody thought, I know it wasn’t me, but somebody thought a good thought, “Well, why don’t we do it? ‘Cause it’s fun. People like it a lot, and why don’t we let people know that we’re going to do that.” We’re good, often, of not letting people know about stuff, so that was great. It’s a lot of fun to do and everybody enjoys it. And then there’s still plenty of time for lots of other songs. So, I would suggest people not being late, because we’ll just start right off with our set with “Blister” and just play through the first album, unless for some reason we changed that, which is possible. It’s the closest that we’d ever had to having a set list.
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When you’re revisiting some of the deeper cuts, like “Confessions” or “To the Kill,” does part of you think, “Hey, maybe we should’ve been playing these more often over the years?” Or is it, “Ehh… maybe these should stay deep cuts.”
It’s interesting you say that – and even picking those two. “Confessions” we’ve played regularly over the years sometimes, and some tours, we’ll play it every night. It’s structured to allow for a lot of really fun, completely free improvisation sections, which we love doing and is a great space for having a guest musician or musicians or whoever happens to be around. Now, “To the Kill” is an interesting one because “To the Kill” is a song that… so in our regular concert, a normal concert for us, we would play the majority of songs from the first album, but they would not be in order, and they wouldn’t be every single one, and they almost never would have “To the Kill.”
It’s interesting because what I would think of as deep cut on that first album ends up being just one song: “To the Kill.” Every other song has people just cheering and singing along, which is kind of amazing, but that’s the one, that’s the one that it just, so it’s interesting having a plan to be playing it every night. We enjoy doing it. It’s just never caught at that same level or that same way as all the other tunes.
I can’t decide what I was more surprised to hear; that “Blister in the Sun” is not about masturbation, or that it was written with the thought of having a female singing it. Did you have any specific person in mind, or was it just a sort of an esoteric idea of having a female singing it?
No, there’s a specific person. I had met somebody, a woman, at a poetry reading, and then she called and said that she was putting a band together and if I wanted to come. This was before Violent Femmes, before I’d ever even been in any band. I must’ve mentioned that I played guitar or something, or maybe she’d seen me at a coffee shop or something. She wanted to put together a band, and she wanted it to be like The Plasmatics. I thought, why don’t I show up but have an idea – I could also contribute a song. So, “Blister in the Sun” was something that I just wrote thinking I wanted to have a song that I could say, “Here’s a song you could sing and we could play if you’re interested.”
Now, I thought maybe she’s not going to want to do it, so I thought this song could have some other kind of a life, which it has. But the first impulse was I was going to maybe join this band and or be part of this band coming together, and I would say, “You can sing the song if you like it.”
And then I never saw her again or heard from her ever again. Then I heard through somebody else that she had joined a cult and moved to Canada, and I don’t know in that order or not; moved to Canada, then joined a cult or joined a cult and moved to Canada. But I wouldn’t even know her name now – I wouldn’t know anything. I hope she’s well, but if she is somewhere, I’m guessing she has no idea that there’s this very popular song, which was just, if that hadn’t been canceled, that gathering to have a band, I would’ve said, “Do you want to sing it? You want this song?”
One would be hard pressed to find a band with its members so spread apart throughout the world. How hard is it to remain a functioning unit given the geographical difficulties?
It’s no difficulty whatsoever. We didn’t all live in the same city at the same time since, maybe, 1983. We’ve always had members, maybe not as far, maybe New York and Milwaukee or something like that, but there’s always been – to have everyone in the band in the same city – it’s been since the early 1980s that that’s happened. I think we thrive on distance.
:: ONE RECOMMENDATION
Gordon Gano: Just recently I heard some Jonathan Richman again, and I just thought, “I just love Jonathan.” He just keeps, in some ways for me, he just gets better and better. All the time. Every time. And I’ve had the great pleasure of at times speaking with him.
Now, here’s a little thing most people don’t know. Before Violent Femmes, it was the first time I had had an opening gig or in a venue and somebody was kind of heckling me while I was playing. And I think at that show, maybe I had one of my brothers back me up with guitar, which was great. We’re playing and there’s somebody kind of heckling, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying, and I had not done many shows, and I was, I dunno, 17 years old or something like that. Anyway, and then this person comes right backstage as soon as I get off the stage and I’m like, “This is the person that was just sort of yelling stuff at me.” And then the person says, “Hi, I’m Jonathan. You sound just like I did when I was your age.”
When I told him, within the last few years, I said, “You just get better and better.” And I loved his response. His response was, “Well, that’s the idea, isn’t it?”
:: SEVEN OF SOMETHING
The Violent Femmes have had a bit of a tumultuous history, between lawsuits, break-ups and make-ups. Thankfully, you’ve put it all back together. Give me seven acts that you wish had been able to do the same, whether it’s reuniting for a tour or putting the past behind them – or some that you simply cannot see anymore but wish you could.
Coming together and breaking apart often has to do with death and drugs and alcohol, all kinds of abuses, all kinds of stuff that can really do it. I think that there were issues, a lot of issues including substances, but Sly and the Family Stone. Fresh, which is one of my all-time favorite albums, which has “If You Want Me to Stay” on it. I’ve just always, always loved and never can get tired of that album. There was a quote one time about when [Sly Stone] was being busted and his home, he was being taken out with some kind of big crack pipe device or something. And you know what his quote was or at least how it was quoted when he’s being taken away? He said, “I was in a dream… that’s why I used that machine.” What a statement to the police. Anyway, I just feel like there’s something so tragic in there because what a musical genius.
And then on that subject, I’m going to say one of my all-time favorites, Johnny Thunders, he was a huge inspiration for me. And of course, that just is drugs and gone.
Now, still alive, and I’ve heard him speak on some things and really well and I like it a lot, I would’ve liked Richard Hell to have made a little more music. I just loved the stuff that he did, Richard Hell & the Voidoids.
It might’ve been interesting to see what else The Beatles would’ve done. I don’t feel especially driven about that; I feel like there’s a lot there, but we’ll put ’em down.
Well, we’re including “death” can be the problem? Hank Williams. I hope I’ve heard everything that is recorded by him, and yet if there could have been more. Oh man, just what a tragedy. One of the biggest there on the list. I might just put him right at number one,
Now this is, at least from a rock and roll perspective, this is a deep cut. Scott LaFaro. Scott LaFaro was a jazz bassist and when he played with the Bill Evans Trio, they only got to record maybe two studio albums and a bunch of live stuff from the Village Vanguard. So, it’s the Bill Evans trio, but specifically with Scott LaFaro. I haven’t told [Femmes bassist] Brian Ritchie this, but [LaFaro] is the only jazz bassist who makes me think of Brian Ritchie’s bass playing and always does – and it’s always a positive thing. There’s something about the way that he’s playing. I think it has something to do with… he’s very supportive of the music, but also almost like he’s always taking a lead at the same time. It’s like he’s doing both kind of – it’s really fascinating. So, the Bill Evans Trio with Scott… and he died in a car accident and he must’ve been in his mid-twenties or something like that. So tthat’s a huge tragedy in the jazz world.
Oooh, this is kind of interesting.
Nah, it’s dark.
If I say Violent Femmes, we have a band meeting and we split up before this article is read. [laughs] That’s dark. That’s just something maybe too dark. Maybe I shouldn’t do that. It’s funny though, right? How about whenever the Violent Femmes end, because we just decide that’s enough, hey, there’s still some really good music we didn’t make that we could have made. I’m going to keep it positive because it’s like we all just decide there’s other stuff that’s more interesting for us and we just go separate ways, which we’ve come so close to doing and we have for periods, but then we’ve come back together. So yeah, let’s say the Femmes, it’d be nice to, we’ll be talking maybe a 50-year thing instead of a 40-year. I feel like, “Why not?”
VIOLENT FEMMES + RICK BERLIN WITH THE NICKEL & DIME BAND :: Friday, October 13 at MGM Music Hall at Fenway, 2 Lansdowne St. in Boston, MA :: 7 p.m., all ages, $32 to $66.50 :: Event info :: Advance tickets
