This year, the Violent Femmes’ eponymous first album marks its 40th anniversary, celebrated with a new deluxe edition. It’s a remarkable milestone, to be sure, for the post-punk rock band that originally cut its chops playing gigs on Milwaukee street corners. But as founding member and bassist Brian Ritchie pointed out to me in a recent conversation, the Violent Femmes self-consciously built the LP to stand the test of time.
Ritchie contrived the band’s unusual name when he was performing as a duo with drummer Victor DeLorenzo. In the early 1980s, the Violent Femmes were rounded out by lead singer Gordon Gano. The group’s big break came in August 1981 when the Pretenders’ James Honeyman-Scott observed them as they busked outside Milwaukee’s Oriental Theatre, where the Pretenders were set to play a gig. That night, Chrissie Hynde invited them to perform an acoustic set before the Pretenders took the stage.
