Femmes on beat

Press, 6 February 1986, Page 14

Femmes on beat

By

NEVIN TOPP

• New Zealand is the first country in the world to get the Violent Femmes third album, “The Blind Leading The Naked,” released ahead of schedule here because of the band’s tour of this country.

Included on the album is the song, “No Killing,” about the former Milwaukee police chief, Harold Briers, whose police force became noted for its strength in enforcing the law.

Brian Ritchie, the band’s bass guitarist, said that the reference to Briers in the song had been deleted, on the album, but the song is dedicated to Briers on the record sleeve.

The band knowingly played the song live on television on the day that Briers retired. “It caused a real uproar. Advertisers rang up the station threatening to cancel their commercial spots, and the station told them that it did not know that the Femmes were going to play that song,” said Ritchie. Threatening legal noises were also made but nothing came of it. Also not long after the TV incident the band played in Milwaukee and they got a great review, but at the bottom there was a

footnote which said that Channel 12 apologised to those who had been offended by the Violent Femmes song about Police Chief Briers.

Ritchie said that among the allegations about Briers’ law-and-order enforcement was the beating to death of a person in a wheelchair at a rock concert, because the person was blocking the aisle. The bass guitarist was not happy about the interruptions to the Christchurch show at the Theatre Royal on Monday evening, but was philosophic enough to acknowledge that things like power failures happened some times.

Because of the Air New Zealand pilots’ stopwork meeting the band were late in setting up their gear — in fact, it was touch and go about whether the show would go ahead. The interruptions meant the show did not flow as it should have, which was usually controlled mayhem, Ritchie said. Although the addition of two extra players to the trio on the tour might not have worked for the Christchurch show, the Femmes have been using extra musicians for about two years, shortly after their last New Zealand tour.

At one or two concerts the trio have had a 10piece horn section, including the “professional” Uptown Horns, from New York, who play on Tom Wait’s new album, "Rain Dogs,” and also worked with the J. Geils band.

“They came to play with us just for fun, and they didn’t know that we intended to pay them until afterwards.”

Ritchie’s big criticism of some bands, such as Dire Straits, was that there might be five members in the group and they all played on a song, even though that number might not be needed for that particular tune.

The Femmes had tended to avoid that, he said.

Sitting in the airport cafeteria, Ritchie, was critical about New Zealand food, muttering that it was too English, and that he liked Japanese, Indian, and Thai food. But gradually he broke down, first by admitting that although he would forgo the sausage in Milwaukee, he would take the beer. His eyes then fell on two small strawberry tarts that the drummer, Victor Delorenzo, had on his plate.

He then admitted he liked little cakes like that — too late Ritchie, that was your boarding call!