[thechat] pop tarts and smashed guitars (was: hell, I forgot)

Erika Meyer erika at seastorm.com
Wed Aug 13 00:27:31 CDT 2003


Oh, RonL, That is one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me 
*sniff*.  I *heart* the Femmes.... well their older stuff, before 
they got born again and sucky.  Don't tell me you are talking about 
their recent  "we're too old to rock n' roll, so we'll just do shitty 
acoustic versions of our old songs" -- if it is, don't tell me.

I saw them in Seattle, it must have been 1984, right after their 
second (?) album came out.   It was a big deal for me, cause I came 
from a cow town and never got to see shows... I was 16.  I saw them 
at this medium-sized venue, and my dad decided he'd better come along 
and see what the youngsters like me were listening to (and keep an 
eye on things), and he had these really embarrassing tan-colored 
polyester pants and we were in line with all these older punk 
rockers, the spiked hair, the dark eye make-up, so cool, and I was 
trying so hard to look cool in my worn levis and matching jacket-- 
probably the camo t-shirt ala Jello Biafra, and my old hippie dad was 
laughing at the punk rockers and damn... that was the most f*cking 
amazing show.

People were throwing all kinds of shit on stage, doll parts, 
underwear, stuffed animal parts, stuff like that... my dad was all... 
"wow."

And the band had so much energy back then.  I don't even know the 
singer's name but he was a live wire... and they were singing that 
song, that goes "day ... after day..." and he was at that verse, he 
was singing

"words mesmerize, words hypnotize, words make my mouth exercise
words all fail the magic prize... nothing I can say when I'm in your thighs!"

and this guy climbs onto the stage and he's trying to pull the singer 
in and the bass player and the others beat him off and throw him back 
into the pit and the singer grabs the mic and says "you must like 
that verse, let me do it again" and he so he does...

Dude, if my dad wasn't there, I would have been in that pit, let me 
tell you.  You can still find me there, like at a Dead Moon show. 
Dead Moon always generates a good sweaty mosh pit.  I'll be the only 
chick in the pit, got to represent my gender. Or should I say "you 
can find me there again" since I went many many years without that. 
You know, back when I was sober and grown up.

Anyway, I saw the Femmes again round about 1986, totally different, 
sit down show back when they finally made it to my hometown of 
Podunk. They we're already well on their way to sucking.  I really 
have to wonder what happened to that band.  They went from really 
edgy to really sucky so quickly.  Maybe it was getting signed to a 
major label that did it, or maybe something else... I don't know, but 
I wonder.

Erika

RonL wrote:
>  >>(if it works)
>
>The song works fine ... actually I was thinking it would fit in quite
>well on the Violent Femmes disc I have sitting in the truck today.
>Kind of a similar vibe ... and I liked it better than some of the
>stuff on that disc anyway.



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