I've given you a decision to make, things to lose, things to take. Just as she's about ready to cut it up, she says...

Gather round you children for a story about a brother and a sister and a tape, and dig this exclusive
audio compliments of your 5 Seconds Familyhood, featuring Adam Mowery and His Giants of Industry
piledriving through Violent Femmes' Add It Up. Audio by Corey Bonnevie. Photo by Nick Cameron.

AUDIO: Adam Mowery & His Giants of Industry - Add It Up 

He was a scoundrel merchant, I was heathenous clergy, or maybe it was the other way around. Regardless, it was Kinks at first sight. Ladies and gents, put your big hands together for your pal and mine, Mr. Adam Mowery;

Is there an album that sounds better when you’re 14 than the Violent Femmes’ self-titled debut? To me, there wasn’t.  I guess there musta been somethin’ in the air that summer in Wisconsin, 29 years ago, some kinda weird pent up youthful energy that the recordings capture beautifully, which makes Violent Femmes an enduring classic even today.  

The first copy of Violent Femmes I ever had was a tape that I swiped from my older sister at the age of 12. She woulda been about 16 at the time, which in my opinion is an ideal age for delving into the Femmes. As soon as I heard it, I knew I loved the sound of that Femmes record.  The reckless jangle of Gordan Gano’s acoustic guitar, Brian Ritchie’s sturdy, hook ladened acoustic bass lines, and the snap and crack of Victor DeLorenzo’s make shift drum-kit, comprised of garbage lids and other slim tin, do-dads. The band’s gear was trash. Literally. 

Groups on MuchMusic  at the time (mid-nineties), mostly sludgy alt-rock also-rans, dressed and acted like they just didn’t give a fuck, yet posed with big shit-eating grins next to shiny, expensive amps  in glossy guitar monthlies. One listen to “Kiss Off,” or “To the Kill,” and you can be sure the Femmes didn’t give a fuck, and when they recorded that album, they didn’t really have anything to lose. 

As for the songs, the lyrical content mostly consisted of snide, even confrontational, first-person rantings on loneliness, frustration, and the suffocation of family ties, all sung in an affected but youthful, nasally, scat-brat bluster. Like Lou Reed must have sounded in the summer before high school (and electro-shock therapy).  

Gano’s unsettling takes on familial relations, epitomized in songs like “Gone Daddy Gone,” “Kiss Off,” and “Add It Up” (the track covered here), dissect conventional domestic roles from the perspective of the angsty, attention craving, child. Part of the record’s effectiveness likely stems from the fact that the tracks were recorded when Gano had just turned 19, having written the songs years earlier and performed them hundreds of times by this point, busking with the Femmes in the streets of Milwaukee.  When my first group, the Port City All-stars, began gigging around Saint John acoustically on street corners and in Arts Centers, it was the Femmes who provided the palate or prototype, right down to the oversized acoustic bass.  

As soon as I heard it, I knew I loved the sound of that Femmes record.
The reckless jangle ... The band’s gear was trash. Literally.

2 years after I lifted that tape from my older sister, I borrowed a copy of the Femmes retrospective, Add It Up (1981-1993), from my friend’s older brother.  I quickly realized that the first copy of Violent Femmes I had was actually quite a bit slower that than it should have been. Who knows what happened exactly, but somewhere along the line of dubbing and cassette copying my sister’s version lost its tempo and punch. Now, hearing the tracks at proper speed, I realized the frantic energy of that debut album and became hooked for life.  Y’know its kinda funny that an album so harsh, and critical of conventional familial relations, has retained its appeal over the years mostly from being passed down and around by brothers and sisters. In fact, that’s the only way to explain how Violent Femmes went Platinum eight years after its initial release. 

Regardless, this cover of “Add It Up” with the Giants of Industry was a lot of fun to prepare and perform (as you can probably tell, I’m a bit of a Violent Femmes fan)! I hope you find the time to visit the 5 Seconds of Decision family, brothers and sisters armed with bright lights and big sounds, this Friday August 19 at Peppers on the Boardwalk. The excellent Cop Shades are performing and they have a new cassette out on the mighty Hamburger Tapes.  

Let me go on...

Adam Mowery