What Is Punk Music?

To really understand where the Femmes sound came from, we need some background on the beginning of punk music. It started in the 1970's with the beginning of the rejection of mainstream conservative ideals and testing new musical limits. This is a parallel to the 1950s when kids blasted rock n' roll to the dismay of their parents and Elvis Presley's hip shaking brought sexuality to the mainstream. History was repeating itself, "punk youth seemingly place themselves outside the parent culture as ‘Other’"(Post Culture). Like the 50's rock music, punk music began to get louder and challenged the conservativism of the times. It was said that punk was "an attitude defined by a rebellion against authority and a deliberate rejection of middle-class
In 1980 Brian Ritchie, the Violent Femmes bassist, and Victor DeLorenzo, drummer, met Gordon Gano who was opening up for a punk show at the now Miramar theater in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They then decided to gig together after then(503). And the transition seemed effortless. Ritchie recalls that "all three of us [them] did our own thing and it came together very naturally"(503). After a couple years of playing on the streets and rehearsing of Milwaukee's east side the band signed with Slash records and debuted their self-titled album Violent Femmes in 1983.(All Music). They never charted with this album but they were put on the map of the underground music scene. They put out 9 studio albums between their first in 1983 and their latest in 2016. But their first album may be the most responsible for their long lasting fame due to the fact it of being on rolling stones 100 best debut album list as well as being on of their only albums that went
Gordon Gano was influenced by country music for most of his life. "Carter Family is something I grew up with and he played guitar and sang some old country songs" says Gordon Gano recalling the influence of his father. Gano also recalls being influenced by Lou Reed, Velvet Underground, and Bob Dylan (499). Victor DeLorenzo had been playing with the Ruthless Acoustics, another punk influenced bands of the time and Brian Ritchie help produce new sounds with Victor in their early years. They were all young and dealing with the issues that most teenage boys were dealing with; sexual frustration. Gano was kicked out the National Honor Society at Rufus King High School for singing a song explain his struggles with trying to get his dad to give him the car so he can get physical with a girl describing the possible encounter with clever word play