Gordon Gano (born June 7, 1963) is an American musician. He is best known for being the singer, guitarist and songwriter of American alternative rock band Violent Femmes. (More from Wikipedia)
Violent Femmes could be viewed as the quintessential indie rock band, with its near-acoustic sound and alternative-rock sensibililty. Gordon Gano (guitar and lead vocals) formed the band while he was still in high school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the early 1980’s with Brian Ritchie (bass guitar) and Victor DeLorenzo (drums). Their debut album, Violent Femmes (1983) featured angst-ridden crowd-pleasers like “Blister in the Sun”, ”Kiss Off”, “Add it Up”, and “Gone Daddy Gone” (including a verse from a Willie Dixon song).
While they never quite reached those heights again, their later albums explored Gordon Gano’s upbringing as the son of a Baptist minister. James Christopher Monger writes in Allmusic of their second album (released in 1984): “After the surprise success of their landmark debut, Violent Femmes could have just released another collection of teen-rage punk songs disguised as folk, and coasted into the modern rock spotlight alongside contemporaries like the Modern Lovers and Talking Heads. Instead they made Hallowed Ground, a hellfire-and-brimstone-beaten exorcism that both enraged and enthralled critics and fans alike. Like Roger Waters purging himself of the memories of his father’s death through [the Pink Floyd albums] The Wall and The Final Cut, bandleader Gordon Gano uses the record to expel his love/hate relationship with religion, and the results are alternately breathtaking and terrifying.”
(November 2014)
