Freak Magnet [Bonus Tracks]

The Violent Femmes: Brian Ritchie (vocals, guitar, shakuhachi, keyboards, bass, percussion); Gordon Gano (vocals, guitar); Guy Hoffman (vocals, drums, percussion).
Additional personnel: Pierre Henry.
Producers: Violent Femmes, Warren Bruleigh, Pierre Henry, Tom Grimley.
Engineers include: Martin Brass, Bil Emmons, Warren Bruleigh.
Violent Femmes: Brian Ritchie (bass instrument); Guy Hoffman (percussion); Gordon Gano.
Personnel: Brian Ritchie (vocals, guitar, shakuhachi, keyboards, percussion); Gordon Gano (vocals, guitar); Guy Hoffman (vocals, drums).
Audio Mixers: Warren A. Bruleigh; David Vartanian; Martin Brass.
Audio Remasterer: Keith Blake.
Liner Note Author: Gordon Gano.
Recording information: Big House; Nine Lives; Odin; Re, DV's Pervision Room; Son; SoundTrack.
Despite approaching middle age, the Violent Femmes--and in particular, frontman Gordon Gano--remain rock's premier poets of pissed-off, resentful adolescence, which is both their strength--consistency--and their weakness--the pose now seems more like, well, a pose rather than a heartfelt expression. Fortunately, Gano is by now such a pro songwriter that he can fake pretentious teen angst quite convincingly, and his uniquely choked vocal style--he sounds alternately like Buddy Holly, Tom Verlaine, Lou Reed, and David Byrne--hasn't aged a bit. The band's sound remains, as before, a mix of acoustic punk and rockabilly, and it's heard to particularly good advantage here on the very funny title song, "Hollywood Is High," and the anthemic "Mosh Pit." In a nice historic touch, the Femmes also pay homage to their Minnesota ancestors the Trashmen on the "Surfin' Bird"-derived "New Generation" (co-credited, if you can believe it, to avant-garde jazzman Albert Ayler), an obscure oldie whose comic dementia is obviously of a piece with the Femmes' general esthetic.