Showing posts with label Violent Femmes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Violent Femmes. Show all posts

09 May 2007

Couldn't Have Said It Better Myself (That Tall Bass Player Who Loves His Stogies From the Violent Femmes Edition)

(hat tip So Quoted)

Brian Ritchie a stand-up guy who plays the stand-up bass (sometimes, usually he plays a Mariachi style acoustic bass guitar), had unkind words for his bandmate Gordon Gano with reference to the use of some of their classic hits in commercials (something I've mentioned in the past).

"For the fans who rightfully are complaining about the Wendy's burger advertisement featuring Blister in the Sun, Gordon Gano is the publisher of the song and Warners is the record company. When they agree to use it there's nothing the rest of the band can do about it, because we don't own the song or the recording. That's showbiz. Therefore when you see dubious or in this case disgusting uses of our music you can thank the greed, insensitivity and poor taste of Gordon Gano, it is his karma that he lost his songwriting ability many years ago, probably due to his own lack of self-respect as his willingness to prostitute our songs demonstrates. Neither Gordon (vegetarian) nor me (gourmet) eat garbage like Wendy's burgers. I can't endorse them because I disagree with corporate food on culinary, political, health, economic and environmental grounds. However I see my life's work trivialized at the hands of my business partner over and over again, although I have raised my objections numerous times. As disgusted as you are I am more so."


Not only could I not have said it better, but I lack the standing he does with regards to this matter. Time to break out the anecdote where I regale you with the tale about the time I met him backstage at the Wiltern (or not, Brian did seem the most 'dude I'd like to hang out with' of the three).

29 March 2007

I Thought This Contest Was Already Over . . .

. . . I had assumed (wrongly) that the all time worst use of song for a commercial (or series of commercials) was the flogging of Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines using Iggy Pop's ode to smack life, "Lust for Life", but I was sadly mistaken.

What could be less appropriate than that, you ask.

Well, I'm here to tell you, that I think Wendy's has outdone RCCL.

Seriously, Blister In the Sun, to sell freakin' hamburgers?!?!?!?

It takes 3 exclamation points and 4 question marks to express my incredulity at this turn of events.

Have they ever actually listened to the lyrics of this song?!?!?!?

So from now on, I'll associate Wendy's hamburgers with 'stained sheets', and I won't even know why.

I don't fault Gordon Gano for making a buck, however (assuming he owns the pub rights to that song, I'm pretty sure he does).

Looks like this campaign has been going on about 6 weeks or so, but my ire has been taking awhile to rise to the surface.

Come to think of it, when I saw them live at the Palladium in Hollywood back in 1986 (3 bands played that night, opening was Phranc, Femmes followed, Fishbone finished, good times, good times indeed), I thought to myself, 'self, I seriously hope 20+ years later that there song will find its way into a Wendy's commercial'.

And through the magic of YouTube, here's three clips, first, a performance from back in the day, then some PYT doing her own fan video to the song, finally a performance from this year.