On the heels of the band’s recent live album release, "2 Mics & The Truth: Unplugged & Unhinged in America," the Violent Femmes have announced a five-city tour of Wisconsin in October.
Nineteen years after the Femmes’ tour of small Wisconsin theaters, the trio – now with John Sparrow on drums, alongside founding members Gordon Gano and Brian Ritchie – hits a handful of intimate venues on its Viva Wisconsin 2017 Tour.
Milwaukee’s Brett Newski will open all the shows, the dates of which are listed below.
The tour is the work of promoter Peter Jest, who has had a long association with the Milwaukee band.
"I am very excited and proud to be promoting these dates," Jest said in the announcement. "I have been promoting 34 years, and it is an honor to bring Wisconsin’s most famous and internationally known band back to their home state to play.
"The Milwaukee band that was ‘discovered’ outside a Milwaukee Theatre by The Pretenders now will go inside five Wisconsin theaters playing before intimate crowds. I was at The Pretenders show in 1980 and I have promoted many Violent Femmes dates over the years."
The band’s most recent studio record is last year’s "We Can Do Anything."
"They never put on a bad show," said Jest. "Violent Femmes are a band that you could bring a person to one of their concerts who never heard of them and they would become an instant fan. The songs and musicianship are very unique and entertaining."
Tickets for all the shows go on sale this Friday, Sept. 8 at 10 a.m., except for Wausau (9 a.m.) and Madison (noon). Click the links to the venues below for further details.
Oct. 20 – South Milwaukee Performing Arts Center, South Milwaukee
Oct. 22 – Grand Theatre, Wausau
Oct. 24 – Barrymore Theatre, Madison
Oct. 25 – State Theatre, Eau Claire
Oct. 27 – Meyer Theatre, Green Bay
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
