Interview & Concert Review With
GORDAN GANO
of
the
Can you tell me a little
more about your long
time connection and
history in Spokane?
Spokane to me goes back
to even a preconscious
memory. My family would
take a trip every summer
back when we still lived in
Connecticut. We would
make a big loop around
the country and we would
spend a week in Spokane,
which is where my father
was raised. The homestead
in Spokane was actually
built by my family. Even
before I could remember
much else, I remember that
house in Spokane. That
house is one of the consistent parts of my childhood
because we moved quite
often, but we would almost
always spend Christmas
and most holidays in that
home. My family history
there goes back to the
beginning of the 1900s
when people were moving
West. I have a long history
of many generations here
in Spokane.
Do you recall your last
performance in Spokane, apart from your
recent show?
I do remember! I remember the last time because
my cousin came up close
to the stage and asked if I
could make the reunion
and I laughed and responded, no I’m on tour.
However, I don’t remember what year that was.
Why do you believe such a
diverse audience is drawn
to the music of Violent
Femmes?
I don’t know for sure, but I do
have a couple of ideas that occur to me. Besides that fact that
I think it’s good music and that
should be appealing to all types
of people and backgrounds and
ages. Aside from that, most
people that I hear about first get
introduced to the band and start
loving the group either when
they are teenagers or when they
go off to college. It is usually
sometime around that period
in their life, whether it’s from
an older sibling or on their own.
The person hearing the music is
young. Even the people at the
concert that are now around the
age of the people in our group
were almost certainly a teenager
or early twenties when they first
heard the music. I think there
is something about the songs in
that first album, which is also
our overwhelmingly most popular one. I was eighteen when I
was singing that. It is not someone that is at a different age trying to sing something that think
is youthful. It was just my individual expression sung as honestly and passionately as I felt
it. That is the amazing thing
about art. With art, individuals
will often express themselves
and that passion can sometimes
reach and communicate with
a large amount of people; even
though it started as something
that is an absolutely individual
expression.
24 ART CHOWDER MAGAZINE