Nic Brown + John T. Edge for Violent Femmes

Overview

Musician and author Nic Brown in conversation with John T. Edge for Violent Femmes - the latest in the 33 1/3 series, about the iconoclastic album from the alternative 80s that altered the course of popular music.

Featuring music from producer and guitarist with New York City's indie rock band Longwave, Shannon Ferguson.

About the book

The self-titled debut from Milwaukee post-punk acoustic trio Violent Femmes is one of those rare albums that seems to have altered the course of popular music and influenced just about everyone who heard it while also managing to operate almost entirely outside of the mainstream. In VIOLENT FEMMES, the latest addition to the 33 1/3 series ("Religious tracts for the rock ’n’ roll faithful" —Boldtype), author Nic Brown investigates the creation of such iconic songs as "Blister in the Sun," "Kiss Off," "Add it Up," and "Gone Daddy Gone," as well as the album's recording process with rare access to the band and their archives.

About the author

Nic Brown is a writer and a musician. He has published several books, including the memoir Bang Bang Crash (Counterpoint, 2023), which was named a book of the year by Library Journal and Booklist, as well as the novels In Every Way (Counterpoint, 2015), Doubles (Counterpoint, 2010), and Floodmarkers (Counterpoint, 2009), which was selected as an Editors' Choice by The New York Times Book Review.

Nic's writing has appeared in The New York Times, Oxford American, and the Harvard Review, among many other publications. He has served as the Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi and is now a professor of creative writing at Clemson University.

He is also a drummer. With his first band, Athenaeum, Nic released two records on Atlantic Records. The first single off their first album peaked at #14 on the Billboard Alternative Rock charts. He has since recorded and toured with many acts, including Ben Lee, Longwave, Skeleton Key, Kim Richey, Matt Pond PA, and Eszter Balint.

About the conversation partner

John T. Edge writes and hosts the Emmy Award-winning television show TrueSouth on the SEC Network, ESPN, Disney, and Hulu. Edge also writes a restaurant column for Garden & Gun. His 2017 book The Potlikker Papers: A Food History of the Modern South was named one of the best books of the year by NPR and Publishers Weekly. Edge serves the University of Mississippi as a teacher, writer-in-residence, and director of the Mississippi Lab. And he serves the University of Georgia as a mentor in their low-residency MFA program in narrative nonfiction. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with his wife, the artist Blair Hobbs.

About the musical partner in crime

Shannon Ferguson is a guitarist and producer known for his celebrated guitar work with New York City's indie rock band Longwave. Ferguson's career launched in the early 2000s with several releases on RCA Records and multiple world tours. Ferguson has also scored for film, television, and a wide array of multimedia projects.