Tonight we celebrate the music of two bands who took their punk rock roots in very different directions. The Cars are best known for riding the New Wave with hooky, synth-heavy tunes, vocals that made you ponder if they actually were British, Coverdaling supermodels and bearing the platinum curse of merging well chosen underground influences into major mainstream accessibility. The Violent Femmes smelled like Teen Spirit way ahead of their time. It took ten years for The Femmes debut Of Bare Bones angst-soaked, acoustic anthems to go platinum, but like those agro minimalists the Velvets before them, the first 100 kids who bought The Violent Femmes surely all started bands. With Dating Pool, Royal Bear, Jiffy, Devolutionaries, Pocket Panda. MACHELL DUMA LAVASSAR
Wed., Dec. 15, 9 p.m., 2010
