The Damned
All the punk firsts. First to have a single. First to tour America, first to split and the first to reform. Played at the famous 100 Club Festival in 1976. Played CBGB’s in New York supporting the Dead Boys and blew them away.
Supported Marc Bolan on his last tour and played all the venues like the Roxy Club. Rat and Brian came from the infamous London SS with the latter writing nearly all the early material. Hi energy classic tunes. Trouble started at the second album Music For Pleasure produced by Pink Floyds’ Nick Mason. An extra guitarist Lu was drafted in and after recordings, Rat walked out to be replaced by John Moss (from the band London and later Culture Club).
So who were The Damned? Rat and Brian knew each other from the London SS. They were also with the Captain going to be in Malcolm McLarens strangely named band called Masters Of The Backside with Chrissie Hynde dressed as a boy who was to whip them as they played. The Captain recalls that they played to Malcolm and Vivienne who fell about laughing!
The Damned and Johnny Moped were closely linked and often appeared and sang at each others live gigs. Captain is on The Moped’s album and the Captain and Slimey Toad were in a previous band called Rot. They were heavily into Soft Machine as Roger Armstrong recounts.
“The conventional punk influences were New York Dolls, Stooges, 60s garage and pop etc, but Capt and various members of the Mopeds were big fans of the early Soft Machine. At one point they used to stalk them from gig to gig !!!.”
This may explain some of the Captain’s more esoteric guitar workouts later. The Cap was also a big fan of Syd Barrett and I remember reading of his disgust at Music For Pleasure produced by Nick Mason drummer with the Floyd. The captain wanted twisted raw psychedelia and a Piper At The Gates Of Dawn it wasn’t… he got a rock dinosaur for a producer!
In March 1978 they split only to reform at the end of the year with the Captain on Guitar and Algy Ward on Bass coming back in style with the excellent Love Song and a whole new chapter in their history. Since then the band have gone through a series of false dawns and is still playing in some form or other.
The third phase of The Damned made them unlikely heroes. With the band split, Dave Vanian had joined The Doctors Of Madness on dual lead Vocals. Scabies had started The White Cats and was touring. John Moss and Lu formed The Edge. Sensible started King and Brian James had formed Tanz Der Youth.
A gig as Les Punks minus Bryan but with Lemmy from Motorhead on bass made them decide to get back together. This time as The Doomed, minus Bryan James, with the Captain on guitar and Henry Badowski (ex Chelsea) on bass. This was short lived and Algy Ward from The Saints replaced Henry. Signing to Chiswick Records, a period of unlikely chart success beckoned for our heroes.
“The band had the Dodgy Demo ( Love Song given away free) out and so we re-recorded Love Song. The late Eddie Hollis (manager of Eddie & the Hot Rods) produced a version, but the vocal and the mix were not happening, so I took Dave into the studio – did the vocal again and mixed it. We certainly used the fan base to manipulate it into the charts. As regards Top of The Pops, it should have been amazing. On the the first appearance Captain discovered that he could use the BBC costume dept. So at the rehearsal he turned up in a full wedding gown and Doc Martens. Everyone in the studio just stood and applauded when he walked in – looked amazing. Then the producer told him that he could not go on in the wedding dress. They had an exclusive on Bowie’s ‘Boys Keep Swinging’ video that featured the Grande Dame in drag and they thought that he might think that the Capt was taking the piss – bollocks! So what could have been one of the great television events of all time was still pretty good, but not as good as it would have been with Vanian in full bow tie and tails singing Love Song to Capt in a wedding dress !!!!! “
And on the single getting in the charts… a little insight into how record companies work tho I think we all suspected this to be the case with some of the atrocities foisted on us over the years !!!
We were among the first to use coloured vinyl and invented the multiple picture sleeve with the four Damned shots on Love Song. Basically you had to give records away to the chart return shops to make sure that they had them in stock. Then a team of housewives would go in and buy them up. Friendly dealers might be encouraged to put in the extra sales in exchange for a consideration. It was all dreadfully corrupt, but at least everyone was being dreadfully corrupt. It was viewed as a bit of a game. I would say however that you couldn’t hype an absolute turkey and make it stick. The record had to have some appeal to some section of the populace or the act had to have a genuine following. It was not unknown to co-opt fan clubs into buying up singles from chart shops.
Following this there would be more ups and downs but that’s beyond our scope here.
New Rose / Help (Stiff November 1976)
Its an absolute monster of a song. Everything on it screams overdrive. Big pounding drums, monster riff all with an infectious joyous rush of speed that makes you want to move. Glen Matlock made the point that the Sex Pistols’ first single was Anarchy and The Damned’s was about a bird.” Fair point but it’s fitting that the first punk song should be something as uptempo as this. 24 carat punk classic. Great 100mph version of The Beatles Help on the other side.
Neat, Neat, Neat / Stab Your Back
(Stiff February 1977)
Raw and abrasive. The song is introduced by the Captain’s distorted bass played through a homemade bass cabinet with a broken speaker. A manic Eddie Cochran riff with another titanic piece of guitar from Brian James. Traces of rockabilly, Stooges, The New York Dolls and punk all collide perfectly. What’s the song about? Fuck knows. Another classic. Stab your Back is great too.
The Damned Neat Neat Neat as shown on Supersonic, March 26th 1977
Problem Child / You Take My Money
(Stiff November 1977)
It’s all at a less frenetic pace than their last two singles. Rat’s drums still come pounding in and the riffs are there but it all seems more controlled. It’s okay, but nothing to set the world alight. Don’t notice the extra guitar.
One Way Love / Don’t Cry Wolf
(Stiff December 1977)
Different sounding Damned here. Slide guitar on One Way Love coupled with the excellent Don’t Cry Wolf. Slicker. More musical. No picture cover but came in a lurid purplish vinyl.
Stretcher Case Baby (Stiff 1978)
Free single given out and arguably one of the better tracks on Music For Pleasure.
Collectors item from Stiff.
Love Song / Suicide / Noise, Noise, Noise
(Chiswick April 1979)
Who would have thought the love child of New Rose, Neat Neat Neat and MC5’s Looking At You would have provided The Damned with a hit yet here it is. Love Song rushes at breakneck pace and is sheer genius. The Captain can sure handle a guitar. Suicide is good too.
Smash It Up / Burglar
(Chiswick September 1979)
After the fireworks of Love Song you would expect a song called Smash It Up to be as equally noisy yet this was the new Damned. Smash It Up Part 1 is an instrumental affair showing a softer more melodic Damned complete with keyboards. Part 2 continues with a keyboard dominated riff that’s bloody catchy. Safer ground for Burglar as Rat Scabies sings a cautionary punky tale.
Damned, Damned, Damned
Stiff February 1977
The entire set of songs was produced in one day for the album. Sensible claims to have no memory of it only masses of cider and speed. Comparing it to the polish and meticulous layers of sound of Bollocks, the album is raw and immediate. As well as featuring the two singles other highlights were Fan Club, Fish, See Her Tonight & their cover of Iggy’s 1970.
Click on below for larger images – Right Sounds and left National Rockstar – February 1977
Music For Pleasure.
Stiff November 1977
The difficult second album. The weird thing is this album had a lot going for it and the more you play it the more it makes sense but it just doesn’t hang together; from the Kandinsky-style Barney Bubbles cover to the contents. There are some great tracks like You Know, One Way Love, Stretcher Case Baby, Don’t Cry Wolf and Idiot Box but it’s just missing something.
Producing was Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason who did a pretty average job. Legend has it the band wanted Syd Barrett which would make more sense if he hadn’t been suffering mental problems and became a recluse.
‘MFP’ seemed to spell the end for The Damned. Members reformed as The Doomed, before becoming The Damned again, minus main songwriter and guitarist Brian James. The irony is, that having failed in an apparent attempt to write more thoughtful songs, they achieved maturity under the direction of Ray Burns (Captain Sensible). By the time of ‘The Black Album,’ their fourth effort, they were coming up with some great, varied music.
As for ‘MFP,’ ‘Problem Child,’ ‘You Take My Money’ and ‘Don’t Cry Wolf’ were recognisably the products of the same band who’d made the exciting ‘Damned Damned Damned,’ but the remaining tracks were of patchy quality.
They sacrificed the unbridled energy of their debut in favour of a more considered approach, but lacked the deftness to carry it off. At times, they sound like an amateur hard rock outfit. Some songs, like ‘Alone,’ possess the old aggression, but growl rather than sear. No amount of squeaky sax can disguise that ‘You Know’ consists of five turgid minutes. D. J. H. Thorn, Amazon, October 2007 **
Machine Gun Etiquette
And so we arrive at their third album and it’s a corker. The Damned could write some fine tunes between them and here they produce the album we all knew they could make. Some great tracks, well produced, and a mixture of heavier and lighter songs complete with keyboards. Look out for Melody Lee, a cover version of MC5’s Lookin At You, The White Cats’ Second Time Around renamed as Machine Gun Etiquette and King’s Antipope.
As the album kicks off with Love Song, which has become a long standing favourite for the band, it’s clear isn’t just another straight ahead punk record as while it keeps one foot in that sound the vocals and the bass lines hints at something more, a trend continued by the title track.
I Just Can’t Be Happy Today marks an ever greater change as the band begin their first forays into what became goth rock. Here it takes a rather basic form but is more than evident and develops further with Anti-Pope and later the horror punk tinged Plan 9 Channel 7.
Noise, Noise, Noise and Liar take things back in more classic punk directions (with half of The Clash apparently helping out with backing vocals on the former) before Smash It Up (parts 1 & 2) round thing off on a (by punk rock standards) epic finale that tie all of the sounds heard across the album into one package that is a highlight.
With the band seemingly firmly in control of the record for the first time, and with extra instrumentation in the form of keyboards which add a whole new dimension to proceedings, it’s clear why Machine Gun Etiquette remains one of the band’s most well regarded albums.
It also marks the beginning of their development away from basic punk with goth, psyche and more thrown into the mix, the reverberations from which can still be heard not just in their music but throughout alternative music today, but it still has a brilliantly raw edge that lifts the whole thing brilliantly. Tommy Girard, April 2020
TalkPunk
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