The Damned - The Black Album
#492
By Dean Jacobson
November 3 1980
The Damned
The Black Album
Genre: Early British Punk, Proto-Goth
Allen’s rating: 3.5
Dean’s rating: 3.8
Highlights:
Track 06. Hit or Miss
Track 08. Sick of This and That
Track 13. Love Song - Live
Track 14. Second Time Around - Live
Track 15. Smash It Up, Pt. 1 & 2 - Live
Track 16. New Rose - Live
Track 17. I Just Can’t Be Happy Today - Live
Track 18. Plan 9 Channel 7 - Live
Track 23. I Believe the Impossible
Track 25. There Ain’t No Sanity Clause
https://open.spotify.com/album/5cAl9AfA3t3FcXQfCYe0EY?si=CbSnvVIvRyqB6M87nlyGyg
The title of this album should be “All Over the Fucking Place with The Damned.” Overall, I like it. And I love it. And I hate it. It’s not just a mix of great, mediocre and awful songs; many of the songs have great, mediocre and awful parts.
Up to the point Allen asked me to review The Black Album, I fucking loved The Damned. The live versions of their early hits — Neat Neat Neat, New Rose, Smash it Up and a few more — DELIVER. They have a flavor that’s impossible to capture in a studio: Very hard, very loud, and very very fast. The tempos are at least double those of studio versions; the performance is a slam dance with audience, sometimes literally: in the early concert videos (I should say “pub brawls caught on film”) these guys were fucking insane; really smashing the shit out of their instruments, screaming and spitting on fans — interactive anarchy. I REALLY wish I’d known their music in high school! It would have been so cathartic — the Punk stuff, not the Goth stuff. Others like The Cure were so much better at that, at least up to The Black Album.
This is the Damned’s fourth studio album. The initial release was a double LP set: Sides A & B were (I think) all new material recorded in-studio mostly in a three-week session over May & June of 1980. Side C was one song; one long, shitty, self-indulgent conceptual piece. And Side D was a mostly fucking awesome live set recorded live at Shepperton Studios for “Damned fan club” members. The album was re-released as one LP without sides C and D, then re-re-released with C, D, and a variety of extra tracks. The Spotify version Allen gave me to review has the full complement of the 27 songs released on all versions (as far as I can tell) of The Damned’s The Black Album (oddly, Spotify put “1979” on the description, should be 1980).
So look: I’m not great with writing assignments. I put unnecessary pressure on myself, overcomplicate things, let the perfect be the enemy of the good, go down rabbit holes, and I’m so fantastically easily distracted that my rabbit holes end up looking like ant farms. But The Damned’s history practically IS the history of both Punk and Goth, and I found it practically impossible to review the album without giving it that context. Add to that the number times the album has been released in varied formats with varying tracks over about four decades, and yeah: this has been a lot.
Then add the couple of nasty antisemitic discoveries I found in a couple of those holes… Ugh.
Did I want to do this in the first place? No! But Allen really twisted my arm, saying things like “why don’t you do one of these?” and “it’ll be fun” and “it’s something to do during the pandemic.” And then he offered me the choice of a few albums to review, and one was by The Damned; the few of their songs and videos I knew made it irresistible, and the opportunity to kvetch or kvell about something in writing started to appeal to me, and… and four months later this is Draft #5.
Draft #1: I don’t wanna do this! But I love this band! Yeah, I’ll do it!
Draft #2: Really got some facts wrong in that first draft. Gotta do some more research so I don’t do that again.
Draft #3: Didn’t know THAT about them. Ugh.
Draft #4: After watching that documentary… Oy. Avoiding finishing this is going to keep me VERY busy. Fuck you, Allen!
To paraphrase (nobody knows who said it first), “If I’d had more time, I’d have written a shorter review.”
The first I heard of The Damned was in 1987. My college roommate had the Anything LP, and “Alone Again Or” was on it and it was Bee You Tee Full. I didn’t know it was a cover until I started researching the band. [If you hear the cover first, do you inevitably end up preferring it to the original? Me too! Usually!] He also had their 6th studio album, Phantasmagoria, which I completely forgot until I started looking into the band for this review. And I didn’t remember anything about it except for a gorgeous cover of Barry Ryan’s “Eloise.” Did I love the whole Anything album? I don’t remember. Have I heard all of The Damned’s music? No. Am I a completist? Generally, yes, so I imagine I’ll be taking in their entire oeuvre for the next few months.
First impressions, play by play and color commentary, ratings in parentheses per Allen’s instructions:
NEW MATERIAL (A & B Sides)
Track 01. (3.2) “Wait for the Blackout.” Eh. If this were the only song I’d ever heard from The Damned, I’d think “Eh. Okay, whatever,” and wouldn’t think of them again until I heard “Smash It up,” and definitely would not then have thought “Oh. Hey. These are the guys that did “Wait for the Blackout.”
Track 02. (3.7) “Lively Arts.” Definitely Vanian’s voice, the last one sounded like it was just Captain Sensible. But there’s also some nice deep harmonies between Vanian and I think Sensible. I don’t know. When I was a kid I couldn’t tell the difference between McCartney and Lennon. MAN I’d like this song a lot better if it didn’t have the synth.
Track 03. (4.0) “Silly Kids Games.” Some nice harmonies, but… is this what happens when punks have children and have to tone it down? I mean it’s really lovely. It’s got some doo-wop in it even?
Track 04. (3.0) “Drinking About My Baby.” Starts with a… a piano riff? Then gets more rock. God, the drums are awesome. Kind of dumb lyrics, but fun, and again great harmonies. Clap claps? What? Then rockout guitar? This is all over the place. I know, I shouldn’t throw rocks!
Track 05. (1.8) “Twisted Nerve.” Oh god, Vanian is intentionally singing off-key at the top, it’s really painful… now it’s changing tempo? I think I’m seeing a pattern: unpredictable mess. It’s a little haunting and weird, then rocking, then sucky, but… it doesn’t seem to really know what it is. Some shite lyrics. Now trumpets? Da fuk? Long trumpet solo then keyboard solo? Stop it already.
Track 06. (5.0) “Hit or Miss.” YES! Hard fast Punk! Fuck yes! Head banging! Fast! Damn, this is “Neat Neat Neat” and “New Rose” territory! Great lyrics! I think this is Sensible and Vanian singing in unison. Whatever, this is fucking great. “Another hit or miss another hit or miss… and I was looking for a kiiiiss…” WHY CAN’T ALL THE SONGS ON THIS ALBUM BE LIKE THIS!!??
Track 07. (1.0) “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” Nice open. Some of Siouxsie’s Budgie’s jangly guitar. Slow, then… oh shit, bad lyrics. With some good harmonies mixed in. Now a Jim Morrison-ish talky bit? Eugh. Dumb. Eughh. More dumb. Croon it: “I’m normal outsiiiiide…….He’s evil insiiiiiiide….. I’m Dr. Jekyll….. and he’s Mr. Hyde….I try to be truuuue….. He tries to be cruuuuuuel……” Who the fuck is writing this? This sucks.
Track 08. (5.0) “Sick of This and That.” YES! Hard fast melodic Punk! At only 1:47, knew it was going to be good. Super short. Love that.
Track 09. (2.6) “The History of the World, Pt. 1.” So I’m guessing this isn’t an homage to the Mel Brooks movie (man, Mel had a great run followed by a shitty run — more on Mel later, I’m actually not weaving way too far out of my lane yet). Starts with some sfx: heart monitor beeps, car takes off… This is another song with great harmony parts mixed with mostly shitty parts that alternate at really odd intervals. Eesh. They need an editor more than I do. Way to meander.
Track 10. (3.9) “13th Floor Vendetta.” Spooky open. There’s been a lot of organ throughout this thing. And piano. Oh this is so Goth. But poppy Goth. Croon it, Dave. Slow tempo. Nice. But some really on-the-nose Bauhaus lyrics. I hate on-the-nose lyrics.
Track 11. (2.9) “Therapy.” 6:11? That doesn’t bode well. Boring. All instrumental. This organist is having too much say in what’s happening. Oh! Now it’s kicking in! It did NOT need the first 82 seconds! Silly fast lyrics. Vanian’s crooning, doing a call and response with a couple of the others. Ugh. Then back to slow and too much organ. Seriously, fuck this keyboardist. Long instrumental.
CRAP (Side C)
Track 12. (0.3) “Curtain Call.” SEVENTEEN MINUTES AND FOURTEEN SECONDS??? Oh my. That bodes AWFUL.
Slow ballad. Vanian’s voice sounds… strained?? Oh my. It is. He’s straining to hit notes…. These lyrics are a little too on-the-nose. Some long, minor-key harmonizing. Paces up a bit. Now it’s a long held reverb, long moody held notes, now there’s a violin striking some discordant notes, some synthy synth synth, sfx of birds tweeting, bootsteps in a long wooden hallway, audience clapping sfx, the synth does some playing around, there’s about six minutes left. Oy. Now some electric guitar riffing. The background of long held notes is throbbing. Here comes Vanian with some lyrics that should be in a Footloose number…. You know those vapid, nuance-free 80s movie montage songs? “You’re on the go now, movin' fast, growin' upahh, you’re the best, it’s so hot, but you’ve got a lot, and you can live for the fight, ownin’ your youth, owning the nightahh…!” That kind of thing. To be clear, these are not the lyrics. This is just an example. I just made that up. Please steal it. Here’s the real lyrics: “Night obliterates the day / and all the fun begins / shadow boxing with yourself / just seems to get you nowhere / you don’t want to cheat / when playing solitaire….” You see what I mean? Stupid, right? So it’s basically a long, drawn out curtain call. Truth in advertising. Long, simple note, digitalish sequence repeating… Kill this keyboardist. Or me. This suuuuuuucks. OH IT’S OVER? THANK YOU BABY JESUS!
SOME GOOD SHIT (Side D)
Track 13. (5.0) “Love Song - Live.” OHH FUUUCK YEEEAH! Hard! Driving! I’m not even going to describe this, just go fucking listen to it and DANCE YOUR PUNK ASS OFF! It’s only 2:10. Always a good sign with these guys, with Punk in general. Shorter is better. Live fast die young.
Track 14. (5.0) “Second Time Around - Live.” MOSH, MOTHERFUCKERS! MOSH! MOSH TO THIS! This is good Punk. This is GREAT Punk. 1:46. Shorter than the last one, couldn’t be any better if it were 1:45. What the fuck was the deal with that 17:14 song before it went live and got great?
Track 15. (5.0) “Smash It Up, Pt. 1 & 2 - Live.” Okay. You already know how I feel about this song. This is their Freebird, their Psycho Killer; this is the one you paid to see, that you’re guaranteed to hear at a live show. And this IS live, so it’s FUN! The tempo is like 1.5x the studio version. I love that Vanian’s vocals end with a kind of Elvis-y affectation. The Forgotten Rebels (Canadian Punk) (scary people) did that, too. I think it’s a Punk way of saying “Fuck Elvis. He’s Establishment. Lame.” Shit, I wish I could go back 40 years and see these guys Live! ‘Course I’d be 12… So…. There’s this difference between American Punk and British Punk in that the former is often scary even when it’s campy; and the latter, no matter how raw it sounds, no matter how scary it is, it always has a touch of….errrrm… for lack of a better word, “manners.” Take this lyric: “I don’t even care if I look a mess, I want to smash it up like all the rest.” “I DON’T EVEN CARE IF I LOOK A MESS”??? HAAAHAhahahFUUUUUUCK that’s British!
Track 16. (5.0) “New Rose - Live.” See above. Like x2 tempo. My god, I’m finally getting some quarantine exercise. Burning calories banging my head. Jesus. This is great.
Track 17. (4.9) “I Just Can’t Be Happy Today - Live.” Oh yeah, I found this one during a deep dive. It’s probably their #4 must play after Smash it up, Neat Neat Neat, and New Rose. Really letting their Cockney out. I like the studio version better, it’s kind of melancholy and nice. This is live-show fun.
Track 18. (4.7) “Plan 9 Channel 7 - Live.” Anthemy. Sounds like the audience is singing along? Just nice. I stopped really paying attention, then remembered I was reviewing this, and it was as though I’d already had it in my iTunes rotation for years. Nice.
Track 19. (3.6) “White Rabbit - 7” Version.” A little um… on the nose… “we’re doing this Bauhaus style so it’s going to sound a little like camp whether we like it or not” overproduced cover. Actually not *that* bad.
ADD ONS (Actually sides E & F in a 2014 special edition 3xLP grey vinyl release)
Track 20. (2.8) “Rabid (Over You).” You know that static noise an amp makes when you’re plugging a ¼” jack into it? That noise is used as a percussion instrument a few times at the beginning. Out of one speaker. Which is annoying. And it’s kinda off-the-rack rock n’ roll electric guitar stuff. Bleh.
Track 21. (3.8) “Seagulls.” GodDAMNIT this album is long, Allen! Anyway: kinda nice mood instrumental, like slightly too upbeat, too high-tempo to be a track from The Cure’s 17 Seconds LP. Oh. It’s pausing then becoming a different instrumental. Interesting. A The Damned instrumental.
Track 22. (4.2) “The History of the World, Pt. 1 - Single Version.” I’m imagining this might be their #5 live show must-play. I mean it’s got a beat and you can dance to it.
Track 23. (4.7) “I Believe the Impossible.” Yeah, this is great! Bauhaus, but Rock ’n Roll with a quicker, Punkier speed. Ballad-y, too. It’s good, I like it — mixed with…. um…. Yeah, this is great!
Track 24. (4.2) “Sugar & Spite.” Just kinda spooky instrumental for Hallowe’en. Cute. I mean “oh spooooooky.”
Track 25. (5.0) “There Ain’t No Sanity Clause.” Oh yeah! Fuck yeah! Like the really good songs on Wire’s “Pink Flag” album, but even faster, great minor key harmonizing, and still Punk through all this. HAAAAAAAAHAHAHAH! The ending has a dark spooky Santa’s HoHoHo.
Track 26. (4.0) “Looking at You - Live.” OH FUCK YES! Punk! And Rock! Only tamer because they don’t say “fucking.” And definitely a Vanian vampiric edge to it. Mean guitar riffing. Punk drums. The organist is actually adding a nice background touch to it and only foregrounding a little bit. Oh, but it changes over time. Now too much organ. grrrrrrr. Like 0.7 points taken off. You suck, Sensible! (Captain Sensible on keyboards).
Track 27. (4.4) “White Rabbit - Extended Version.” A much better version of the not extended one (Track 19). Much more heavy rock. I like it.
So yeah, there’s a lot to like. Now that I’ve got a better grasp of the band’s history and the part they played in the history of Punk and Goth, what’s happening here makes a lot more sense. The following meanders wildly, but its purpose is to put The Black Album into that context to clarify what the band was when the album was made, and the band’s significance in the Punk and Goth movements. And the antisemitism problem.
Per a flimsy Wikipedia article: Malcolm McLaren (likely in late 1975) wanted to create a band with the sound of The Ramones and the style of Richard Hell [of Television (the band)], both of whom he’d seen perform at CBGB. So he put Chrissie Hynde together with Dave Vanian, Captain Sensible and Rat Scabies, and they tried some stuff out, had one live show in a church as Masters of the Backside (what? Why?). They weren’t having any of McLaren’s wanting to control them, which is fine for him — his next project was the Sex Pistols. Not a problem for Hynde either, she went on to form the Pretenders. The other three ended up together in The Damned. Caveat; I’m nowhere near being a Punk aficionado. The picture I’m getting is that the British Punk phenomenon coalesced around a small enough number of people that everybody in it knew just about everybody else. Kids putting together bands to play shows in pubs. There was a nasty 18 months of massive unemployment for the youth of that era, and they were all getting told that they had not future. Yikes. No wonder there was so much anger in Punk. Unemployed misfits making their own music for something to do is one of the things that birthed Punk. Maybe I’ll read the definitive books about the era at some point; but for now, I’ll do my best. Feel free to add “actually”s in the comments if you read that far and really feel the need to do so.
Brian James, the band’s co-founder, (founder, really) has a lovely way of describing the dawn of the Punk scene: “At the time, the Pistols were playing. I’d seen them because we were taken down — like, the London SS guys [ugh] — to some party they were playing and they were lead guys, and they did a lot of Stooges numbers, and it was like, “Wow,” there’s a lot of people out there, not just two or three other people. And you’d bump into people, people with the same sort of attitude, you know people who actually had short hair or wore leather jackets, and I think that’s where ‘New Rose’ comes from. It’s because of this thing starting up, and it’s just exciting.” And about The Damned being a genuinely new and unique animal: “We were four different types of people playing music together, and I don’t know. We all shared a kind of an interest in trying something new a bit, and, to me, that’s what part of the band thing was about. It was about experimenting, trying new stuff. There was no punk bands, of the original bands, that sounded the same. Everybody had their own kind of style to them. […] and all kinds of bands had come out of nowhere and were given that stimulus from the original punk bands to do it. Anyone could do it.” On the subject of Punk bands now all tending to sound pretty much the same: “That’s another thing. […] You know, you have bands copying the Damned; you have bands copying the Clash, the Pistols. And it was like, ‘Oh, this is getting a bit fucking tiring.’ They walk around in their uniforms. All the fuckin’ leather jackets didn’t mean anything, the black leather jackets. I don’t know, the skull and crossbones and that sort of stuff. It all became sort of like a uniform. That’s not the point of all. It was all about expression and fuckin’ doing your own thing! It was about your fantasies. So it all sort of went up its own ass.”
Delightful. Brian James’ voice, by the way, is… it’s just great. It’s Del “Brown M&Ms for Ozzy” Preston of Wayne’s World 2 fame. All of the bandmates, they give Dick Van Dyke’s Mary Poppins Cockney a run for its money.
So here’s Brian James (Brian Robertson). Black leather jacket and jeans, former semi-permanent guitarist in a short-lived band called the “London SS.” Yes, that IS an unfortunate name!* He decides to put together a band.
And here’s Rat Scabies (Chris Millar), a hellion with disturbingly long teeth who will appear in videos and album covers wearing a colorful suit-jacket and tie with his tragic short-on-top-long-everywhere-else haircut. He auditions to drum in the London SS, doesn’t get the part. But he does actually have scabies at that audition, and there was a rat in the rehearsal room, and he gets a brilliant nickname that genuinely captures his personality.
* Mick Jones (later of The Clash) plays briefly in the London SS. This will come back to haunt him. Unfortunately, Nazi Chic was part of the Punk aesthetic. Does it mean they were antisemites? Not necessarily. The Punks were all about shocking and rebelling against the authority that was telling them they had no future — pissing off everyone, for that matter. They hated the status quo music they heard on the radio. Punk was also a mad reaction to Simon and Garfunkel, hippies with too much money playing stadiums, “the dregs of glam rock,” King Krimson, and The Beatles. If you haven’t seen that clip of the Today Show with Bill Grundy, you kind of have to right now. [https://youtu.be/OC16gG5Rtzs] It’s a cringeably notorious bit of Television history in which Johnny Lydon of the Sex Pistols says a dirty word. Cute. Poignantly rebellious. Oh: notice pre-Goth Siouxsie Sioux and some other punks wearing swastika armbands behind the Pistols there. Oops! Being assholes was the point. Does Siouxsie not like the Jews? I dunno. I don’t think so. I’d honestly be surprised (and disappointed) if she were. She sounds genuinely embarrassed about it and has apologized for it numerous times. Look, I get it. They were dumb kids. But does it make me uncomfortable? Oh very much so.
So. Brian James and Rat Scabies (pfffft) decide to form a band with James on guitar, and Scabies on drums. Scabies is a PHENOMENAL drummer. He suggests Captain Sensible† (shnort) join to play bass, keyboards, etc. Sensible (Raymond Ian Burns), former toilet cleaner, had been in a band called “Johnny Moped” with Chrissie Hynde, who will later (post-Masters of the Backside) (Jesus, really?) go on to say that “without her, [The Damned] were probably the most musically accomplished Punk outfit in town.” Sensible is a fucking goofball. Really. Always dressed in something flamboyant and ridiculous like he just picked it all out of a lost-items box and a small theater costume rack. He often wears a collection of pinback buttons, some with swastikas on them! Yowza! And iron crosses! Also unfortunate! He will later come to be known as the guy with the red beret and the silly white sunglasses during his solo career and subsequent The Damned reformations.
† The first I heard of Captain Sensible was when I saw the video for his solo, “Wot?” And OH GOD, it’s so stupid. You have to watch it, it’s HILARIOUS. It’s rap. He’s living in a hotel, there’s a dude outside with a jackhammer, he wakes up pissed off and ends up forming a conga line of hotel staff as he goes out to stop the noise. I know, I’m going way far afield here, but it’s so worth it, you gotta see this [youtu.be/9Q6YJ-r5SQs]. It features the group Dolly Mixture on backing vocals, the Queen, Margaret Thatcher, Adam Ant, a 2-D cutout of Sensible…. Stop reading this meandering review and go watch it. Now! You’re welcome.
By the way, what the hell? Chrissie Hynde was living in London back then? She was In that scene? Damn, her history is fascinating. She was in a band with Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo at Kent? Neat.
So James, Scabies and Sensible invite Sid Vicious (later of the Sex Pistols) and Dave Vanian (David Lett) to audition as vocalists. Thank Christ Sid didn’t show up because a) what a train wreck he was, and b) Dave Vanian was just fucking awesome.
Dave Vanian is a preternaturally beautiful man with a preternaturally beautiful voice and a… heh… heh heh… he has a um… dude has a vampire complex. A Dracula fetish? Arguably. From a 2018 interview: “People would ask you why you joined a band […] and other people would say, ‘Well, I want to drink as much as I can, take as many drugs as I can, fuck as many women as I can…’ and all that stuff. What I wanted was the haunted mansion on the hill. With the bats flying around it and the laboratory. And if I got a couple of girls inside of it, great…” He’s always done up kind of like (or exactly like) a vampire. In the band’s early days, when he was wearing more than just leather pants, he looked like… basically like Eddie Munster. And he genuinely was The Munsters fan. As he pushed the band in a Goth direction, his costumes progressively evolved with age-appropriate Vampire tropes. From Eddie Munster to young Dracula, to debonaire vampire. His look really peaked last year when the band (yeah, they’re still a thing) did a show at the London Palladium. Vanian arrived in a coffin. In a horse-drawn hearse. And he appeared as Nosferatu — TOTALLY looking like the real thing. Pre-Kinski. Shaved head. It’s awesome [youtu.be/F6fifvYFQm0].
Post-show interview excerpt:
Q. “So how long have you dressed like that?”
A. “From when I was about 14. It wasn’t really about looking like a vampire. I liked Victorian architecture and mourning rituals. Film noir was a big influence and rock’n’roll. I loved Gene Vincent, I liked Elvis but I always thought Roy Orbison had the best voice. Weirdly, they were all pallid with black hair. Also the imagery in those silent German movies, where the man are all over made up and have blacked out eyes. I didn’t develop a persona to be in the band. I was probably odder offstage. I’d put on a full evening suit to do something completely mundane and then onstage I’d wear a leather jacket. For me, performing was dressing down sometimes.” From the same article: “Long before I was in a band, I had black hair and was wearing black clothes and make-up. It’s nothing today, but back then it would get you a whole barrage of insults. I only bought a car because I was getting into so many fights on the train at night. But I stuck with it, because that is who I was.”
So Vanian was one of the earliest Goth performers, and his Goth credentials are so very legit. I mean before he joined the band, the man was a grave digger. According to Sensible, Vanian drove a hearse. He wasn’t the First Goth; that title arguably goes to Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.‡ He’s never had the same high profile as some of his Goth Contemporaries, but Dave Vanian is as much a Goth icon as Peter Murphy, Siouxsie Sioux, Robert Smith and Nick Cave. And he’s responsible for pushing The Damned into Goth territory.
‡ Check out this rendition of “I put a spell on you” on the Merv Griffin show in 1966 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1AE_bCoPSI] I love this. Screaming’ Jay is fucking nuts. And Merv and his guests’ reactions… priceless. Watch this.
Vanian, by the way… NOT a trained singer. From that same aforementioned article: “I was bumming around trying to work out what to do and then I found myself sitting with a bunch of people and lying to Chrissie Hynde that I’d been a singer in a band out in the sticks that nobody had heard of. Next thing I knew I was in a rehearsal learning to do what I said I could do already. Brian [James] had seen me at gigs because he was looking for a singer. His criteria was: “That bloke, I don’t know his name, but he looks like a bit of a singer.” He conned his way into it, but he really pulled it off. And I love his untrained voice, or what it became. It reminds me of Paul Weller’s (The Jam) Surrey accent (yes, I did NOT know “Surrey” off the top of my head). I only know one The Jam song, “That’s Entertainment,” but I’m sticking with that assessment.
Another thing that defined Punk was the idea that anybody could do it. Pick up a guitar, learn three cords, bang on the drums, scream into the mic, and bam: instant band! But these guys had CHOPS. You can’t hear it very well in this shite recording of their first show (it’s a mess [https://youtu.be/bF7_vpL8lPc]), supporting the Sex Pistols at the 100 Club (July 6, 1976), but they were all good at what they did at least by the time they released their first single. Scabies started nagging his folks for a drum kit when he was eight and played in an orchestra at one point. Sensible started playing keyboards when he was young; and he was jamming on a guitar along with records, and going to concerts in the late 60s (in his late teens, I think), studying how some of the greats of the day played, really “seeing what their fingers were doing.” He’s entirely self-taught, now a legendary guitar player (sadly, his favorite guitar got stolen two years ago. He’s offering a reward if you can find it). Brian James got his first guitar at 12, and has been writing songs ever since. Dave Vanian was the only one that jumped in cold.
Oh. Oh. Look: I found this video of The Damned on one of those “programmes” where a stuffy English guy interviews the band, and then the band plays a number. The show was “What’s Wrong with the 70s?” (’93 to ’96) (the stuffy host is Michael Aspel), and it’s a group of OG punks describing their era (probably about 15-18 years after the band formed), with a surprisingly articulate (in spite of his thick Cockney accent) Glen Matlock of The Sex Pistols in it [youtu.be/HDtixwbCdJ4] very reasonably arguing with another guest, an academic weasel (total git) insisting that Punk was an entirely concocted as a commercial endeavor. Vanian is in this group, dressed in black from head to toe. You don’t even notice him at first because I mean it when I say he was DRESSED IN BLACK FROM HEAD TO TOE. Including an S&M mask. He’s still wearing the mask when the band go up to play “Smash it Up,” which slays me because he looks exactly like what a vampire would look like if he had to go out during the day: ZERO skin showing. And the band KILL it, mask notwithstanding. Scabies does something to his drum kit at the end that seriously can NOT be legal. You gotta see it. Let’s just say it got out of control and he forgot his safe word. I am not joking, that is what happened: the thing became a serious thing because Rat Scabies forgot his safe word.
The Black Album will come after the band has an already-storied history after only four years since the band’s inception. And Holy SHIT were these guys connected. And their collection of firsts is unparalleled in Punk: Their single, “New Rose” (love it) (produced by Nick Lowe!) was the first Punk Rock single released in the UK. Their first album, Damned Damned Damned (also produced by Lowe), was the first full-length album released by a British Punk band and a critical success. They toured the UK (with the Sex Pistols and the Clash), had shows canceled by authorities who believed (rightly so? I lean towards “yes”) that the band and/or their fans would wreck the venues, and got kicked off their first tour by Malcolm McLaren. They were the first British Punk band to tour the US (opening for T. Rex), and inspired the first wave of West Coast Hardcore Punk (and they played FAST when they were over here, so I’m guessing that’s what happened here — dunno). They were one of the first Gothic Rock bands (and a major influence on Goth subculture). They were also the first Punk band to split up, and the first to re-form. [And what the fuck have I done with MY life?? Hey. Compare and despair, man. Stop that.]. So. Already a lot before even their second album.
Their second album (Music for Pleasure) (produced by Nick Mason of Pink Floyd) (they couldn’t get Syd Barrett) was a critical and commercial failure that got them dropped from their label. The band’s breakup prior to their third album went something like this: Brian James was a fan of MC5 (they came up a few times in my research, as did the Shangri-Las) (what?) and brought in a second guitar player (Lu Edmonds) to try to explore that MC5 sound. This disturbed Scabies. He was unhappy with Music for Pleasure, and quit the band after they recorded it. The critics didn’t like it either. James and Sensible got John Moss (formerly of Culture Club) to replace Scabies on the drums. But after a few months, James felt that the magic was gone, that the Band’s sound had changed too radically without Scabies. So he basically told Sensible and Vanian that The Damned had expired, and that they should split up and work with different people.
I think James had already wanted to change his channel. In an interview with Vive le Rock, James said that there were things he’d wanted to try since before he and Scabies got The Damned together. Adding a second guitarist was one. Another was that he wanted to “find an Iggy” (Pop?), "That’s what I was looking for. I wanted my own fucking Iggy. And I was lucky enough between the Damned and the Lords to tour with him in America.” He was referring to Stiv Bators (formerly of the Dead Boys), with whom he formed Lords of the New Church — a Goth outfit oddly enough. They’d met when Dead Boys and The Damned were doing shows with T. Rex at CBGB during their US tour, and on a subsequent English tour, and remained friends. Rat Scabies played with James and Bators for one gig during which they performed some of The Damned’s music. Miles Copeland (brother of Stuart Copeland of the Police, co-founder of I.R.S. Records) was interested in producing something with them, and… Did you know Stuart and Miles’ dad was a CIA officer? And their mom was a Scottish archaeologist! What the hell? Hey! Squirrel! So James ended up forming his own Goth outfit with Bators, Lords of the New Church, and The Damned didn’t really go in that Goth direction until after he split. I’m sure there’s more to the story of that convergent evolution, but Allen’s going to kill me if I don’t stop researching shit and finish this FUCK! I KNOW! I’M ALMOST DONE HERE, ALLEN! THIS FEELS VAGUELY PERTINENT! To be clear, It doesn’t sound like Brian James left angry when he departed from The Damned, the band he co-founded. But MAN did they get contentious with each other later. It was bad. Like “haven’t been in the same room for over two decades” bad. And sad. But this comes well after The Black Album.
So a few months after the band split up, Scabies tentatively brings The Damned back together as a one-off band he names “The Doomed […] to avoid trademark infringement,” per Wikipedia. I dunno, maybe he didn’t want Brian James to come after them for a cut? Money and egos make rock bands contentious. True trope. The re-formed band is Scabies, Sensible, Vanian, and Ian Fraser Kilmister — fucking Lemmy of Motörhead! — on bass. Sensible switches to guitar and keyboards and demonstrates that he is, unquestionably, an astoundingly brilliant guitarist (as well as completely fucking nuts). They change their name to Les Punks. After a few shows, and another bassist, they finally settled with Alasdair “Algy” Ward (formerly of The Saints) on bass and officially rechristen themselves “The Damned.” They record a third album, Machine Gun Etiquette (that’s… I love that). Mick Jones & and Joe Strummer (the Clash) do some vocals on the title track (uncredited) cuz they happen to be in the same studio recording London Calling; and Captain Sensible, much to my regret, starts fucking around with the Farfisa organ. Don’t get me wrong. The organ isn’t all shite all the time, but throughout The Black Album, it will just make me want to punch him. In the face. A lot. Cuz it’s lame. See above. Also during Machine Gun Etiquette, you can hear Dave Vanian’s vocals dip in and out of a crooning style distinct from his earlier vocals, and sometimes like Elvis (possibly homage, possibly parody). It’s a great album. I especially love the single “Anti-Pope” [https://youtu.be/s1G1y7_r8bE]. Great lyrics and harmonies, and… how to put this? The way the vocals are structured and delivered is tight, but smooth. Could be shorter though. …I mean… It’s just… It’s TIGHT, okay? Shut up! Go try it! Go now!
And if you haven’t seen the video for Smash it Up Parts 1 & 2 from Machine Gun Etiquette, drop everything and go watch it. Now. It’s one of the best music videos and songs ever [youtu.be/Ux1Za8Wmz_s]. You can skip straight to Part 2 if you have no soul and want to to miss out on this really lovely kind of slow ballad-y, jangly, electric guitar- & bass-led instrumental which transitions deftly into Part 2, the hard and fast stuff. The band are in this white void space, dressed as described above. Vanian is in all white with a did-up vampire face, and it’s got that old VHS blown-out look, so he’s really like just a pale vampire face with darkened eyes and a microphone bursting out of the void and flying around like a balloon in a wind tunnel; and the way the band is moving you’d think they’d all mainlined Flea. Note: these guys loved, among other drugs, the Speed! And it shows. And the song KICKS ASS. It’s THE Essential Early Punk Anthem. The refrain, “Smash it up, ahOOooOO, smash it up… smash it up smash it uuup!” is the best earworm ever. Nothing is more Punk than smashing things up. And this is mostly how I’ve been picturing the band as I’ve been writing this. They were rarely if ever angry Punks, but they could be violent ones. Smash it up. Oh, and kids: don’t do drugs. Be cool. Stay in school.
I wanted to know who directed The Smash it Up video (it’s Martin Baker) cuz I love it and wanted to see their other work. So I went to a Facebook group for people sharing vintage videos of The Damned in concert to ask around. Somebody had posted a video of The Damned doing a live show in 1977 with Lu Edmonds, that second guitarist that Brian James had brought in for Music for Pleasure (the second The Damned album). Lu’s only got a couple of close-ups, and appears to be in blackface. [!] I comment “So that’s Lu in blackface? More importantly, WHY THE FUCK IS THAT DUDE IN BLACKFACE?” The guy who admins the page says “its grease paint - he didnt choose to have that... i believe Rat and Captain overpowered him, pinned him down and subjected him to that. […] it’s also blue not black.” I believe him. I give him the benefit of the doubt. He really doesn’t come off like an asshole, and in a clearer video, you can see that it’s blue paint, not black. He also said that Lu confirmed it in an interview. But I’d gotten self-righteous about it, and angry, then embarrassed; I got accused by other people in the group of going out of my way to prove I wasn’t a racist and some other shit. Then somebody posted a video that I think was supposed to provoke me into a self-righteous rant. I sat with my discomfort instead…
It’s a video of Captain Sensible on a BBC 4 show in the very early 80s, B. A. Robertson’s short-lived “B. A. in Music,” wearing a Nazi uniform and performing Springtime for Hitler [youtu.be/kG4ZWWnMxkQ] with the Dolly Mixture ladies on backing vocals, also in Nazi garb. Yep. It’s out of context and cringeworthy as hell. Made me grimace and inhale sharply through clenched teeth. Suddenly, the funny man in the “Wot?” video wasn’t funny anymore. I’m surprised that I can’t find more discussion about it in a cursory search. The most helpful thing I could find was actually in a YouTube comment: “I remember this when it was being broadcast, B.A. Robertson covering all bases by suggesting that the Captain had his swastika firmly in cheek.” Again, I get it: being irreverent and shocking is a hallmark of Punk, and Sensible is a Punk icon who has made a long career out of making an ass of himself. And he’s really loved for it. And he is funny. And I’d like to just accept this as Sensible being a silly ass, but I have a visceral reaction to it that makes that impossible. The most disturbing part was the audience giving the performance a standing ovation
One of Sensible’s current bandmates describes him as one of the most embarrassing people to be around, even more of an unpredictable asshole as Raymond Ian Burns than as Captain Sensible. Another describes him as a consummate Absurdist. And he is. He’s either just really missing the mark here or hitting it, and Jews are the target. I think this show segment was supposed to be so irreverent and obnoxious that it just became absurd and laughable. It may also have been, in Sensible’s mind, an homage to Mel Brooks. If you’re reading this, you’re a friend of Allen’s, and I feel safe in assuming that you’re smart enough that you don’t need me to spell out for you why this performance, out of context, especially if it’s being performed by gentiles, (I can’t speak to the Dolly Mixture, but Sensible is not Jewish) is offensive, likely intentionally so, and it crosses a line. Sadly, neither Sensible nor B. A. Robertson were dummies, either. Nor were the show’s producers, the station’s owners, etc. The saddest thing about it is that it’s so gross that it puts me off the band. The line that gets crossed is the one between my liking the band or be repulsed by it. I like so much of their music, their videos and their story and their style; I’d hate to lose it.
ONE CAVEAT: if the purpose of this performance was to be so offensive that B. A. Robertson’s show would be canceled, I’m almost relieved. B.A. Robertson was an asshole. Annabella Lwin of Bow Wow Wow took him to task on his own show for being a sexist prick, and it is DELIGHTFUL [https://youtu.be/XDK1dMNAJno]. And yeah, this is just Sensible, not the whole band, but he’s inextricable from The Damned. And he isn’t the only member of the band who’s making me question whether I can continue to enjoy them. Bleh. Read on.
So. 1980. Algy Ward quits. Scabies and Sensible recruit Paul Gray to play bass. And (at long last) they record THE BLACK ALBUM. Ta dah! The crooning Vanian was dipping into in the previous album starts to take hold, and the band really begins to lean into the Goth. And Captain Sensible starts to do that bullshit with the organ. Oh! And Hans Zimmer produced and played keyboard on both versions of History of the World Part 1)! Yeah, THAT Hans Zimmer! Cool. The Damned are not yet as Goth as they will get,¶ but whatever: what’s happening in this album is this: they’re playing around. Exploring. Some of it works, some is mediocre, and some of it suuuuuucks. I think of that 17:12 nightmare that is the entire Side C of the album, Curtain Call, as absolutely harrowing growing pains. Puberty. Spots (what Brits get instead of zits) and all. It’s juvenile crap, but for some reason, fans LOVE it. And they’re WRONG! As I listened to it, I was just hoping they’d grow out of it sooner rather than later. And track seven, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde… almost as bad. It’s like when you’re 16 and you think you’ve written the best poem ever, and you find it 16 years later and you think “oy. Go get some fucking depth.” I believe what’s happening that Dave Vanian has started writing the lyrics, and, at least at this point, he’s just not very good at it. He’s fantasizing about the haunted houses and vampire movies and The Munsters, and it’s just… give it a rest already! We get it! Spooky Gothic Shit! Enough! Basta! Bauhaus will do it so much better in about two years! Sit down! Eugh. …Eh… if I’m being honest, even Bela Lugosi’s dead is kind of stupid. Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Cure will really make the best Goth. The experimenting awkward teen aspect of this album does successfully lead The Damned to doing very different work that really works. Regrettably, they will henceforth have a keyboardist in their lineup after this album. Not always a bad thing, but… often enough… bleh.
¶ They really sink into Goth later with the Phantasmagoria album. Watch the Grimly Fiendish video to see how ridiculous they get with the whole thing [https://youtu.be/zIpv0fQW4YU]. It’s stupid, but fun, and I really really like the song. And you can hear what Vanian’s voice becomes. Much deeper.
I just learned that my nearest and dearest friend attended a The Damned concert in (probably) 1981, performing and promoting The Black Album. She tells me that everyone she knew back then who was into Punk and/or Goth thought The Black Album was The Damned’s best work. And they were WRONG! She actually liked their opening act, 45 Grave, better. And she was WRONG!
The Black Album, as you might have guessed, is a jab at The Beatles’ White Album. The cover of the version of the album released without the C and D sides emulates the Fab Four’s “With the Beatles,” cover, but The Damned’s bandmates’ photo is slightly demonic: glowing eyes and under-lighting as opposed to The Beatles’ famous side-lighting. In most other versions, the cover is a distinctly Goth, embossed rendering of the band’s name in black with (appropriately) crawling vines adorning it. Per Wikipedia, «“It was said that the Beatles had their ‘White Album,’ we had our ‘Black Album,’” said Vanian. “The sleeve isn't related to the Beatles in any way,” [Whaaaaat??] However, Scabies said: “Of course it was to do with the Beatles, I was so sick about the debates of what we should have on the front of it. I said: ‘Put the thing in a plain black sleeve and we'll have a go at the Beatles and the ‘White Album.’”» Oh YES I DID just make up my own punctuation rules for a quote within a quote within a quote.
The Damned’s longevity supports the contention that the artists whose careers survive more than a couple of decades are the ones who are willing to constantly reinvent themselves. Which Madonna do you think of when you think of Madonna, or Bowie when you think of David Bowie? I’ve seen the band with and without Scabies, with and without James, and once without Sensible.** Over the past few years (decades?), Vanian and Sensible have been playing gigs under the The Damned moniker. The one persistent member of the original lineup is the guy who wasn’t really a singer that got recruited because he was pretty and had his whole interesting Victorian/Edwardian “thing” happening, and was just hanging out, looking for something to do — and he ended up shaping the band in his own image. And neither of the two guys who now front the band are the ones who initiated it. The two invited into the group now are the group. That’s the funny thing about The Damned: they’ve gone through so many incarnations over the past (oh god) 44 years that they’ve become more of a music catalogue that has people than the other way around. James and Scabies don’t appear to be opposed to this arrangement; they want those residuals! But again, there is rancor in the band.
** (from an earlier draft) One night before Allen asked me to write this, I was watching Craig Ferguson’s The Late Late Show, (wildly experimental for CBS) (fucking loved it), and he described how he fell in love with Punk Rock when it first became a thing because it sounded like a fight, which made him happy, and the band that introduced him to it was The Damned. And he had them on and they played “Neat Neat Neat,” and there’s this dude dressed up like debonair vampire in a tux with a creepy thin ‘stache, slicked back hair with a gray streak and a MONOCLE and a long tailcoat. And they were… pretty damn good. Really hard driving with a kind of Croony, Elvisy, loud and fast, vaguely-Cockney-but-doesn’t-drop-consonants singer [youtu.be/G_hfXIwGQr4]. Great showmanship. [Dave Vanian was the only member of The Damned in this performance.]
Scabies would leave and return to the band several times over the years, which was great because he really is The Damned’s quintessential drummer, and there really is no replacing his energy. But he’s easily irked. One thing that possibly irked him was when Captain Sensible was getting picked up by a limousine to go do a promotional bit for a single he was accidentally having a lot of success with as a solo act, a cover of Rodgers and Hammerstein South Pacific song, "Happy Talk” [https://youtu.be/z1PTlnhQhoQ]. Did you watch a bit of it? What the hell, right? It’s like… a children’s song! Fucking Gonzo! Captain Sensible is a rabid Punk, but he makes this goofy thing, and it becomes a number one hit in the UK! It’s totally fucking insane. That’s the Dolly Mixture on backup vocals again, and a band including Robyn Hitchcock on guitar. I don’t think any of them ever performed this dressed as Nazis. I really fucking well hope they did not. Was this, I don’t know, a kind of “selling out”? I think Scabies thought it was. It didn’t bother Dave Vanian, though: “That never worried me,” [Vanian] says. “All this bullshit of people selling out. If the TV people want to pay for some nice car to pick you up, why not take advantage of it? Why go on the bloody bus? Take it — it’s not going to last forever. To me it was great ‘cos here was this great eccentric character, part of our British heritage, getting in the back of a limo going ‘Lend us a fiver. Ah, fuck you mate!’. The thing about Captain is: what you see is what you get. It’s not an act. He genuinely is a complete… weirdo.”
A documentary (now streaming on Tubi), “The Damned: Don’t You Wish That We Were Dead,” has really helped me understand what The Damned is, how they arrived at The Black Album, and where they went from there. I fucking love this doc. You’ve got to at least watch this trailer [https://youtu.be/GVI8SOt3OvI] — It really very well sums the movie up (YEAH I insist!). If you want to see the whole thing of these guys in the early days, and you do, trust me, they’re something to behold. Completely unhinged. Diving into the drums, tossing the bass drum across the stage like psychotics, get naked (I think that’s only Sensible) (erm… only CAPTAIN Sensible who does that), and really smash shit up, set shit on fire. They were notoriously obnoxious. I don’t remember whether the doc mentions the drugs and drinking. In fact, I don’t recall the director addressing that even indirectly; somehow I kept forgetting: these guys were FUELED when they played. And it’s sooooo weeeeird seeing these geezers become geezers. They’re in their mid 60s at this point (2015), and they got street miles on them. Vanian, of course, is elegant AF, always, and Sensible is actually in pretty good shape — externally. I’d love to read his psychiatric diagnosis. What you prescribe for Simply Fucking Mental? But the others are like, missing teeth and shit. Interviews with other artists show how loved and influential they are. Revered. But they’ve never attained the commercial success and exposure that their contemporaries have, for reasons explored in the doc. That they would run out of money, even while they’re doing shows that I’d’ve imagined would be relatively profitable, is kind of stunning. Their kvetching about money can actually be entertaining; it’s meant to be, but it’s also sincere. The point where it isn’t entirely entertaining (unfortunate antisemitic bullshit trigger warning):
They’re doing a reunion gig. Someone, probably the doc maker, Wes Orshoski, has left a camera running on a table in the dressing room, next to a pizza box. Wide-angle lens. It’s just the band in the room. The camera isn’t hidden, they’re aware of it, but they aren’t entirely paying attention to it at first; they usually mug incessantly at when Orshoski is trying to get candid footage. Dave Vanian starts in about hearing all of his contemporaries’ music in commercials.
Vanian: “Neat neat neat. Can’t afford that pizza. Neat neat neat.”
[I don’t know who he’s talking to, possibly Sensible, but he’s genuinely aggravated about the following]
Vanian (cont’d) “Why is it [inaudible] I’m on tour, and I watch TV, and what do I hear? I hear Sting, I hear Iggy Pop, I hear Blondie, I hear the Buzzcocks
[he’s counting it off on his fingers and waving his arms]
Somebody offscreen: “Morrissey?”
Vanian (cont’d): “the Undertones: all on bloody adverts!
Monty Oxymoron, keyboardist: Ooooh. Yeah. Good point.
[Captain Sensible and others go for the pizza, making English word noises that are mostly unintelligible to me.]
Somebody offscreen: “Where’s yours, dear?”
Vanian (Cont’d): [unintelligible] work for us, who can [unintelligible] sort it out [unintelligible] a Jewish, obnoxious lawyer of some kind.”
[Nervous laughter from his bandmates. He starts acknowledging the camera, as if to say “yeah, that’s right, I said it.” The band mates nervously glance at the camera.]
Vanian (Cont’d): [unintelligible] Pistols have got this Jewish [unintelligible] here in LA, [unintelligible] gets all their deals for them. Hence they’ve all got a quarter-million each [unintelligible] re-sign their deal.”
Captain (offscreen) “What’s their phone number?”
Vanian: [really playing for the camera now, miming uh… how do I put this… fucking someone from behind. We’re all adults here, right?] You’ll have to do it for the band, Captain.
[Monty Oxymoron laughs self-consciously.]
And suddenly Dave doesn’t seem so elegant anymore. He seems like a crass, creepy, bitter old man.
So. Shit. Breaks my heart. It’s striking to me that I was only able to find one mention of this unfortunate moment online: “Mr. Vanian is caught in a candid moment griping about how many of his punk peers are raking in the filthy lucre by licensing their music when no similar offers are in the offing for his band (please forgive the anti-semitic tinge to his diatribe).” Sure, pal! But I won’t forget it! Does Vanian really just not like the Jews? Kinda hard to say definitively whether he is just from that. Does Sensible actually have a hate-on for the Israelites? I haven’t been able to find an interview in which he’s addresses his turn on the B. A. In Music show. I can, very easily, imagine him saying, if asked about it, “oh fuck off, mate, it was just some stupid shit” and refusing to address it. In more recent interviews, he actually can be reserved, and even (ouch) sensible [https://youtu.be/p_NE_l6JDbU]. So maybe he could be approached about it. Maybe they both could. I think it’s going to come down to somebody interviewing and asking them. Hey, if Siouxsie Sioux can acknowledge and apologize for her mistakes and learn from them, so can these blokes. I have, and I’d be in really bad shape if I hadn’t had a long line of extremely patient people in my life.
It’s so easy for me to forget how prevalent antisemitism actually is in the world. As a general rule, looking Jewish, having mannerisms that I’ve picked up just by having had Jewish parents, the Yiddish expressions that I unconsciously picked up from them; these things have, in my memory, never made me a target or been a cause for fear here in Los Angeles. When I was a kid in San Antonio Texas, I was a little more conscious of it — you see a swastika painted on someone’s driveway overnight, it gets your attention. But here in LA, being Jewish and working in the entertainment industry has always given me a sense of privilege that I rarely have any cause to acknowledge, just as being a straight white cis male has [though I’m far more (hopefully fully) aware of that now]. I once worked for a casting director who told me I have a face like the map of Jerusalem. It was good for a laugh. We were both ethnically Jewish. I feel comfortable making jokes at my own expense as related to my own or others’ Jewishness. I was born into that club. None of The Damned were, WITH ONE EXCEPTION! Temporary Drummer John Moss was born in Clapham Jewish Boys Home at Wandsworth and adopted by an upper-middle class Jewish couple. Huh. Right? Ping me if he’s a friend, I’d love to chat with him.
Am I overreacting? Is there real bias in all those nuggets of antisemitism rolling around in The Damned’s character? I go back and forth. Sensible’s Springtime thing was 38 years ago. Was Nazi chic a harmless style choice, not so much a reminder that people want to kill me as it was giving the finger to conformity or to a society that has let down its youth? The Vanians obnoxious antisemitic-tinged rant wasn’t really that bad, was it? It does leave a bad taste in my mouth and turns me off to them as people to a significant degree. It’s like learning that Morrissey’s a racist; that thing of loving an artist’s work, but finding them repulsive as people. What do you do? I haven’t watched any of (Woody!) Allen’s films since Dylan Farrow’s NY Times article, or Louis C.K.’s work since I learned about his creepy bullshit, and I’m fairly sure I can manage to live without watching any more of Roman Polanski’s work. And I cringe when I find out a film I like is a Miramax production. I’m even unsure as to whether I ever genuinely liked any of Picasso’s work since I found out what a misogynistic asshole he was. But I still love Morrissey’s music, and I’m pretty sure I won’t stop listening to it. And I still love The Damned’s music, and that doc and their music videos. Am I a hypocrite? Am I too comfortable with moral ambiguity? It’s a pickle.
So I can’t say that I “fucking love” The Damned anymore. Sure, I like them and I love them and I hate them, but I’ve calmed a bit the fuck down. If you’ve made it this far and have thoughts about that pickle, I’m eager to hear them.
Oh. No. I just found this, per an interview with Brian James in The Guardian: “We got our name from two 1960s films: Luchino Visconti’s The Damned, about the Nazis, and the horror movie The Village of the Damned. It was perfect for us.”
Fuck.
Sources in no particular order
http://psychobabble200.blogspot.com/2016/05/review-damned-dont-you-wish-we-were-dead.html
https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/the-damned-dave-vanian-interview
https://vivelerock.net/brian-james/
https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/the-damned-dave-vanian-interview
https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-damned-an-epic-tale-of-fast-living-and-faster-music
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/mar/19/how-we-made-the-damned-new-rose
https://www.discogs.com/The-Damned-The-Black-Album/release/1422894
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