Brown The Damned

Every Album, Every Song
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-78952-408-6
Verlag: Sonicbond Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 144 Seiten

Reihe: On Track

The Damned are a great British rock n' roll institution. They have helped to plot the course of guitar music over the last 45 years, putting UK punk on record for the first time in 1976, and going on to lay the groundwork for the hardcore, Goth, post-punk, indie-pop and horror-punk movements that have thrived in their wake. Ever underestimated by critics, their string of classic albums has nevertheless been hugely influential, from the trailblazing punk of Damned Damned Damned to the epic, eclectic sprawl of The Black Album, through the glossy dark-pop of Phantasmagoria, to the genre-spanning triumph of the recent Evil Spirits and beyond.
In this book, Morgan Brown takes a fascinating, deep dive into each of the band's groundbreaking records, unearthing the stories and inspirations behind them. He picks apart their musical building blocks and examines both the creative process and the creators themselves; early visionary leader Brian James, iconic frontman Dave Vanian, madcap genius Captain Sensible, volatile percussive dervish Rat Scabies and many more. Curious new listeners and long-time enthusiasts alike will find this book the perfect companion on a voyage of discovery into the strange, chaotic, wonderful world of The Damned.

Morgan Brown has been an active part of the UK punk scene for over twenty years as a guitarist, drummer and songwriter. His various bands have toured widely, sharing bills with many of the genre's leading lights, including, on numerous occasions, The Damned. He is a self-confessed music nerd, enjoying a wild assortment of pop, jazz, folk, heavy metal, country, and whatever else takes his fancy. He is also an avid consumer of sci-fi and crime fiction and is a regular contributor to Hark! The 87th Precinct podcast, which is dedicated to the detective novels of Ed McBain. He lives in Liverpool, UK.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Brown, Morgan

Leseproben

Chapter 2

Music for Pleasure (1977)

Personnel:

Lu Edmonds: guitar

Brian James: guitar

Captain Sensible: bass Guitar and vocals

Rat Scabies: drums

Dave Vanian: vocals

Additional Personnel:

Lol Coxhill: saxophone on ‘You Know’

Recorded at Britannia Row Studios, London

Record label: Stiff Records

Released: 18 November 1977 Producer: Nick Mason

Highest UK chart position: did not chart

Length: 33:50

Current edition: 2015 Sanctuary Records reissue

Following the debut album’s release, the first half of 1977 was quite a whirlwind for the band. First, they toured the UK supporting T. Rex – Marc Bolan being a rare member of pop’s older guard who was excited and energised, rather than horrified, by punk – and converted a fair few surprisingly receptive glam fans along the way. They followed this by beating their UK punk scene peers to the punch once again, becoming the first British punk band to tour the US. Punk was born in the States, with New York’s CBGB club as ground zero, and small regional scenes had tentatively begun to germinate in other areas. The Dead Boys had recently risen from the ashes of Cleveland proto-punk mavericks, Rocket From The Tombs. While on the west coast, The Germs were taking the first faltering steps of a brief, spectacularly self-destructive run, which would lay the groundwork for the L.A. hardcore scene. However, beyond these small scenes – and the writings of a few niche critics – the genre was largely unknown and had certainly made no noticeable impact on a mainstream very much in the twin thrall of disco and the radio- friendly ‘adult-oriented rock’ being churned out by a generation of ex-hippies who had traded 1960s radicalism for cynical commercialism. Against this backdrop, The Damned cut a bold, pioneering path across America, meeting with open hostility in some areas but undoubtedly inspiring a lot of the disaffected young people who came to see them.

Certainly, many of the punk acts who emerged throughout the US in 1977 and 1978 – The Misfits from New Jersey, TSOL from Long Beach and The Avengers from San Francisco etc. – betrayed the clear influence of The Damned’s aggressive, high-energy style. The Misfits in particular – who would go on to be hugely influential on the 1980s hardcore and heavy metal scenes – took The Damned’s musical template and Dave Vanian’s ghoulish image as their own, exaggerating them to cartoonish effect.

Returning from the States, The Damned embarked on another lengthy UK jaunt, this time headlining, with fellow London scenesters, The Adverts, in tow. The Damned had taken their music to the masses, succeeding in expanding their audience considerably. However, by this stage, they were no longer the only British punk band with an LP – The Clash, The Stranglers, The Jam and The Vibrators all released their debut long-players by June 1977 – and the pressure was on to come up with something new. As principal songwriter, Brian James especially felt this pressure; the songs on Damned Damned Damned had come together over a number of years, with several having their basis in ideas he’d worked on in his previous groups, Bastard and London SS. Now, in a matter of a few short months, he was expected to come up with something fresh which would consolidate the first record’s success, plus move the band’s sound forward. His first step towards achieving this demanding goal was to expand the band’s line-up. Adding second guitarist Robert ‘Lu’ Edmonds turned The Damned into a five-piece, like James’ beloved MC5: a move which left his bandmates nonplussed to say the least. Captain Sensible, speaking to John Robb for his book, Punk Rock: An Oral History later said:

I don’t think it worked in the slightest! No disrespect to Lu, who was a lovely bloke, but The Damned only needed one guitar ... The two-guitar thing can work, but Lu and Brian were not like the MC5 blokes.

Following the new-look Damned’s debut performance at the second Mont de Marsan punk festival (in August), they were booked into a studio to record the hastily-assembled new material, with unlikely ‘name’ producer, Nick Mason, drummer of Pink Floyd: a band whose thoughtful, experimental and occasionally pretentious 1970s output had made them the target of much mockery and vitriol from the first generation UK punks (Johnny Rotten was often seen wearing an ‘I Hate Pink Floyd’ t-shirt). The story surrounding the situation is somewhat confused. Sensible has always maintained that they were hoping to work with Syd Barrett: the visionary behind Floyd’s psychedelic debut, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967). However, following the deterioration of Barrett’s mental health, he’d been living a reclusive life in Cambridge for years, so he was never likely to come out of retirement to produce a bunch of upstart punks. The truth is that the plan was always for Mason to produce the LP at Floyd’s own Britannia Row Studios, but Syd Barrett made for a more punk-credible story to tell the press. Some commentators (Brian James included) have blamed Music for Pleasure’s relative failure on Mason’s production, but this is rather unfair. Certainly, he didn’t understand The Damned’s music or way of working, as well as Nick Lowe did; Pink Floyd’s painstakingly methodical recording process couldn’t be further from the fast- ’n’-cheap approach taken by Lowe, so the two parties definitely arrived in the studio with differing expectations. The resulting product doesn’t sound bad by any means; it just comes across as a little subdued and slightly too clean compared with the fearsome blast that is Damned Damned Damned. The real problems at the heart of Music for Pleasure were some rather half-baked material and a growing sense of disillusionment within the band, neither of which could be blamed on Mason. In retrospect, taken on its own merits, the record definitely contains a handful of great tracks, and even the weaker material is largely good, solid 1977 punk. Unfortunately, the first LP set a very high bar, and with debut platters by The Clash and The Stranglers upping the ante considerably, this rushed and somewhat fraught effort was always destined to be slightly disappointing in comparison – for the band and listeners alike.

Packaged in an elaborate Barney Bubbles-designed gatefold sleeve – featuring a gaudy Kandinsky-inspired abstraction on the front, and 3D-treated photographs of the band inside – Music for Pleasure was released on 18 November 1977 received largely negative reviews, failed to chart, and promptly sank without a trace. After starting the year with such aplomb, everything started falling apart for The Damned: Scabies left shortly after recording the LP, and Stiff dropped the band soon thereafter. They struggled on for a short while – first with drummer, Dave Berk, from Johnny Moped, and then Jon Moss, later of Culture Club fame – but enthusiasm was waning, and in early 1978, Brian James announced that he also was leaving the band, effectively ending The Damned’s first incarnation.

‘Problem Child’ (Rat Scabies, Brian James)

For all that we know of the challenging circumstances surrounding this album’s creation, it actually begins on a triumphant note. ‘Problem Child’ is a simple but effective rocker, dripping with attitude and tongue-in-cheek humour, which is absolutely up to the high standard set by the group’s debut. Rather than launching straight into a full-bore assault, tension builds gradually through the verse, the guitars steadily chugging 8th notes on a muted A chord, as Rat softly taps his snare, gently swelling in volume, but audibly holding back, until there’s a sudden dead stop. Then, a solid thwack of tom-toms brings us into a great, stomping chorus in E, releasing all the verse’s pent-up aggression before simmering back down with Scabies’ Keith Moon-like flourishes, ready to restart the build-up.

Over all of this, Dave Vanian assumes the role of the titular juvenile delinquent, in what is effectively an update of Larry Williams’ R&B classic, ‘Bad Boy’ (1959), for the punk generation. Each verse details aspects of his ‘problematic’ behaviour, ranging from fairly standard teen disobedience (‘I wanna come home at 3 AM’) to the downright alarming (‘I gave a dose to my sister’), ending with a spoken punchline reminiscent of Eddie Cochran’s rather more innocent ode to youthful transgression: ‘Summertime Blues’. (‘Now you can’t use the car ‘cause you didn’t work a lick’ etc.). As we enter the chorus, the narrative voice shifts, signified musically through the shift from Vanian’s solo voice to a group vocal, complete with rough and ready harmonies acting as a sort of Greek chorus, commenting on the problem child’s behaviour, warning him that ‘When you get home, your daddy’s gonna tan your hide!’

Structurally, it’s straightforward, with a one-chord verse, a three-chord chorus, and no middle-eights or instrumentals to complicate matters. However, the band really lift the song through a dynamic ensemble performance worthy of The Who’s classic run of mid-1960s singles. Scabies is particularly impressive, moving from passages of...