POX: the DaMnEd

Just put on "Stranger on the Town" and GOOD LORD! That is one freaking sublime song. Why are there so few props for this?

Saw the current version of the group with only Vanian and Captain Sensible remaining as original members. They did many of the above cuts. It was fun

Yeah, Vanian and Sensible have been the only two stalwarts since the mid-nineties.

No Rat Scabies = No Alex in NYC attendance

You're missing out. And they're supporting Motorhead later in the year, along with Girlschool.

I'm going to that

Does seem like a dream ticket. Be interested to see if they slant their set toward the heavier end of their considerable back-catalogue to appease the Motorheadbangers. (And if not, fine, though it would be cool to see them do that.)

You're missing out. And they're supporting Motorhead later in the year, along with Girlschool.

I saw them too many times during superior incarnations to sully those memories.

Well, I'm going to go and get thoroughly sullied.

Colonel Poo is simply one of the all-time great ILXors ever. Not his fault. This one is for him and thanking him for the wonderful punk rock he played me on You Tube this evening. He deserves his own thread, but I've tried to keep quiet in trying to explain to ILX how cool he is. One day I think I will finally figure out how to put in words so everyone understands how cool he is.

I can't pick 10, just one: "New Rose." (I like "Neat Neat Neat" and "Wait for the Blackout.") High on my ground-zero punk list, though, and obviously they're a bunch of characters and there's a story there. Someone's made a documentary that's playing here next week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVI8SOt3OvI

I just hope it's not 90 minutes of people trying to make the case that, well, they were just as good as the Ramones or Sex Pistols.

There's definitely an element of that, although the comparisons are to the Sex Pistols and the Clash, with the Ramones going almost completely unmentioned. The movie generally carries on in the tradition of UK people acting like punk was invented in London. I still enjoyed it very much, though.

Captain Sensible's a very likeable guy, and some of the Spinal Tap-ish evolution of the band--prog-like by the early '80s, New Romantic a few years later (the live clip of "Eloise" is so frightening)--was funny. Found it really dragged towards the end. Sometimes depressing, sometimes unintentionally. I should have mentioned "Smash It Up" above--love both the song and video, or at least what I guess counts as Part 2, the fast part.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ux1Za8Wmz_s

'The end'? As far as I know, it's not quite over. And I really like their two 21st century albums, even if they're not at the same level as their peak.

I meant the end of the documentary.

I should add that the Vanian-Sensible/Scabies-James split was kind of interesting.

i have waited years to get into The Damned. don't know why. i've had "Damned Damned Damned", "Machine Gun Etiquette" and "Phantasmagoria" on repeat this year.

they were really special! some incredible guitar work. some really weird and unique blends of punk and psych and goth. i quite like "Feel the Pain" at the moment in this regard.

and they can do fast really well! i remember hearing my first punk record, the Ramones debut, and thinking it was actually kind of slow compared to what i thought punk would be. but "Neat Neat Neat" is as fast as a heart attack.

That bassline when "Love Song" kicks in still makes me want to try and break through a wall. I don't know if you can play that song loud enough.

They're playing two shows at Chelsea Music Hall (tiny venue, capacity is only 250 - for comparison's sake Brooklyn Made has a capacity of 500 and that always felt small to me). It's the current lineup though - the original lineup (of which Vanian and Captain Sensible are still with the current line-up) will have a reunion tour this fall, but it's only in the UK.

How are the Damned these days? I only know their debut and Machine Gun Etiquette, but I'm thinking of going.

FWIW, these are the shows: https://dice.fm/artist/the-damned-b98g?lng=en-US

I still dig them, they put out an EP a couple of years ago with an anthem about saving the bees: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LR2W8ZoU8EU

Opening for Blondie in DC Sunday. It must have been on another thread and in a Jack Rabid FB post that the Damned on this US tour will not contain all the same members who have done recent UK gigs

They've not done them yet

I think they might be talking about Captain Sensible not being allowed in the US because he's antivax and they had a vaccination requirement to enter the country. not sure if that's still the case but he had to skip US dates earlier in the year

Yeah, apparently Troy Van Leeuwen of Queens of the Stone Age filled in.

Life Goes On from Strawberries

Looks like it wasn't a single, but this has a huge number of plays on Spotify. Is is just another case of the algorithm identifying a sleeper hit, or was it in a soundtrack recently, perhaps?

Sounds to me like a Flying Nun/Chills song.

"Strawberries" is their most underrated album. Arguably their most consistently strong release, not a duff track on it unlike their other work.

May have something to do with the fact that the riff is basically Come As You Are, predating Killing Joke’s “Eighties” (the usual culprit for Come As You Are’s origin story) by a few years. Anyway, rabbit holes, etc likely explains the big Spotify numbers.

like i was a damned fan like a year after strawberries dropped and i seem to remember seeing it in cutout bins everywhere and i was always like "why is this always here?" at least i think that's how i rememeber it. fuck maybe i'm creating this memory out of some other album in cutout bins