Grave Disorder

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In recent times some of my favourite old bands have reminded me that class is a permanent thing, see for example New Model Army, Simple Minds and Killing Joke. All have produced great new albums, apparently irrespective of passing any perceived 'sell by date'. I won't lie to you: the Damned's new album isn't very good. In fact, the Damned have only ever recorded a few albums that were-- for instance, their debut or 1979's Machine Gun Etiquette. The thing is, their new album is hard to recommend simply because the band is totally out of touch with what's gone on in the past few yeas in music. Point of fact is that the Damned's albums have never corresponded to their time periods or felt truly prescient. This I don't even necessarily consider bad-- it can be an asset in the right hands.

Songs like "W" (about the 2000 election and George W. Bush) have a sound very reminiscent of Britpop (such as the sound they exhibited on Strawberries). "song.com" offers a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the Internet, while "Democracy?" offers a rebuke of what they see as the futility of democracy and political revolution.

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Nevertheless, the show was a memorable one. Vanian began the night in his typically elegant Draculoidal attire. He returned after intermission with a freshly shaved head a la Nosferatu to sing Bauhaus’ “Bela Lugosi’s Dead.” Their two sets spanned the breadth of their 43-year career, proving the Damned were much more than a three-chord punk band. Of course, those two songs bookend the moronic "Song.com," which features everything from lyrics about surfing the web to half-assed Ventures-style riffs and shouts of "surf's up!" The analogy of surfing and surfing the web is so played out it's painful, but it's pretty apparent that the band aren't taking themselves seriously. Even so, novelty recordings don't have a long halflife, and by the second listen, the song grows extremely... well, bad. By the early eighties, the Damned came to California, and discovered the retro 60’s garage punk and psychedelia of bands such as L.A.’s Unclaimed, and San Diego’s Crawdaddys, who drew complete and accurate influence from originals such as the Chocolate Watchband, the Music Machine, Sky Saxon and the Seeds, and the literally hundreds of obscure bands compiled in collections like Pebbles and Broken Dreams. The impact of this music was so profound that Vanian launched a side project, Naz Nomad and the Nightmares, which recreated these vintage classics lovingly, but with the Damned’s own unique interpretation. Naz debuted with “Just Call Me Sky” on an early post-Batcave compilation, The Whip, followed by one album, Give Daddy the Knife, Cindy, released in 1984.

Distributed by Caroline, the Huntington Beach, California-based Nitro Records was founded in 1994 by Dexter Holland, lead singer of the Offspring. A longtime Damned fan, Holland saluted his idols with his own band’s 1995 cover of “Smash it Up.” But when they were a punk band, they were a helluva punk band. They had, hands-down, Rat Scabies, the Best Drummer Punk’s Ever Produced. Both original guitarist Brian James and Captain Sensible were beyond the “bludgeon riffs.” And Vanian croons . For a vampire, he can really sing.I have always been guilty of wishing to archive my favourite bands to their distant past. A wish to wrap up and protect their original music for posterity. After all, who needs our favourite bands from the past to go on forever, or to return as old men devoid of creativity? Why not remember them for the young talents they once were?? Vanian gets to fully showcase his vocal talents on the eerie and hallucinatory power ballad “Absinthe,” as well as the evocative horror film tribute “Beauty of the Beast.” He indulges his romantic side on “She,” a raunchy valentine to Morrison, who happens to be his wife. “In lots of ways it’s purely Patricia’s pushing that got this whole thing off in the first place,” Vanian admits. “She really worked hard on building the band up.” Sometimes it takes 25 years for a band to get its due respect. While the Sex Pistols and the Clash are usually credited as the seminal English punk bands, it was actually the Damned who put out Britain’s first official punk single when they released “New Rose” in October 1976. With its machine gun-style guitar riffing, infectious pop hooks, and catchy, anthemic chorus, that two-and-half-minute classic is loudly echoed in the poppy punk of Green Day, the Offspring, and just about any angst-fueled tune being banged out in a garage today. Vanian and Sensible credit producer David Bianco — a 1995 Grammy Award-winner for his engineering work on Tom Petty’s “Wildflowers”— with finessing this delicate balance. “We had a short list of producers that we’d listened to, but the main problem, I think, was finding a producer who was able to work with different sounds and different types of music,” Vanian says. “We tended to get CDs sent to us from producers of songs that sounded very much the same. They were kind of like 20 different punk bands, basically, and I wanted to hear something with a piano on it, or a ballad.” Sensible admired Bianco’s restraint. “He’s extremely good at capturing the live vibe,” says the guitarist. “It’s not an overproduced album.” Booking the vast London Palladium, they presented “A Night Of A Thousand Vampires,” inviting the audience to join singer Dave Vanian in donning the garb of the undead. Plenty did. But audiences borne of punk culture are notoriously contrarian, so many didn’t sign the guest book. Sadly, the Damned’s claim to have assembled the world’s largest gathering of vampires couldn’t be substantiated. Read more: These five Misfits albums left scorch marks on the veneer of punk