The Damned: Damned Damned Damned

The Damned: Damned Damned Damned

1977

Stiff Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Neat Neat Neat   2.Fan Club  3. I Fall  4. Born to Kill  5. Stab Your Back  6. Feel the Pain  7. New Rose  8. Fish  9. See Her Tonite  10. 1 of the 2  11. So Messed Up  12. I Feel Alright



Y'know I was sitting here thinking about I got into the Damned...I was a kid growing up in an extremely small town in Northern Michigan in the early 90's...Continents and decades removed from the album's '77 UK punk heyday, and the 90's punk resurgence hadn't happened yet...and oh...the internet didn't exist...So how did I learn about this stuff growing up? Suddenly I remembered this book I stole from the school library in High School...I'd love to find it again, but what I remember about it was so broad that I can't find anything online...Anyway, it was an orange book, I remember that much...

 Huh? You thought there was going to be more to that anecdote?  No...I just remember stealing an orange book once...The pages were blank...Why did that make me think of the Damned? We'll never know...Here's "Neat Neat Neat" by the Damned...

 ...Nahh...I'm just kidding...The orange book was some sort of pop music encyclopedia that I'm guessing was British in origin, since it seemed to mostly cover UK artists and albums...It seemed like such a wonderful, enchanting world full of colorful names like Prefab Sprout and Blancmange, who all appeared to have hits, although I'd never heard any of them...Anyway, I pored over every entry, memorizing the bands and their albums and swore one day I'd hear them all (I used this in conjunction with some reference book that I loved that contained nothing but catalog numbers for albums and singles)...The entries that thrilled me the most were the ones on punk rock, and the Damned sounded particularly interesting...Reportedly taking many stylistic detours until finally disappearing down a rabbit-hole of their own design...My God! How could I not follow them...The alternative music boom of 1992 and the punk rock revival in 1994 helped me get my hands on some of those mythical albums I'd read about...And the acquisition of "Damned Damned Damned" was particularly rewarding...

 Damn Damn Damn, I like this record...It just tears shit up. From the tense bass-line that Captain Sensible uses to kick off "Neat Neat Neat" to the rousing cover of the Stooges "1970" that closes the album, this thing rarely lets up...The only breathers you get are the surfy-spy guitar breaks on "Fan Club" and the dark, garage-goth rocker "Feel the Pain" (which has always been the album's weak point if you ask me, despite Dave Vanian's creepy vocal). The rest of it is breakneck punk that's always kind of reminded me of a cross between the straight punk of the Ramones and the speedy Rock n' Roll style of the New York Dolls, fronted by a freakin'  vampire...

..and not one of those sparkly vampires that the girls like so much, either...I know you might be looking at that picture of Dave and imagining him sounding like he should be in the Sisters of Mercy or something, but the odd thing is, he doesn't sound like a vampire (except for on "Feel the Pain" maybe)...He just sounds like a regular guy who's doing his best to kick your ass with his unhinged punk rock...And he's got some mighty fine back-up too, particularly Rat Scabies booma-booma tom-heavy drum style and Nick Lowe's trebly, airtight production (which is 70's punk personified)...

More than worthy of its place in the pantheon of great punk albums released in '77, for "New Rose" alone...Man, I don't know how a song could be even a whit more exciting...It's just one of those once in a lifetime recordings, where everything is just so right...The "so-simple-I-can't-believe-it-didn't-exist-before" vocal melody, the driving instrumentation, the production that successfully captures lightning in a bottle...Not a thing is out of place, yet many things are out of place...I'm convinced we're in the presence of a perfect single here...

 Does the rest of the album touch"New Rose"'s perfection? Nah, not really..."Neat Neat Neat" comes very close, though...But it doesn't matter, since so much of it at least captures the feel of that classic single...There's really no time to sit around comparing apples to apples when "See Her Tonite" and "Stab Your Back" are so busy knocking you flat on your ass...It's all come and gone before you know it, and only the buzzing in your ears remains...

I'm telling you, if you have a spare half-hour, this is a great way to kill it...Here's "New Rose" by the Damned...Enjoy...