The Damned

The Damned
The Damned 2008
General information
origin	London , England
Genre (s)	Punk , Gothic Rock , New Wave
founding	1976
Website	www.officialdamned.com
Founding members
singing	Dave Vanian
Bass , vocals	Captain Sensible (bass until 1978)
guitar	Brian James
Drums	Council scabies
Current occupation
singing	Dave Vanian
Guitar, vocals	Captain Sensible
bass	Paul Gray (1980–1983, 1989–1996, since 2017)
Keyboards	Monty Oxymoron (since 1996)
Drums	Andrew "Pinch" Pinching (since 1999)
former members
guitar	Brian James (until 1978, 1988–1991)
guitar	Robert "Lu" Edmonds (1977–1978)
Keyboards, guitar	Roman Jugg (1981–1984, 1984–1988)
guitar	Alan Lee Shaw (1993-1995)
guitar	Kris Dollimore (1993-1995)
bass	Henry Badowski (1978)
bass	Alistair "Algy" Ward (1978–1980)
bass	Stuart West (2004-2017)
bass	Bryn Marrick († 2015) (1983–1988)
bass	Jason "Moose" Harris (1993-1995)
bass	Patricia Morrison (1996-2003)
Keyboards	Dave Grunfeld (1995)
Drums	Chris Millar (Rat Scabies) (1977, 1978-1995)
Drums	Jon Moss (1977-1978)
Drums	Garrie Priest (1996-1998)
Drums	Spike T. Smith (1999)

The Damned is a British rock band formed as a punk band in London in 1976 by singer Dave Vanian, Captain Sensible , guitarist Brian James and drummer Rat Scabies . James and Scabies had previously played in the punk band London SS (1975-76).

meaning

Influenced by The Stooges , MC5 , Ramones and the Sex Pistols , the group played energetic 3-chord punk. In addition to social criticism, their texts were about joie de vivre and fun, and they did not want to be “uniform”. At The Damned everyone dressed how they wanted. Horror fan Dave Vanian often appeared in the Bela Lugosi look, while Captain Sensible occasionally appeared in a nurse or ballet dress. Scabies and James dressed in jeans and T-shirts and had longer hair.

Band history

The Damned were the first British punk band to release studio material. It is the single New Rose , the first track ever released by a punk band and the album Damned Damned Damned . Reinforced by guitarist Lu Edmunds, the group pushed towards rock , but then broke up after the second album Music for Pleasure in early 1978. In the Damned-less time, Captain Sensible, who has meanwhile switched to guitar, was able to record a few hits. Brian James formed the band The Lords of the New Church with Stiv Bators .

Dave Vanian 2006

At the end of 1978 Vanian, Sensible and Scabies came back together as "The Doomed", but soon called themselves The Damned again. Reinforced by bassist Algy Ward, they celebrated a comeback with Machine Gun Etiquette . Musically, the band had developed further, but remained true to punk with songs like Love Song and Smash It Up . The Black Album was created with the new bassist Paul Gray . Here the band had found their own musical niche through the use of wind instruments, piano and keyboards. Long progressive rock instrumental passages, for example in the song Curtain Call , alternated with psychedelic rock .

However, constant problems with the record companies prevented the group from achieving greater success. In 1981 the Maxi Friday the 13th was published. , which included the title Disco Man and the weird cover version Citadel by the Rolling Stones . The album Strawberries turned out to be rather disappointing, despite the titles Generals , Dozen Girls and Bad Time For Bonzo, it did not come close to the intensity of the Black album . Nonetheless, it was the band's first album in the top 20 of the UK charts.

In 1983 bassist Gray was replaced by Bryn Merrick, and Roman Jugg joined the band as guitarist and keyboardist . Jugg was no longer a complete stranger, as he had been part of the group's live and studio recordings as a session musician since 1981. In 1984 the group released the Thanks For The Night single under the pseudonym "Naz Nomad & the Nightmares", an album with cover versions of psychedelic titles from the 1960s. In early 1985, Captain Sensible left the group in favor of his increasingly successful solo career. With Phantasmagoria , the band pushed towards Gothic Rock and had their only top 10 hit with the single Eloise , a cover version of Paul and Barry Ryan's super hit. Although many previous fans were disappointed with this album, it became the band's most commercially successful. With the follow-up album Anything , the group pushed more towards 1970s rock. A lack of further success led to the separation in 1988. At the end, The Damned played one last concert with the original line-up, on which the group performed their old hits from 1976 to 1981. A live album and the only live video of the band Final Damnation were released .

In 1994 Vanian and Scabies started a comeback tour with guitarists Alan Shaw and Kris Dollimore (Ex- The Godfathers ) and bassist Moose Harris ( New Model Army ), which resulted in the album I'm Alright Jack & The Beanstalk . However, a lack of promotion ensured that this rock work, which was seamlessly linked to Anything , went under.

In 2001 it was Vanian and Captain Sensible who revived The Damned with Monty Oxy Moron (The Punk Floyd) on keyboards, bassist Patricia Morrison and drummer Pinch ( English Dogs ) and recorded a new album with Grave Disorder . The group succeeded in seamlessly building on the pop-punk of earlier days. Songs like Thrill Kill , Democracy or Absinthe were in no way inferior to classics like Smash It Up . In 2003 they released a live DVD with Tiki Nightmare . In February 2004, the new bassist Stuart West (English Dogs) came to replace Patricia Morrison, who was taking a baby break.

In September 2005 The Damned went to the studio to record new material, and at the end of November 2005 the single Little Miss Disaster and the accompanying studio album So, Who's Paranoid? was recorded in the summer of 2008 and was released on November 11, 2008.

In September 2017, the band announced that Stu West had left the band and that former bassist Paul Gray had come back for him.

In April 2018 the group released their new album Evil Spirits . The album was created through crowdfunding through PledgeMusic . Tony Visconti could be hired as a producer . The album received quite positive reviews and immediately after its release it landed at number 7 in the British charts, making it the formation's first Top 10 album.

Discography

Albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChartsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)	Remarks
		UK
1977	Damned Damned Damned	UK34 (11 weeks) UK
1979	Machine Gun Etiquette	UK31 silver (5 weeks)UK
1980	The Black Album	UK29 (3 weeks) UK
1982	Strawberries	UK15 (4 weeks) UK
1985	Phantasmagoria	UK11 silver (17 weeks)UK
1986	Anything	UK40 silver (2 weeks)UK
2018	Evil Spirits	UK7 (1 week) UK

More studio albums

• 1977 Music for Pleasure
• 1984 Give Daddy The Knife Cindy (as "Naz Nomad & The Nightmares")
• 1996 I'm Alright Jack & the Beanstalk (US title: Not of This Earth )
• 2001 Grave Disorder
• 2008 So, Who's Paranoid?

Live albums

• 1982: Live Shepperton 1980
• 1983: Live at Newcastle
• 1986: The Captain's Birthday Party
• 1986: Not the Captain's Birthday Party?
• 1987: Mindless Directionless Energy
• 1989: Final Damnation
• 1990: Live
• 1992: Ballroom Blitz - Live at the Lyceum
• 1993: The School Bullies
• 1997: Fiendish Shadows
• 1999: Eternal Damnation Live
• 1999: Molten Lager
• 2001: Live Anthology
• 2007: Live At The 100 Club
• 2011: Machine Gun Etiquette Anniversary Live Set
• 2014: Another Live Album From the Damned
• 2014: Tiki Nightmare Live In London
• 2015: 35 Years Of Anarchy Chaos And Destruction - 35th Anniversary - Live In London
• 2016: 40th Anniversary Tour - Live in Margate

Compilations

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChartsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)	Remarks
		UK
1981	The best of damned	UK43 (12 weeks) UK
1987	Light at the end of the tunnel	UK87 (1 week) UK
2019	Black Is the Night: The Definitive Anthology	UK63 (1 week) UK

More compilations

• 1985: Damned But Not Forgotten
• 1986: Lively Arts
• 1988: The Best of Vol 1 1/2 - Long Lost Weekend
• 1990: The Collection
• 1990: Chiswick Singles
• 1992: Totally Damned
• 1992: The MCA Singles A + Bs
• 1992: Damned Busters
• 1992: Skip off School to See the Damned (The Stiff Singles A's & B's)
• 1993: Tales from the Damned
• 1993: Sessions of the Damned
• 1994: Eternally Damned - The Very Best of the Damned
• 1995: From the Beginning
• 1995: Noise
• 1996: The Radio One Sessions
• 1996: Neat, Neat, Neat
• 1997: The Chaos Years - Rare & Unreleased 1977-1982
• 1997: Born to Kill
• 1999: Super Best of the Damned
• 1999: Boxed Set 1
• 1999: Boxed Set 2
• 1999: Marvelous
• 2000: The Pleasure and the Pain: Selected Highlights 1982-1991
• 2002: Smash It Up: The Anthology 1976-1987
• 2003: The Stiff Singles 1976-1977
• 2004: Punk Generation - Best Of Oddities & Versions
• 2004: Neat Neat Neat - The Alternative Anthology
• 2005: Play It at Your Sister

EPs

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChartsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)	Remarks
		UK
1981	Friday 13th	UK50 (4 weeks) UK
1986	The peel sessions	UK90 (1 week) UK

More EPs

• 1997: Testify

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)		Remarks
		DE	UK
1976	New Rose Damned Damned Damned	-	UK81 (5 weeks) UK	Chart entry in UK only 1986
1979	Love Song Machine Gun Etiquette	-	UK20 (8 weeks) UK
	Smash It Up Machine Gun Etiquette	-	UK35 (5 weeks) UK	2004 in UK again at number 77
	I Just Can't Be Happy Today Machine Gun Etiquette	-	UK46 (5 weeks) UK
1980	White rabbit	-	UK82 (3 weeks) UK	Chart entry in UK only 1986
	History of the World (Part 1) The Black Album	-	UK51 (4 weeks) UK
	There Ain't No Sanity Clause	-	UK97 (2 weeks) UK	Chart entry in UK only 1986
1982	Lovely Money Strawberries	-	UK42 (4 weeks) UK
1984	Thanks for the night	-	UK43 (4 weeks) UK
1985	Grimly Fiendish Phantasmagoria	-	UK21 (8 weeks) UK
	The Shadow Of Love Phantasmagoria	-	UK25 (9 weeks) UK
	Is It a Dream Phantasmagoria	-	UK34 (4 weeks) UK
1986	Eloise	DE58 (5 weeks) DE	UK3 silver (11 weeks)UK
	Anything Anything	-	UK32 (7 weeks) UK
1987	Gigolo Anything	-	UK29 (3 weeks) UK
	Alone Again Or Anything	-	UK27 (6 weeks) UK
	In Dulce Decorum Anything	-	UK72 (1 week) UK

More singles

• 1977: Neat, Neat, Neat
• 1977: Stretcher Case Baby
• 1977: Problem Child
• 1977: Don't Cry Wolf
• 1981: Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde
• 1982: Wait for the Blackout
• 1982: Dozen Girls
• 1982: Lively Arts
• 1982: Generals
• 1991: Fun Factory
• 1991: Prokofiev
• 1996: Shut It
• 2005: Little Miss Disaster
• 2010: A Nation Fit for Heroes
• 2018: Standing On the Edge of Tomorrow
• 2018: Devil in Disguise
• 2018: Look Left
• 2018: Procrastination

literature

• Carol Clerk: The Light at the End of the Tunnel - The Official Biography . 1987.

Web links

Commons : The Damned  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official website
• Extensive discography
• Live concerts from 1976 to today, including setlists
• The Damned at laut.de
• The Damned at Discogs (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dirk Budde (1997): Take Three Chords… Punk Rock and the Development to American Hardcore. (Coda)
2. ↑ Tony Visconti To Produce New Album & Bassist Paul Gray Rejoins Band. Retrieved November 21, 2017 . 
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} Chart sources: DE UK
4. ↑ Music Sales Awards: UK