Archive for the ‘The Damned’ Category

Screaming Lord Sutch & The Savages

Sunday, June 20th, 2010

Listen: She’s Fallen In Love With The Monster Man / Screaming Lord Sutch & The Savages

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I finally got around to reading the Screaming Lord Sutch feature in the June issue of MOJO. Try to do the same, maybe it’s even online. A few priceless pictures and so many stunning details, I really don’t know where to start. He was everything I already knew and way more as well. Some of the live show descriptions and antics, well we now know where Alice Cooper got more than one idea. Don’t blame him for lifting a few, they’re just too good to waste. Okay, here’s a tiny bit: “cherry food dye, cold scrambled eggs with a few masticated inches of seaside rock and it’ll look like you’re spitting out teeth”.

No question about it, his recordings were made very inexpensively, several produced by Joe Meek, complete with dreadful sound effects – and I mean that in a good way. As the ’70’s arrived, more than one act paid respects. The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, The Damned and The Revillos even covered and released as their A side as well, ‘She’s Fallen In Love With The Monster Man’. You’d think the song was written just for them listening to the original above.

Listen: Dracula’s Daughter / Screaming Lord Sutch

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

So many soon to be name musicians passed through the ranks of being Savages in the ‘61 – ‘63 period, prior to their own later successes. The list, also in the article, is long and fairly jaw dropping. Jimmy Page plays lead on ‘She’s Fallen In Love With The Monster Man’, and Jeff Beck on ‘Dracula’s Daughter’. Even then, in ‘64, his style was recognizable and it’s easy to see how much he moulded The Yardbirds’ sound from one listen.

The usually precise MOJO does flub one detail. ‘Dracula’s Daughter’ was not his last for Decca, it was his first for Oriole after being dropped by Decca. While I’m at it, the above Cameo Parkway 7″ is the only US release from his period with The Savages.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Alice Cooper, Cameo Parkway, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Joe Meek, Mojo, Oriole, Screaming Lord Sutch & The Savages, The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, The Damned, The Revillos, The Yardbirds | No Comments »

Captain Sensible

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

CaptainSensibleWot, Captain Sensible, A&M, The Damned

Wot! / Captain Sensible

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

As Seymour Stein once loudly yelled down the hall to a certain snooty A&R guy, “Don’t lie to me you liar”.

The action never ended on that 21st floor of 75 Rockefeller Plaza, home to the Warner labels for decades. Our Medicine office was conveniently smack dab in the middle of a long hallway anchored on one end by the Warner/Reprise A&R staff and at the other, Seymour and the Sire posse. Duane and I had the best seats in the house.

And anyone who tells you they never liked The Damned is also a liar. Not mentioned as often as they should be, the band were easily an equal to The Sex Pistols when it comes to the UK punk crown – a tie.

Captain Sensible never could, never will, do any wrong. He’s hysterical, a fantastic entertainer, front man, side man, guitarist, bassist, songwriter – and an all around good guy. He was a big friend of Joey Ramone’s, and it was The Damned who were the only UK band that flew themselves over from England to honor his life at Hammerstein Ballroom a month after he passed away. His Mom, brother and all his close friends never forgot.

Sometimes the good ones do get their just rewards. Who wasn’t pleased when Captain’s first solo single ‘Happy Talk’ topped the UK charts? Captain Sensible at #1!. Yes.

The followup, ‘Wot!’, also a chart success, was even better. It was pure Sensible humor. Hearing it is seeing him in that two piece pink shag rug suit. Great records make you visualize the artist. Here’s the proof.

CaptainSensibleGlad, Captain Sensible, A&M, The Damned

Glad It’s All Over / Captain Sensible

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Two years later, when it was looking like the solo Captain Sensible moment had passed, ‘Glad It’s All Over’, with it’s mischievous Kid Creole & The Coconuts fake intro, barreled to a UK #6. Great song, great production, great news. Again, hats off to the Captain.

This was ‘84 and towards the end of a six year run, late night weekly FM radio specialty show I co-hosted with Roger McCall. We both found ourselves to be so sick of the ghettoized midnight to 2 AM life sentence of a time slot that the dull WCMF programmers inflicted on music which should’ve been heard all day – we’d end every show with ‘Glad It’s All Over’. They were so in the dark, they never caught on. From what I hear about their current playlist, they still haven’t.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in A&M, Captain Sensible, Duane Sherwood, Joey Ramone, Kid Creole & The Coconuts, Reprise, Roger McCall, Seymour Stein, Sire, The Damned, The Medicine Label, The Sex Pistols, WCMF, Warner Brothers | No Comments »

The Heartbreakers

Monday, February 8th, 2010

HeartbreakersBornPS, The Heartbreakers, Walter Lure, The Ramones, Johnny Thunders, Track,

Listen: Born To Lose / The Heartbreakers

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

The Heartbreakers were in London, playing The Marquee around the last week or so of March ‘77. It was luckily during a fortnight visit, seeing a band every night type trip, right at the height of punk. The Roxy was in it’s brief existence and having missed them there in order to see The Damned and Johnny Moped at the LSE, I was anxious to get in early. It’s funny when you go 3,000 miles to see a band that’s from your own backyard. They were both everything New York yet perfectly invented for England too. Recalling the show that night still gives me the shakes.

HeartbreakerOneTrackPS, The Heartbreakers, Walter Lure, The Ramones, Johnny Thunders, Track,

Listen: One Track Mind / The Heartbreakers

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

To prove the point about England, they signed to a reactivated (I think just for them) Track Records. Seemingly dormant since the very early 70’s, suddenly Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp were dug up and cleaned off – good as new.

In ‘67, when the label began, those two must have been a real threat with both The Jimi Hendrix Experience and The Who on a roster that overnight put Track in the uh-oh we’re all in trouble now league. Thunderclap Newman and The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown didn’t help, while Marsha Hunt, John’s Children, The Eire Apparent and Cherry Smash made stubbornly difficult to find, must-have flops.

‘One Track Mind’, The Heartbreakers second single, had me thinking they could take over the world. My crystal ball obviously needed new batteries. But the guitar tones of Johnny Thunders and especially Walter Lure were a wall of sloppy sound live and for a brief moment I couldn’t get enough.

Walter played for years on The Ramones albums. His signature sound is a giveaway on TOO TOUGH TO DIE, and a perfect foil to Johnny’s.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Cherry Smash, John's Children, Johnny Moped, Johnny Ramone, Johnny Thunders, Marquee, Marsha Hunt, Roxy, The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, The Damned, The Eire Apparent, The Heartbreakers, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Ramones, The Who, Thunderclap Newman, Track, Walter Lure | No Comments »

J. J. Cale

Sunday, June 22nd, 2008

Travelin' / JJ Cale

Listen: Travelin’ Light / J. J. Cale

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Harkening back to the winter ‘77 visit that Corinne & I made to England, finally meeting Howard Thompson and be shown the town by him nightly for 2 solid weeks (seeing every exploding band that mattered: The Damned, The Jam, Eddie & The Hot Rods, Ultravox, The Sex Pistols, The Heartbreakers, Sham 69, Siouxsie & The Banshees, so many I’m blank), we would start each evening in a happening pub with a happening jukebox. Howard introduced me to Andrew Lauder on one of these nights, and the three of us huddled over the box at The Hope & Anchor. This was playing. It made a lasting impression, mostly because I loved it, and still do. On further analysis, it was released by Shelter, Denny Cordell’s label, another plus. And it was probably a single simply to allow the B side, the very hip ‘Cocaine’, availability, as it was a true anthem of the drug culture. J. J. Cale wrote ‘Cocaine’ and Eric Clapton covered it a few years later. Still it’s this A side, ‘Travelin’ Light’, that I can play endlessly still, and never tire of.

Tags: ,
Posted in Andrew Lauder, Denny Cordell, Eric Clapton, Howard Thompson, J. J. Cale, Sham 69, Shelter, Siouxsie & The Banshees, The Damned, The Heartbreakers, The Jam, The Sex Pistols, Ultravox | No Comments »