The last stand of the Damned
Dominic Green
The Damned were one of the first bands to emerge from the West London rehearsal room that also produced the Sex Pistols and the Clash. Like the other members of the British punk “big three,” the Damned played at punk’s coming-out party, the 100 Club’s two-night “Punk Special” in September 1976. A few weeks later, they became the first British punks to release a single, “New Rose,” later mutilated in a misbegotten tribute by Guns ‘n’ Roses. The Damned were the first to record an album, Damned Damned Damned, released on Stiff Records, the first indie label, in February 1977. They were the first to tour America, where their spring 1977 tour kickstarted punk on the West Coast. And now, in 2022, they may be the last to play together.
It might not be surprising that in February 1978, the Damned achieved what should have been their final first when their guitarist and songwriter Brian James left, making them the first major British punk band to break up. The Damned always were about speed. No one played faster and louder, not least because no other British punks were so musically capable. But no one has played so much or so long. The Clash died with Joe Strummer, and Buzzcocks with Pete Shelley. The four original Sex Pistols are alive but declare they have no urge to reform again. The Damned, meanwhile, have kept going for 46 years.
Brian James’s departure should have been the beginning of the end of them, but it turned out to be only the end of the beginning. Their bassist, Captain Sensible (known to the authorities as Ray Burns), turned into a Hendrixian guitarist. While James’s songs were riffs in the vein of the Stooges and the MC5, Sensible’s were Sixties pop. Their singer, Dave Vanian, an ex-gravedigger who dresses like Bela Lugosi or, more recently, Zorro, developed his voice from an Iggy Pop-like yelp into a wavering baritone. The drummer, Rat Scabies (Chris Millar), already sounded like a sped-up Keith Moon but became an almost jazzy master of the thud and blunder.
The Damned, in both their James and Sensible eras, were the last in the sequence of English rock bands defined by the interplay of guitar and drums (see: the Stones, Led Zeppelin). This reached maximum velocity, and also maximum sophistication, on Live At Shepperton (1980). Around 1:30 into the James-era single “Neat Neat Neat,” Scabies anticipates Sensible’s guitar soloing like a jazz drummer. And they really were a double act. The Damned have always been comedians, apart from in their third iteration. In the mid-Eighties, Sensible left, and the Damned became a straight-faced Gothic pop act in the relatively sensible dress of Georgian highwaymen.
The bit-players have shifted with Spinal Tap-like regularity since then, with Vanian the only constant. The current version has Vanian and Sensible, but not Scabies, due to the traditional disputes about royalties, and possibly also a general sense that the band has not received its due, either in critical recognition or record sales. The band called it the Curse of the Damned. Whenever their career builds up some momentum, the combustible personalities that make them so explosive on-stage detonate in some off-stage fracas. Even their reunions go awry.
The original Damned reunited for the first time in June 1988 for two shows in London. The original Damned played the James songbook in the first set, and the second and third Damned the Scabies-Sensible songbook in the second set. They then set off on the global victory lap that promised to enrich them all finally beyond the dreams of avarice, but got only as far as the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C., before Sensible and James fell out. In 1989, the Damned entered their fourth phase, making the odd album, touring with the hits, and still falling in and out. There they have been ever since.
Even seasoned Damned fans, and you may have guessed by now that I am one of them, never expected to hear the original quartet again. But in late 2020, Scabies, Sensible, Vanian, and James announced a short British tour in 2021 to mark the 45th anniversary of “New Rose.” The Curse of the Damned, in the form of COVID-19, delayed the shows twice, until October 2022. When the James gang first reformed in 1988, they ended the night with a cover of the Stones’ “The Last Time.” They did the same in these five shows, but this time it really might be. They’re all in their late 60s, and Brian James had to be helped on and off stage.
Mick Jones of the Clash has said that James was the first person he met who was already punk in look, attitude, and sound. James now looks very ill. Only his hands are still working. He looked exhausted by the end of each show, as though he was held together by attitude alone. Of course, the band sounded the same. A little slower, perhaps, but also a little steadier and much more sober. It is uncanny to hear how, having not played together for over 30 years, they slipped straight back into their groove, Sensible holding down the pulse, Scabies and James jamming as though they never left that rehearsal room.
Before Scabies and Sensible joined the Damned, they were fumbling about in hippy bands and cleaning the lavatories at a concert hall in South London. James, however, had already worked out a style and a look and had already formed and lost a band. They were called Bastard, and James was puzzled why they never received the exposure they deserved, though they were popular with bikers in Belgium. Their sonic template, the sound of Iggy & The Stooges, became the sound of the Damned. Vanian joined when their first choice, Sid Vicious, failed to turn up for the audition.
The Damned are the last of the generation of 1976, but their firstness is debatable in the big punk picture. The New York bands were always ahead of the Londoners. The New York Dolls formed in 1971, when Scabies and Sensible were still at school. The Ramones formed in 1974, when James was still in Bastard and Belgium, and released their first album in February 1976, four months before the Damned played their first gig in London.
Before the Ramones, and before everyone else, there was the Stooges, who released their first album in 1969. The Damned’s opening number in 2022 was the Stooges’ “1970,” which the Damned, covering their tracks, have always called “I Feel Alright.” Ron Asheton of the Stooges died in 2009. To hear the Damned in 2022 is to hear the first of a kind, and the last. When it comes to garage band riffs, Brian James is the last man standing, just about.
The audience, mostly men of a certain age, no longer leap about. The songs sound fresh and rough as ever — the Damned are always unfinished business, in both senses — but it is impossible to hear them without also hearing the memory of the original recordings. The unusual intimacy between band and audience, always a big part of the Damned’s live appeal, has reached its final stage, the farewell.
As Scabies bashes out the opening flurry to “New Rose,” Vanian affects to stagger like an old man. A member of the audience jumps up onstage. “Where did you come from?” Vanian says with music-hall timing. The invader is pinned down at the edge of the stage by two security men, and Vanian and Sensible continue performing while attempting to free him. Eventually, the security men relent, and he runs to join Vanian at the front of the stage. If this were any other band, he would be dragged away again, but this is the Damned, so he joins in, dancing daftly and sharing Vanian’s mic on the chorus. At the end of the number, they shake hands, turn away from each other, and head into the darkness of the wings.
Dominic Green is a columnist for the Washington Examiner and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Follow him on Twitter @drdominicgreen.