Beyond the Chaos Years: The Damned

From The Damned's Web site:
::28st December 2008::
GIG CANCELLED
Unfortunately due to sickness the band have had to cancel the shows at The Black Cat, Washington DC on Dec 29th and The Chance, Poughkeepsie on Dec 30th. The band very much regret this unfortunate and unavoidable situation. Their appearance at Virgin Megastore on Dec 30th is also unfortunately cancelled.

CHARLIE CHAPLIN AND BUSTER KEATON have long grabbed the silent film spotlight from Harold Lloyd, and it's anybody's guess who comes third after The Beatles and Stones. So what to make of The Damned, eclipsed in punk history's liner notes by The Sex Pistols and The Clash, yet still going after 32 years?

In addition to putting out the U.K.'s first punk single ("New Rose") and album ("Damned Damned Damned"), it was the first from the safety-pin crew to tour the States. "We did CBGB's and I think the Whiskey in Los Angeles," recalled guitarist Captain Sensible in a jolly-bloke accent while on tour in Edinburgh. In later tours, The Damned hit the old 9:30 Club, of course: "It was a glorious shithole. I remember it well; we had a lot of fun there."

"Fun" during punk's heyday included the usual self-destructive behavior and occasionally abusing the audience. "Unfortunately, there was a period which I call the Chaos Years, where we were on auto-destruct," Sensible said. "And were probably the worst-behaved band on the face of the planet. I can't believe nobody died."

"We have a theory for that," he continues. "We are Damned, but in the eye of the storm, so nothing hurts the band members. But those surrounding us, well, things have happened, let's put it that way," he says a bit somberly.

Those surrounding them included some of the future punk legends who caught The Ramones on their first U.K. tour in July 1976.

"Almost everyone in the audience, if they weren't in a band they eventually went on to form one," Sensible said. "I remember Sid Vicious with a bass guitar plucking out the notes to The Ramones' first album. A lot of people learned to play that because it was easy. And punk is easy to play: buy yourself a guitar and you can be in a band within two or three weeks."

The Damned had a similar influence on at least one person, which recently paid off in the form of two appearances on "The Late Late Show. "

"Craig Ferguson said that if it wasn't for The Damned he wouldn't be on television now, because he came to see us in Scotland many years ago," Sensible said. "Drummer in a punk group -- that was his first stage gig."

Given that punk prided itself on opposing the excesses of '70s rock, it's ironic how unapologetically self-indulgent The Damned's sound gradually became, though they've never abandoned their punk roots. Much of that came from theatrical frontman Dave Vanian, whose ghoulish onstage attire and dark croonings helped inspire the goth movement and continue to define the band.

"There's something Damned that glues it all together, and it's Mr. Vanian's voice that's the glue I suppose," said Sensible. "He's still got the fruity baritone. Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, he loves the old crooners."

The band's other big influence is '60s garage rock, as on the 1982 Damned classic "Dozen Girls," which closes with a psychedelic keyboard freakout.

"The garage rock thing is kind of a glorious formula," said Sensible. "Fuzz riffs and Farfisa organ that take your ears off. The harmonies are fantastic, the passion in the voice, the screaming going into the guitar break. "

The band fully indulged its fantasies in 1984, releasing an album of garage-rock covers under the alias Naz Nomad and the Nightmares, and you can expect a few covers on this tour, including Love's "Alone Again Or" but not the Beatles' "Help!" even though it was the B-side of The Damned's first single. The group did play it at its 25th anniversary gig, though. "Went back to the scene of the crime, and we did the same set we played 30 years ago. But this time we didn't drive everyone out," Sensible chuckled.

The Damned still haven't tired of playing the old hits, including "Neat Neat Neat," which has such a great riff to jam around, admittedly borrowed from the great Eddie Cochran, so it's different every night. "We've played that one for eight or nine minutes some nights, but most of the time we try not to bore the audience too much," Sensible laughed.

"Some of the material we've written over the years as angry young men," he continued. "And I'm even angrier now, to be quite honest. We called our new album 'So, Who's Paranoid?' because everyone's got a right to be paranoid at the moment, especially in Britain where we've got four million CCTV cameras. Everyone you go you're on film. '1984' happened and we let them get away with it."

The new album is on The Damned's own label, English Channel Records, a move Sensible calls "punk DIY at its best: we did a few gigs to finance the recording, we've done the sleeve and everything ourselves. No record company telling us we shouldn't put a 14-minute song on the album."

Ah, yes, that album-closing extravagance "Dark Asteroid," intended as a Pink Floyd tribute. The Damned's second album, "Music for Pleasure," was supposed to be produced by Syd Barrett, "who was kind of our hero and who, you know, unfortunately imploded. He wasn't well enough, and so we were produced by Nick Mason, the [Pink Floyd] drummer, instead. The way we tell it, the guy couldn't mix a gin and tonic.

"But we've never forgotten the Syd thing, and we've written a song about it on the new album that does last 14 minutes," Sensible continued. "We put it as the last track so that people who aren't inclined can take the needle off the record or whatever they do these days," he laughed. "And we do play it live -- brilliant fun."

Will The Damned be doing this forever like The Rolling Stones seem determined to?
"The problem with Mick and Keith is that they haven't made a decent album since 1971," Sensible said. "Millionaires can't make good music; they just get too lazy and can't be bothered. But we're not millionaires so we carry on, 'cause we really want to be successful. The alternative is going back to the day jobs, and I don't fancy that."

» Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW; with Theo and the Skyscrapers, Electric Frankenstein, Mon., Dec. 29, 8 p.m., $20; 202-667-4490. (U St-Cardozo)