Tag Archives: The Damned

Feb 07 2023
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12" single, reissue, vinyl

Captain Sensible • This Is Your Captain Speaking [12″ EP]

Captain Sensible - This Is Your Captain SpeakingI took almost a year off from this website (or is it a “blog”?) for a number of reasons, many of them lost to the mists of time… Okay, yeah, it wasn’t really all that long ago but some of the reasons I have forgotten. Then I read of this lovely reissue, CAPTAIN SENSIBLE’s This Is Your Captain Speaking, and figured maybe it was time to revisit things. Let’s move on from questions of who’s to blame and finger pointing to more, uhhh, sensible things, shall we?

First released as a 7″ back in 1981, This Is Your Captain Speaking is a 3-song solo record that The Damned’s guitarist put together for the good lil’ anarchists at Crass Records. It was super hard to find here in the States (I didn’t actually learn of it until late ’82 or so) and the one I ended up with was pretty worn out already. It didn’t help that the record was cut at 33 rpm. What must have been at least somewhat interesting to the person who owned it before me was how Sensible combined his love of punk rock with his then not-so-documented love of psychedelic rock, pop rock and liberal politics. The A-side, “The Russians Are Coming,” is a diatribe about how big superpowers continually use scare tactics (like blame and finger pointing) to prime the pistons of their war machines. The backing vocalists sing “the Russians are coming” and Captain screams “it’s all I’ve ever heard!” and then again with “the Russians are coming” and Sensible’s retort, “I don’t believe a word.” Whether you believe it or not, folks, you may at least be old enough to remember hearing that refrain as a warning/threat/etc. when you were young. Here it’s set to a catchy melody that makes for a good political pop song.

On the EP’s B-side were two songs, not as strong but still quite good, starting with “(What D’Ya Give) The Man Who’s Gotten Everything?” a tune Sensible would re-record for his first A&M album, Women and Captains First, a year later. That tune could’ve just as well been recorded by The Damned, with its punkily humorous refrain. Then there’s “Oursouls to You” – an anti-religious hymn sung by an all-Captain choir – which starts and ends with found-sound dialog clearly nabbed from some radio or television program aimed at whatever kind of Christians were likely to be tuned in.

In one fell swoop – errrr, uhhh, 3-song volley – Captain Sensible took swipes at a trio of his biggest bugaboos: war, greed and religion. Or is that just one collective bugaboo? Whatever, the indie single was hard to find for years until last summer when Crass Records reissued it as a 12″ single via the much larger One Little Independent label. Being the kind of guy who’s usually tuned in to these kinds of releases, you’d think I would have been right on top of ordering this baby. Well… hey! Even I miss one now and again. Nevertheless, this 12″ was entirely worth the wait, as these tracks have not only never come out on CD but have never sounded this good. Cut at 45 rpm and wisely pressed on a big 12-inch, This Is Your Captain Speaking is available for purchase. Pass on it at your own peril. – Marsh Gooch

4.5/5 (Crass/One Little Independent 321984/SR, 2023)

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Jul 30 2020
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7" vinyl, colored vinyl, punk, vinyl

The Sensible Gray Cells • So Long (7″)

Being a huge fan of The Damned and its longtime guitarist Captain Sensible, I was pretty excited to see that the man’s originally one-off side project, THE SENSIBLE GRAY CELLS, was making a new record. “So Long” (b/w “What’s the Point of Andrew?”) is the lead single from the upcoming longplayer (called Get Back Into the World on the back of this single), and it’s a respectable 45.

The group, made up of Sensible, ex-/current-Damned bassplayer Paul Gray and Marty Parrott on drums, put out an album in 2013 called A Postcard from Britain (with a different drummer, Ant Thickett), and it was pretty good. Not great – in fact, I really wanted it to be much better. I wanted it to rock with punk exuberance like the best of The Damned, and to have the sense of humor and fun that the best of Captain Sensible’s solo records had. It was marginally close, but no cigar. This new single, a teaser for another LP, is again, pretty good. Not great – it does showcase the Captain’s standard political stance, which I generally agree with, but it just feels not quite finished. The song itself is a rockin’ number with a serviceable arrangement, but the lead vocal seems buried a bit and lacking what I’d call doneness (not sure it’s a word, but it is a button on my microwave oven). It’s lacking that exuberance and in-your-face delivery that makes a great single.

As this is a 7″ and I am likely to be reviewing its attendant LP, I’m keeping this short. “So Long” is enjoyable but I’d be inclined to play it a lot more if they give it a better mix for the album. I am asking, Sensible Gray Cells, for a better mix. As John Lennon (who was great, both dead and alive) once sang, “Don’t let me down!” – Marsh Gooch

2.5/5 (Damaged Goods DAMGOOD538 [UK], 2020)

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Apr 14 2020
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compilation, Skratchdisc, vinyl

Various • I.R.S. Greatest Hits Vols. 2 & 3 [2LP]

[This review was originally published 4/14/2010 on my old blog, Skratchdisc]

A few weeks ago I reviewed Urgh! A Music War and noted that my favorite compilation of all time is I.R.S. Greatest Hits Vols. 2 & 3. And so, dear friends, I must at long last give you a short review of said favorite so you can better understand my psychosis.

This 2LP variety pack came out in 1981, the year of my graduation from high school. At that time I still hadn’t discovered “new wave” or “punk” or “post punk” or “whatever handy genre name is making the rounds this week.” Once I started doing radio at my college station, KCMU, I came across our review item. It had a cool cover—all these broken up records—which appealed to my 18 year old sensibility (I only had one then). First song on the album is “Cold Cold Shoes” by The Fleshtones: a nice little organ-driven raver. Next song, “Ain’t That a Shame” by Brian James, whoever he was, and not the one Cheap Trick covered on At Budokan. Another great song, and it turned out this guy had been in The Damned, who open side two with “Wait for the Blackout.” Now here was manna from, ummm, well not heaven I guess, but manna nonetheless. I LOVE THIS SONG. Almost thirty years after I first heard this song, I still think of it as Numero Uno among The Damned’s many fine records. (And you probably know by now that they are my favorite band of all time, above The Beatles, above The Clash, above The Shaggs.) Where most compilation albums would falter, this one stays the course throughout four sides! “Straighten Out” was my first dose of The Stranglers and it had very interesting subject matter. “Urban Kids” by Chelsea—throbbing punk. “Uranium Rock” by The Cramps—nice lo-fi rockabilly, great song, a cover of the old Warren Smith tune. Humans’ “I Live in the City” had a great old saying on it (“If you’re gonna act like that/you better get on the stage”) and was a tough slice of life for a country girl in the city. Now let’s head over to sides three and four…

“Fallout” was the first single by The Police, and at the time, had not been released here in the States. Did you know they were actually PUNK ROCK once? Yup. Tom Robinson’s Sector 27 does “Can’t Keep Away,” Jools Holland (years before his MC stint on the BBC) does an old R&B tune in a rockabilly manner (“Mess Around”), plus The Fall, Oingo Boingo, Buzzcocks, Klark Kent (on leave from The Police) and more*, all submitting great tunes that at that time had only appeared here in the USA as expensive import singles (if that).

I discovered so many future favorite bands on this record! It’s too bad they can’t put this thing out on CD now (it all fits on one), since the rights to these tunes are probably spread out all over the globe and would prove to be a real pain in the John Keister to track down. If you want a good listen at what all those above-named genres were like in the early ’80s before MTV, hunt this down, and kill it. — Marsh Gooch
* Henry Badowski, Alternative TV, Squeeze, Skafish (awesome!), John Cale, Payola$, Patrick D. Martin, Wazmo Nariz, Fashion.
5/5 (IRS Records, 1981; out of print)
(Top image is the later US cover; bottom image is the original US cover.)

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Nov 09 2019
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CD, compilation, vinyl

The Damned • Black Is the Night – The Definitive Anthology [4LP, 2CD]

There’s no way in hell anyone would have ever guessed that a scruffy punk rock band called THE DAMNED would one day have their oeuvre compiled countless times by the year 2019, but it’s happened. Black Is the Night – The Definitive Anthology is the latest compilation, and it brims over with 39 songs over 4 LPs or 2 CDs that span from their first single, “New Rose,” released in 1976, to songs from their 2000s studio releases and even a brand new one (the title track)! That the band’s best stuff pre-dates the 21st century barely matters. I say barely… and if you read on you’ll understand why.

If you don’t know much about The Damned, you can see some of my other reviews of Damned-related releases to help fill in the blanks (click here). Let it be understood that I’m a BIG FAN – I tell people that I love ’em even more than The Beatles and that’s 50% true half the time – but I DO have misgivings about some of the material they’ve released in their nearly 45 years of anarchy, chaos and destruction. For instance, back in the ’90s, after numerous personnel shifts ’n’ changes, they released an album called I’m Alright Jack and the Bean Stalk (aka Not of This Earth) and I couldn’t find much of anything to like about it. And their latest album, Evil Spirits (2018), was such a letdown that I chose not to review it here because I didn’t want to “dis” on my favorite band! (“Standing on the Edge of Tomorrow” from that release is included on this new compilation.) Yet. The Damned – Captain Sensible, Dave Vanian and all the others – are a many splendored thing. Whether it’s the early punk of “Neat Neat Neat” or “Love Song,” the punky new wave of “I Just Can’t Be Happy Today” or “Bad Time for Bonzo,” the goth of “Grimly Fiendish” and “Shadow of Love,” or the sheer brilliance of “Stranger on the Town,” “Curtain Call” and “Smash It Up (Parts 1 & 2),” the band is so much more than the sum of their parts or their discography. (Still, I don’t see how they chose “Fun Factory” for inclusion on this compilation but left off “Lovely Money.”)

Black Is the Night gathers most of their greatest moments in a very nice package. The initial copies of the 4LP set are pressed on gold vinyl, housed in a gatefold cover and cloaked in printed inner sleeves. A band family tree created by the late, great Pete Frame is featured on an included insert to help you keep track of just who was in the band at any given time, but it only goes up to 1982 so it’s woefully incomplete. The cover was designed by graphic design guru Phil Smee, the liner notes are kinda snappy (written by Vive Le Rock magazine’s Eugene Butcher), and the credits come up short of crucial information such as who produced the songs or who did the mastering. Considering the colossal difference in their records from 1976 to the most recent title track (available only on this collection), it would be nice to know who to praise or blame for that. It’s generally a pretty good mastering job, though the sound on some cuts is a bit muffled, and there are some jarring segues where one song slams into another (even chopping off the last few seconds of “Alone Again Or” as “Lively Arts” starts!), which leads me to believe that this collection was culled from digital and not analog sources. Of course, you’d expect that since the 39 songs come from various and disparate sources. Still, the songs aren’t in strict chronological order so the difference between, say, “Eloise” and “Plan 9 Channel 7” isn’t as drastic as you’d think it could be. As Dave Vanian says at the end of the liner notes, “The Damned have been on an epic musical adventure. To have spent years and years making the same album was never part of the plan.” That they would make so many great LPs and singles may not have been, either, but they certainly did.  — Marsh Gooch

4/5 (BMG Rights Management* BMGCAT409QLP, 2019)
* Such an un-punk rock name for a record label.

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Jun 20 2018
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CD, reissue

The Lords of the New Church • The Lords of the New Church [CD]

I couldn’t even remember how many years it had been since I last heard THE LORDS OF THE NEW CHURCH when I saw that their first album was being reissued. 1982’s cleverly titled The Lords of the New Church was one of the first “punk supergroup” releases and it contained some catchy post-punk/new wave tunes for fans of the band members’ earlier groups. Singer Stiv Bators (known here as just “Bator”) came from Cleveland’s Dead Boys, while guitarist Brian James was a founding member of The Damned, the greatest band that ever lived.* Along with a revolving door of members (including early recruits Rat Scabies, also of The Damned, and Tony James of Generation X), the pair conjured a promising debut album that somehow failed to deliver lasting dividends.

Released at a time when punk had waned and new wave, goth and other genres were dawning, The Lords was a mixture of all of those – and perhaps that’s why it sputtered. It didn’t “pick a genre and run with it” at a time when that was (at least in hindsight) crucial. Listen to “Open Your Eyes” now and tell me how that single never became a hit. Well, in 1982 that kind of song wasn’t going to make the Hot 100 here in the States, that’s for sure. That’s not to say that it didn’t get some airplay on college radio, as many of us college DJs played it regularly, and MTV played it some in the early days when any song with a video had a good chance of airing on the fledgling cable video channel. But being released before I.R.S. Records co-created MTV’s 120 Minutes specialty show, its airings – both on TV and on the radio – were sparse regardless of the platform.

Now you can give The Lords of the New Church another try, as it’s being released in a new 2CD expanded edition. Disc One is the original album along with two B-sides and the single mix of the aforementioned “Open Your Eyes,” while the second disc is a live concert recorded in ’82 here in the USA. Packaged in its original UK cover art (which is actually quite hideous, as much as the US cover [at right] was boring), mastering for this reissue is quite good (you can always count on Bill Englot) and the images and liner notes are pretty good, too. You’ll likely enjoy and maybe remember some of the other tunes, such as “Russian Roulette,” the cover of “A Question of Temperature,” and their homage to the New York Dolls, “Li’l Boys Play with Dolls,” a song I clearly didn’t get at the time since I was just barely discovering that band (and pretty much anything that was good that wasn’t easy to learn about pre-internet/MTV/my subscriptions to Trouser Press and New York Rocker). While definitely of its time, The Lords is a worthy addition to the middle-aged hipster’s or ’80s acolyte’s CD library and warrants multiple spins.

3/5 (Blixa Sounds ETA 806, 2018) * [I say this in complete seriousness and with little or no irony.]

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Jan 13 2018
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CD, reissue, Skratchdisc

Captain Sensible • Women And Captains First, The Power of Love [CD]

[Originally published 1/18/2010 on Skratchdisc]

FINALLY two of the greatest albums that mix rock and “synth pop” in a way that dumbs down neither have been issued on CD. CAPTAIN SENSIBLE, sometime guitarist for my favorite band of all time, The Damned, put these two out in the early ’80s, on the heels of his surprise hit “Happy Talk” (yes, from South Pacific!), as he took his turn at becoming a pop star. He had more than his 15 minutes, at least in Britain, and of course he’s been back with his punk chums for longer than a decade now, but these A&M elpees were never put out on CD until the 2000s, first as limited edition Japanese issues (with uncharacteristically mediocre mastering), and now these superb versions on Cherry Red. Women And Captains First came out in 1982 and featured not only the aforementioned hit, but the further single “Croydon” (a sublime tune about his childhood and growing up “cleaning toilets”), “Brenda,” and my personal fave, “Wot!” (which also charted). Tony Mansfield gets the producer credit for both albums, and on the first one especially he really did a fantastic job… great pop songs bolstered by production and arrangements that really bring out the uniqueness of Captain’s take on rock ’n’ roll. The Power of Love followed in 1984 with real great singles “Stop the World” and “I’m a Spider,” though the hits kinda trailed off. Whatever… this was another good one, though not quite as.

Cap’n went on to do more solo stuff, and eventually rejoined The Damned after former drummer Rat Scabies departed, and the band returned to former glories with 2001’s Grave Disorder. Sensible has slowed down on the release front, but hell, he did run for political office in the Blah! Party he formed in the UK, and he has been an active campaigner for animal rights and a lot more. These two slabs of early ’80s pop are proof that not everything that had a synth back then sucked.
5/5 (Women And Captains First), 3/5 (The Power of Love)
(Cherry Red CDMRED 408, 409)

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Jun 04 2017
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book

Barry Hutchinson • The Damned – The Chaos Years: An Unofficial Biography [Book]

Not many books have been written on THE DAMNED. Luckily, über fan BARRY HUTCHINSON has just published a deep dive into the first twenty years of punk’s greatest group. The Damned – The Chaos Years: An Unofficial Biography is an exhaustive look at the band’s beginnings, its exciting first few years and its slow descent before re-emerging in the early 2000s as mainstays of the movement’s first wave.

Hutchinson created the book from “exclusive interviews from all band members past and present,” and indeed there are quotes from founders Brian James, Captain Sensible, Dave Vanian and Rat Scabies, as well as just about every other guy or gal who’s ever played guitar, bass, keys or drums with the perpetually unstable band. At 400 some odd pages, you’ll be thrilled by the wealth of info covered by the author, as he seems to not only know of every anecdote worth describing (and maybe even a few that could have been skipped), but seems to have witnessed the anarchy, chaos and destruction firsthand. The author’s writing style is pretty raw – he’s clearly more of a fan than a professional writer – and the book does suffer some from that. But there’s no denying that this guy knows his subject matter and is definitely qualified to tell their story. Some of the quotes sound like they came from question-and-answer sessions submitted via email (something a pro editor could have tightened up), but that unfiltered presentation allows the various band members’ true characters to come through loud and clear. I contacted Barry via Facebook and he tells me that, because the book was published via Lulu’s “self-publishing” platform, he can revise the book pretty much at will. “The handy thing with print on demand,” he says, “means its fairly easy to do.”

If you’ve ever wanted a better look at the band than Carol Clerk’s The Damned: The Light at the End of the Tunnel provided (it was severely shortened to serve as more of a tie-in to a late ’80s compilation than a serious book), Hutchinson’s book is worth checking out. Not unlike Wes Orshoski’s documentary, Don’t You Wish That We Were Dead (which I reviewed in this blog; read it here), it’s a telling of The Damned’s story by someone who really does give a damn(ed).

3.5/5 (Lulu.com; order the book directly at this link)

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Mar 06 2017
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CD, colored vinyl, reissue, vinyl

The Damned • Damned Damned Damned [CD, LP]

Some anniversaries make you feel old. Some of ’em make you feel young. And some – like the 40th anniversary of this, punk rock’s quintessential and inaugural album – make you feel both old and young at the same time. THE DAMNED‘s first album, Damned Damned Damned, was released in late February 1977 on UK upstart Stiff Records and in the last year it’s been reissued on both vinyl (Drastic Plastic USA) and now CD via BMG UK. It’s one of those records that never loses its cheeky appeal.

Yours truly didn’t discover The Damned until 1981-1982 (via an IRS Records sampler featuring 1980’s “Wait for the Blackout”), and by then they’d undergone a bit of maturing. But on their debut disc, The Damned were a rowdy, youthful quartet just happy to be making noise and having someone record it. Producer Nick Lowe was that someone, and you don’t have to consult reissue liner notes or Wikipedia to tell that his job was primarily to keep the youngsters focused long enough to get a dozen songs on tape. Just listen to Damned Damned Damned and you can hear all the joy and energy these guys exuded. Whether it’s their debut single, “New Rose” (“is she really going out with him?”), followup single “Neat Neat Neat,” or any of the other punk classics here (I’ll cite “Fan Club,” “Born to Kill” and “Feel the Pain” as my favorites), this barely 30-minute “long player” charges out of the gate like a horse not just going for the win but running for its life. By the time closer “I Feel Alright” (aka The Stooges’ “1970”) finishes, there’s no doubt that this album deserves its inclusion in the top of the punk pops.

Damned Damned Damned still has a lotta life in it. Whether you pick up the late 2016 vinyl reissue on Drastic Plastic (available on 150 gram yellow or 180 gram black vinyl; excellently mastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearant Audio), or the brand new 2017 BMG CD (no weight or mastering credit), you can’t go wrong. I like the vinyl for Gray’s beefy mastering job (the CD’s a tad bit thinner-sounding), but the CD comes in a book-style package with some great liner notes and photos. Neither has any extra tracks, though, so for those you’d have to grab one of the compilations like 2005’s 3CD box set, Play It at Your Sister, et al.

There have been way too many changes in personnel, temperament and outlook over the last four decades to detail here, but in ’76-’77 The Damned were vocalist Dave Vanian, guitarist/songwriter Brian James, bassist Captain Sensible and drummer Rat Scabies; a buncha guys with colorful names making raucous rock ’n’ roll. Today only Vanian and Sensible remain (the latter having switched to guitar a long, long time ago), but the band – who have made a number of great records since 1976 – still tours regularly and this year they’re touring that killer record they made forty years ago. It’d be a shame to miss the chance to hear this punk classic performed nice ’n’ loud right in front of yer face by the only band that still matters, The Damned.

5/5 (Drastic Plastic DPRLP76, vinyl; BMG BMGAA01CD, CD)

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May 20 2016
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Bluray, Documentary, DVD, punk

The Damned • Don’t You Wish That We Were Dead [Documentary]

damned_dontyouwish-DVDWes Orshoski’s latest documentary, THE DAMNED: Don’t You Wish That We Were Dead, has just come out on DVD/Blu-ray – finally allowing über fans like me to get a look at it beyond the compelling trailer that’s been out for over a year. (You can view that below.) First seen at various film festivals and even in some theaters in the larger bergs, the documentary details the rise, fall, rise and plateau that The Damned has been through since they first formed in the mid 1970s. Unlike other bands in UK punk’s first graduating class, these guys weren’t fronted by a headline-grabbing, snot-nosed git, didn’t blow up in the press, weren’t managed by an egotistical svengali, and somehow missed the boats promising stardom, money, infamy or anything like it. What The Damned did do is legendary: they were the first punk band to put out a record, the first to tour the USA, and one of only a few that are still playing today. They were also one of the very few bands that actually looked like they were having fun playing their music, playing the press, or just generally sticking it to whoever needed sticking to.

Orshoski filmed the band for three years, with apparent carte blanche to document anything going on. Along with current interviews of the original band members (Dave Vanian, Captain Sensible, Brian James and Rat Scabies), there are appearances by most of the rest of The Damned’s roster (though for some reason Patricia Morrison is missing), as well as colleagues from the UK scene like Mick Jones (The Clash), Glen Matlock (Sex Pistols), Chrissie Hynde, Steve Diggle (Buzzcocks), Lemmy (subject of Orshoski’s other great documentary) and Don Letts (DJ, filmmaker), and modern scenesters and US punkers like Dexter Holland (The Offspring), Jack Grisham (TSOL), Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedys), Jesse Hughes (Eagles of Death Metal) and more. The band didn’t always get along (really?) and to this day there are rifts in their friendships. Saddening, but not unexpected. Combining his own enlightening interview footage with archival footage from around the world, Orshoski has put together a highly watchable documentary.

damned-clowning-duoThe characters that make up The Damned, both past and present, are to the fore in Don’t You Wish That We Were Dead. You get a great sense of the enigma that is Vanian, the cutup clown that is Sensible, the real live punk that is Scabies, et al. You also see and hear for yourself that the reason The Damned never “made it” is because they steadfastly held to their belief that punk was about doing things your own way, regardless of what the press, the record label, or even Malcolm effing McLaren wanted them to do. So The Damned are rarely mentioned in the corporate/network/big business “celebrations” of punk… so what?! They did what they wanted to do, didn’t suck up to the press or major record labels or do anything just to get publicity, just to get a big paycheck, or just to impress whoever it was that needed impressing. And that is what impresses me. Sticking to your guns sometimes means that you don’t get to partake in the bounty of riches that others do, and that, unfortunately for The Damned, is the breaks. All of this makes for a story that is compelling even if you don’t give a, errrr, damn about them.

The film, which premiered at SXSW in 2015, is now available (at least in the US) as a combo Blu-ray/DVD pack that gives you the movie and a handful of extras that didn’t make the final cut. I’ve read interviews with Orshoski where he indicated there were tons of extra footage, so I’m surprised that there really isn’t that much included here. (I’m saying this without having access to playing the Blu-ray in the pack, so there may be more on that disc than on the DVD.) Yet, considering the film showed only once where I was living when it did play my town and likely only once (if at all) in your area, you can now see it for yourself. I’m frankly glad they aren’t dead, and you may end up feeling the same way.

4/5 (Cleopatra/MVD Visual)

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Sep 15 2015
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compilation, vinyl

The Damned • The Chiswick Singles… And Another Thing [2LP]

damned_chiswicksingles-cvr Compilations of a band’s singles – both the ‘A’ sides and the lesser-known ‘B’s – can be a dodgy thing. Typically the ‘A’ sides are worth having, but the ‘B’ sides are throwaways that exist only because something had to occupy the other side of the record. But then there are bands like THE DAMNED, who like few bands before and after them, put out 45s that killed. The Chiswick Singles… And Another Thing is a single CD/double LP that showcases most of the band’s singles from the fertile 1978-1981 period (for some reason “Wait for the Blackout” and its flip “Jet Boy Jet Girl” are missing), and it’s a cracker of a comp.

By ’78 Dave Vanian, Captain Sensible and Rat Scabies had already disbanded The Damned, farted around for a year, and got back together with a new bass player. Sensible switched to guitar after original guitarist Brian James left and the band flourished. I don’t know if that’s a coincidence but I prefer to believe it’s not. Anyway, here you get 24 tunes, 21 of them from their Chiswick Records, post Stiff/post-punk tenure which spawned the classic Machine Gun Etiquette (1978) and the almost as good followup, The Black Album (1980). The final 4 tracks come from their ’81 EP, Friday 13th. damned_drcula-billboardSpread over one CD or in this case, a really sweet 2LP set on red splatter vinyl, this compilation has quintessential tracks like ”Love Song,” “Smash It Up” and “I Just Can’t Be Happy Today” as well as goofy/fun B-sides “The Turkey Song” and “Billy Bad Breaks,” plus experimental (read: filler [?]) things like “Sugar & Spite” and “Seagulls.” I’m not saying that everything here is a must-have, but I am saying that everything here is a must have for a Damned nut like me.

If you’ve had trouble filling your vault with The Damned’s faultless singles, look no further. And since it’s available on both CD and vinyl, you can now finally have ’em all in one handy format of your choice.
5/5 (you knew I wouldn’t rate it any lower!) (Ace [CD]/Let Them Eat Vinyl [2LP])

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