[kj] OT: The Damned (was: Top 50 of 2000-2010)

[B. Oliver Sheppard]

This is my breakdown of what w're talking about. An asterisk next to a 
song title indicates a song that, AFAIK, they never playeed aftr 1978 or 
1979, no matter what. (FYI: The Damned were my "gateway drug" into punk 
in my arly teens so I began collecting alls orts of shit about them 
since them, always loved them way more than the Sex Pistols or Clash, etc.):

1.  _Damned, Damned, Damned_ LP from 1976/1977 ("1976" since some songs 
are from that year) - wholly written by Bryan James, yet The Damned will 
play many songs off this LP to this day.

2. 1977 Stretcher Case Baby" b/w "Sick of Being Sick" 45, also wholly 
written by Bryan James. STill sorta playd by Th Damned today.

3. 1978 _Music for Pleasure_ LP, amazing punk rock album/document, yet 
also wholly written by Bryan James except Dave Vanian gets a 
"co-writing" song crdit for the song "Your ys" off said LP. At this 
point most members of The Damned wantd to write their own songs and were 
sick of James. They broke up and "disowned" this LP thanks to James's 
dictatorial control.

4. 1979 - The Damned, but MINUS Bryan James, reform for a few lives 
shows as "The Doomed."

5. 1979 - All ex-members of The Damned reform properly as "Th Damned," 
but kick Bryan James out, and bring it Algy Ward of The Saints as well 
as Lu Edmonds of PiL, to make what would becom the amazing 1979 punk 
masterpiece _Machinegun Etiquette_ which even featured Lemmy of 
Motorhead on bass in a few songs. This was the result of pnt up 
songwriting ability other members had, but which James had repressed, 
for the 1st two Damned LPs.

6. Bryan James went into Lords of the New Church....

So....

To this day, AFAIK, The Damned refuse to play any songs off _Music for 
Pleasure_ because they were getting sick of being treated like James's 
robots at that time. That's the impression I have from interviews. This 
is a tad unfortunate since that LP -- _Music for Pleasure_ -- from an 
outsider's perspective, does contain a lot of amazing songs. ("Money," 
"Politics," "Don't Cry Wolf," etc.") Oh well. :/

-0liver


On 4/22/10 5:30 AM, gingoblin at easynet.co.uk wrote:

> Yeah, it's been a while since they played anything off MFP (I'd say 

> Stretcher Case is more a single, that happened to be on MFP!). Problem 

> Child in about 1979 would be the last time.