A Short History of the Damned

Ray Burns, aka Captain Sensible, started playing guitar in the mid-seventies in a band called Johnny Moped. The band featured Slimy Toad on guitar, and drummer Dave Berk and were played intricate and complex songs which seemed too fast to be able to play. The folk guitarist Alan Holdsworth was invited to see a gig of theirs and was astonished by their musical abilities. They were big fans of the English psychedelic folk scene around in the early seventies, and in particular Soft Machine. These influences were still in evidence when Captain Sensible joined up with Bryan James and Rat Scabies in 1976 to form the Damned. James and Scabies were both scenesters and had been in several bands already, notably the legendary London SS which hadn't got past the rehearsal stage to actually play any gigs.

In Johnny Moped Captain Sensible had played keyboards and guitar. For the Damned he switched to bass duties. The trio started rehearsing and soon started to play live, backing Nick Kent who was the original singer with the Swankers, the band which would later go on to become the Sex Pistols. Small world this punk scene.

However, the trio discovered Dave Vanian, a gravedigger, and it was to be a key moment for the band. His vocal style was pseudo-theatrical. Maybe this was because it was his best attempt at singing big and emotionally, or maybe he was trying to be funny, or maybe it was a little of both. Either way it fitted in perfectly with what the other three were trying to achieve in terms of writing over the top songs of cliched rock and soul and seeing how fast they could play and how much stuff they could cram into a sub-three minute song like 'New Rose'. It had a guitar solo over the top of the middle eight vocal section to save time and it may well have been the first punk single readily available to actually buy in shops thanks, in part, to the guerilla production and distribution tactics used by the seminal seventies label Stiff Records, who had signed the embryonic band in 1976.

The Damned's debut album was produced by Stiff's house producer, Nick Lowe. He acquired the name 'Basher' because he simply turned everything up to the max and ignored all the ensuing distortion whilst bashing it down on tape. The album is called 'Damned, Damned, Damned' and it is over in around thirty minutes or so. It quickly covers a wide range of musical styles in an attempt to condense the history of rock since Elvis stumbled onto the scene. It was Britain's first response to the Ramones' debut which had been released the previous year. It mirrored a similar spirit as the Ramones' album on the faster tracks which are on the second half of the album, but on most of the songs there is so much more happening. It's all difficult to pick out though, due in no small part to 'Basher' Lowe's lack of sonic separation and space in the mix.

On the sleeve notes for 'Damned, Damned, Damned' it states the record was 'made to be played loud at low volume', which sort of sums it all up. The bass of Captain Sensible drives most of the tracks along with Rat Scabies coming on like a half-assed Keith Moon and the guitar parts cleverly constructed around it all. The guitars solo all over the place. Sometimes they are up front, sometimes lower down in the mix, but they are always impressive. And on top of all this mess of noise is Vanian, camping it up in a punk stylee.

So, punk was a response to the overblown nature of mainstream rock and prog noodling. That's how history tells it. But, just like the Clash on their second album, the Damned chose an established rock musician to produce their second release. The brought in Nick Mason of Pink Floyd. Maybe the idea looked good on paper, mainly because of the band's love of early seventies psych-rock. But the album was neither punk nor psychedelic. It's not even a mixture of the two. Maybe it was a step too far for them. They had acquired another guitarist and James had seemingly taken over the creative responsibilities, which annoyed everyone else. So, they split. Then a year later they reformed, this time without James. This meant Captain Sensible could play his guitar again and they brought in Algy Ward on bass, formerly of the Saints. The band went on to make their best album, 'Machine Gun Etiquette', in 1979. During the the time when the Damned had split Sensible had briefly joined the much poppier Softies and had learned a lot about how to actually play the guitar in a band setting. This rubbed off on the newer Damned material. He wrote one of their best tracks 'Smash It Up', which slowly changes moods and originally had four guitar parts on the demo. There's a little pop, a little rock and a little goth on the other songs.

'The Black Album' and 'Strawberries' followed in the early eighties. Both explored new territory and generally mixed rock with pop in the usual bursts of noise packed with ideas that belies the notion that they were just another dodgy punk band. Sensible went on to have some decent commercial pop success which showed just how talented he really can sound given the right vehicle for his ideas.