Pioneering UK punks the Damned hit San Francisco's Regency Ballroom
The Sex Pistols may have gotten more headlines thanks to the publicity-savvy machinations of manager Malcolm McLaren, but British contemporaries The Damned were actually the first UK punk band to issue both a single and a full-length record and the first to tour the United States.
Formed by guitarist Brian James (who had played in proto-punk outfit London SS) and drummer Rat Scabies (aka Chris Millar), the initial line-up of the band was filled out by singer Dave Vanian (born David Letts), and then bassist Captain Sensible (aka Raymond Burns). The quartet played its first show supporting the Pistols at the legendary 100 Club in July of 1976, but beat the band into record stores with the October release of their debut single on Stiff Records of their classic anthem "New Rose."
The Damned would join the Sex Pistols along with the Clash and former New York Doll Johnny Thunders and his band the Heartbreakers on the notorious "Anarchy Tour of the UK" in December of 1976 that found a majority of the dates canceled by promoters or authorities. The Damned issued their proper debut album Damned Damned Damned in February of 1977.
Produced by pub rock veteran Nick Lowe, the album featured a raw set of blistering future punk classics like "Neat Neat Neat," "Born to Kill" and "Messed Up." The band's maiden voyage to the U.S. that spring was marked by a tendency to ramp up the already fast tempos, a move that's credited for inspiring early bands of the West Coast hardcore punk scene.
The band's follow-up effort Music For Pleasure found the band making the unusual choice of Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason as producer after mentally fractured Floyd founder Syd Barrett was unavailable. Though now considered another classic, at the time it was dismissed by critics and fans. Already at odds with each other during the tracking of the album, the failure of Music For Pleasure got the Damned dropped by Stiff Records and group split up for the first time shortly thereafter.
The individual members would delve into other projects before eventually reforming without James, initially with Motorhead bassist Lemmy Kilmister temporarily filling in for performances under the monikers Les Punks and the Doomed after Sensible switched to guitar before scoring a new deal with Chiswick to record as the Damned. The band rebounded with the garage-rock infused gem Machine Gun Etiquette in late 1979 featuring the hit singles and future classics "Love Song," "I Just Can't Be Happy Today" and "Smash It Up."
The band would go on to record a string of influential '80s albums, branching out into early gothic punk on the ambitious 1980 effort The Black Album (featuring the epic 17-minute track "Curtain Call") and delving into a mix of goth rock and punk psychedelia with subsequent classics Strawberries (Captain Sensible's last effort prior to an extended departure for his own successful solo career) and Phantasmagoria.
The band split up again in 1988 after a farewell concert, but it didn't take long for Vanian and Scabies to reunite and tour with new recruits the following decade, with Captain Sensible returning to the fold in 1996. While the Damned have only issued a handful of studio albums in the past two decades, the group has toured regularly and remains a fixture of punk festivals on both sides of the Atlantic.
More recently, the outfit was the subject of the raucous 2016 documentary by director Wes Orshoski entitled The Damned: Don't You Wish That We Were Dead that explored the band's early roots and took a closer look at the bond that has kept Vanian and Sensible on the road four decades later. Last year found the Damned celebrating its 40th anniversary with an extensive tour and completing their first new studio album in a decade after an online crowd-funding campaign.
Recorded with legendary producer Tony Visconti -- who worked with David Bowie, T. Rex and Thin Lizzy to name but a few -- along with Strawberries-era bassist Paul Gray, Evil Spirits was released on Search and Destroy/Spinefarm records this past spring to wide acclaim, with some critics calling it the band's best effort since the '80s. The band would headline the Burger Boogaloo in 2018 before returning to play the Regency Ballroom that Halloween. The Damned have stayed busy in the years since, even given the challenges of the pandemic, issuing The Rockfield Files EP as well as live recordings documenting a COVID-delayed reunion of the original line-up with Scabies and James that played a series of dates in the U.K. and the horror-themed concert document A Night of a Thousand Vampires that was released as both a recording and DVD/Blu-Ray.
More recently, the band released its latest studio album Darkadelic last year. The band's first to feature new drummer William Granville-Taylor (longtime member Pinch departed in 2019), it earned the venerable crew another round of solid reviews. However, this past February the Damned announced the return of Scabies on a permanent basis, reuniting the '80s line-up of the group that recorded such classic efforts as The Black Album, Strawberries and Phantasmagoria. That version of the group that includes longtime keyboard player Monty Oxymoron (Laurence Burrow) is playing a swing of West Coast dates. For Thursday night's show at the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco, they are joined by San Francisco punk pioneers the Avengers.
They were only around for a couple of years during their initial existence, yet the Avengers have managed to influence legions of punk disciples. Founding guitarist Greg Ingraham and drummer Danny Furious -- aka Danny O'Brien -- started the band in 1977, inviting charismatic lead singer Penelope Houston to join the group (bassist Jimmy Wilsey filled out the quartet).
The band's debut three-song EP We Are the One showed off Houston's ferocious vocal style and Ingraham's fiery riffs. The Avengers opened for the Sex Pistols at the group's notorious final show at San Francisco's Winterland, a gig that led to Pistols guitarist Steve Jones producing a recording session, but the departure of Ingraham in early 1979 was the beginning of the end. The quartet had split up a few months later prior to the release of their second self-titled EP drawn from the sessions with Jones.
The posthumous Avengers compilation in 1983 would further spread the legend of the band's potent punk songwriting. Houston reinvented herself as an acoustic singer/songwriter, releasing a string of acclaimed solo albums and spearheading the rise of a neo-folk movement in the Bay Area. However, the release of the new collection Died for Your Sins by Lookout Records in 1999 led to the Houston and Ingraham putting together a new line-up with bassist Joel Reader and drummer Luis Illades. That version of the group has been playing regularly since 2004, including a tour with Irish punk band Stiff Little Fingers in 2019 that took the Avengers to parts of the U.S. the quartet had never played before. Two years ago, the Avengers opened the first ever punk show at Stern Grove, providing support for LA greats X. The Avengers will also headline their own show at the Ivy Room the night before supporting the Damned. Early Orange County punks the Detours -- the first band of SoCal vets Rikk Agnew and Casey Royer (Social Distortion, The Adolescents, D.I.) -- open the show.
The Damned with the Avengers and the Detours
Saturday, May 20, 7 p.m. $50-$69.50
Regency Ballroom
