The Damned
9 out of 10 - Simply Amazing. Can't wait to see 'em again.
Friday, November 01, 2002
The Living Room, Santa Barbara, CA
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With equal parts anticipation and trepidation I made my way out from Santa Barbara the 10 or so miles to Goleta, for a post-Halloween show with the Damned: excited for the rare opportunity to see The Damned in such a small venue, but leery for precisely the same reason. The Living Room—an all-ages, no-alcohol venue that is held in a large vacant office space in an industrial/business complex on the borders of suburbia—holds little allure for anyone over 18 years old, despite who might be playing.
I’m the first to admit that attitudes like mine are wrong, and the Living Room deserves the patronage of more adults, both for going out of their way to bring truly underground and alternative music to an area that sorely needs it, and also for providing the only under-ages venue for miles. Once you get over the site of so many pre-teens, the experience takes on the feeling of a warehouse show, stripped of all pretension, music for music’s sake. You see a pack of four 9-11 year old boys walking by, hair on a couple of them in carefully arranged liberty spikes, t-shirts (the Ramones, DK) that outdate them by decades, and you sort of get a sentimental feeling, a spark that there is hope for music in the future.
The show started early, so we only saw one song by Black Market Elvis, a new venture from Santa Barbara seminal hardcore figure Matt Ratt (Rat Pack) and Mike Brynner (Romper Room). The second band Throw Rag is from Orange County, and I’m really glad we did not miss them. If the Pogues were as heavy as the Sex Pistols, or if the Sex Pistols actually played sea shanties, you would have Throw Rag. Their web site lists them playing on WARPed tours and at the Hootnannies, and I can see them fitting in comfortably at both. Captain Tae-Bo is a striking frontman, but the center point is Jacko, madly playing this contraption that is part washboard and other percussion—with spoons no less—and running circles around everyone. I highly recommend seeing them! They had the façade of gutterpunk “We don’t care” sloppiness, but clearly are not. Their set was tight, everything well-orchestrated. The last song Captain (Tae-Bo, not Sensible) went offstage, leaving his skipper hat and blazer behind, and emerging shirtless with a heavy cape and hair done in a Danzig devil-lock, prowled the stage in exaggerated, ghoulish movements. This band is extremely entertaining, as well as talented. More tour dates follow, including a stint with Flogging Molly and a show at the Palace in Hollywood, and then some Midwest dates with the Supersuckers.
As we waited for the Damned to take the stage, my anxieties returned. Would they play? Would they be disappointed that there were just a couple hundred people there, not counting a fair number of punks outside that were obviously not going to pay to get it? We crept up front, as if we didn’t know that as soon as the music started, unless wearing body armor, we’d be forced to retreat to the back They took they stage. I felt the swell and push forward into my back. As if to dispel any doubt as to what kind of concert I was attending—for the Damned attract punks, Goths, rockabilly people, and randoms equally—a few crowd members started giving them the finger and yelling “Fuck you,” the obligatory sign of punk welcome.
It was really neat being close, if for a brief stint. Captain, Dave and Patricia all look amazing, even so close up, without the illusion of much of a stage. I concluded that Dave and Captain are two of the only exceptions I can think of who it is acceptable for to wear sunglasses while performing9uIEening with Street of Dreams, the pit started immediately. Half way into the song a boot clocked me in the head, then another my ear, causing my 0-gauge earring to pop out, and I had to pull a Velma from Scooby Doo (“My glasses, my glasses) to retrieve it. I enjoyed the rest of the show from the relative safety of the back, hanging out with the guys in Nerf Herder (all were in attendance but Dave). They played a nice mix of new songs from Grave Disorder (their latest release on long-time fan Bryan “Dexter-from-the-Offspring” Holland’s label, Nitro), and old favorites like “Just Can’t Be Happy Today,” “Wait For the Blackout,” and “Ignite.” The last song before the encore was an extended and trippy version of “Neat Neat Neat,” which they had done a couple years ago the last time I saw them and was looking forward to again. I had told Steve from Nerf Herder about it at some point during the show and once they were playing it, he said he could see what I meant. The term Punk Floyd came to him, and I thought it was totally appropriate, although I guess Marko 72 had coined it to describe Bad Astronaut.
For the encore they did “Love Song,” “Eloise,” and finally “Smash It Up” to end the evening. They sounded great—again this a surprise considering the meager budget of the Living Room—and the performances of each member were all inspiring. Dave Vanian has one of the best voices in rock. One thing I didn’t notice the last time I saw them—I guess I was standing in the wrong place—was that the keyboardist Monty jumps up and down behind the keyboards like a crazy person on a trampoline. The Damned by the way, incorporate keyboards brilliantly to their music.
They good-naturedly put up with constant crowd surfing, people getting up to sing a line or two with Dave before stage diving, and, at every pause, harassment and strings of obscenities from the crowd. Captain would just laugh and say “Someone’s got a potty-mouth!” At the end of “Smash It Up,” a kid got on stage and Captain put his guitar on him, which the boy continued to strum and thrash after the song was over.
Although some of the punk elements of such a show rub me the wrong way, it is exactly this ethos that dictated the band to come right off the stage and start socializing with the audience. Steve and I told Patricia they were great and he invited her and the band back to the Mercury for drinks. It was sort of an unusual thing to do, but something about her was so genuine that it just seemed OK. She said they were driving straight to Las Vegas, but recognized it is as the bar around the corner—I wonder if they had gone earlier? She chatted with us a bit about life on the tour bus—evidently Captain never sleeps.
It made me feel guilty about my fears at the beginning, when I had my doubts that they’d play, or thought maybe they’d just put on a half-ass 30-minute show. Unlike their contemporaries, who have lost all credibility (Johnny Lydon, the second he started wearing Armani suits) or unbridled energy (Joe Strummer, who still sounds great, but is so refined, my mom could listen to him), the Damned are punk heroes.
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