Dive: notes from the music underground

The Damned - Phantasmagoria

The Damned – Phantasmagoria

 Rating = (4.5 out of 5 stars)

The Damned have gone through many phases in their disorderly career. They started out as one of the first British punk bands, along with the Sex Pistols, The Clash, Generation X and countless others. The Damned would (unlike the Clash) take a decidedly non-righteous, fiercely undisciplined rock and roll attitude toward their craft. The original lineup featured Rat Scabies literally setting things on fire in the background, Captain Sensible and Brian James flailing about and screaming in the audience’s face while flanking either side of the stage and Dave Vanian stalking the front while howling and crooning in inimitable vampiric fashion.

But by the time “Phantasmagoria” hit the shelves, those days were long behind them. The lineup had been shaken up about a half dozen times, Captain and Brian James had both left the band to pursue other interests and the band’s sound had matured to an almost unrecognizable degree. Gone were the speed-punk thrashers, replaced with brooding Goth ballads and poppy sing-along choruses. The wild, off-the-hinge punk years seemed long behind and only the experimental aspect remained from the music of the band’s early years. Looking back over the band’s musical output, one could see a clear progression into the late 80’s MCA era sound that dominated the album. From the early, unpolished Garage Punk of “Damned Damned Damned” and “Music For Pleasure” into the slightly more refined work on “Machine Gun Etiquette” and straight into the Psychedelic buzz of “Strawberries” and “The Black Album” which carried only a hint of the original punk sound. The natural evolution of the band clearly pointed to the gloomy Goth pop on “Phantasmagoria” and it’s follow up album “Anything”.

As horrible as it may sound to some of you, the metamorphosis from a straight forward punk rock band to a poppy British Goth band allowed The Damned to create some of their most staggering music. This entire album is like the soundtrack to a dream. Not a pleasant, fluffy love dream either… “Phantasmagoria” sounds like a surreal, feverish nightmare. Like some sort of drug-induced hallucination on a hot summer night.

The album opens on “Street of Dreams” with a questionable solo saxophone… like something out of a black and white film noir, but suddenly the song explodes into a crashing B-minor chord with heavy Goth organs and a rumbling bass line. You immediately know you are listening to The Damned when Dave Vanian’s voice descends into the mix… “If you can’t sleep tonight, and if a fever grips you tight, there’s a place we must explore – Open wide the door”. The song continues with haunting sing-along choruses and does not relent until fading into the next track – “The Shadow of Love”. Track two starts with a low growl from some sort of unholy beast and a simple, but effective guitar riff by Roman Jugg (who is tragically underrated as a guitarist in my opinion). Scabies picks up the swing-shuffle beat shortly thereafter and the bass trots along while Dave croons one of the best vocal tracks of his recorded career.

The third track, “There’ll Come a Day” begins in a similar, glorious fashion focusing on Roman’s effortless guitar work and Dave’s melodious vocals, but with added fragments of harpsichord piano in the background to add to the surreal overtone. The next track “Grimly Fiendish” is a strange bit of psych-out weirdo pop that only a band like The Damned could create. The bizarre, child-like choruses of “Bad lad, bad boy” sound like something off an elementary school playground.

Tracks seven and eight are both airy pop songs, “Edward the Bear” featuring Roman Jugg on vocals while “The Eighth Day” returns the microphone to Master Vanian. The next track “Trojans” is a boring instrumental track, and the only track on the album that I almost always skip, which brings the vinyl version of “Phantasmagoria” to an unexciting close. But I have both the vinyl version and the CD version, so I am treated to two bonus remixes - “Grimly Fiendish” and “Shadow of Love”. The remix of “Grimly” differs only slightly from the original adding a few extra choruses and breakdowns and a sample of a cash register slamming closed at the end of the track (I’m almost sure the cash register sample was an intended joke by the band. They had to know that die-hard fans would still pick up the remixed version of the song, even though it was essentially the same track, which equals more money for them, with only minimal effort necessary). And finally the best track on the entire album – The “Ten Inches of Hell” version of “Shadow of Love”. This time, Scabies does not fuck around with the drums. He hits them hard and solid as soon as the track begins. Once the beat is laid down, a heavy synth rhythm track is thrown in with the country swing bassline and the heavily echoed vocals. The track extends to over five minutes with added refrains, choruses and a guitar solo or two. The album comes to a suitably spooky close with the sound of a desperate, panting female and a werewolf howl. 

“Phantasmagoria” has been out of print in the US for over ten years, but I’ve recently spotted brand-new reissues of this album in record stores. I advise you all to track one of the little bastards down and add it to your record collection. It’s completely fucking essential. 

Tracklist:

1. Street of Dreams
2. Shadow of Love
3. There'll Come a Day
4. Sanctum Sanctorum
5. Is It A Dream
6. Grimly Fiendish
7. Edward The Bear
8. The Eighth Day
9. Trojans
10. Grimly Fiendish [The Bad Trip Mix] (CD only)
11. The Shadow Of Love [10 Inches Of Hell      Mix] (CD only)

Similar sounds:

Sisters of Mercy – Floodland
The Cure – Disintegration

"The Shit" List - The Rockats

NOTE: I was trying to think of more cool weekly features to put up, and knew I wanted to have something helping people discover obscure music they should have heard of, but probably haven't. And my choice for that was obvious -- I know of no one with more breadth and depth knowledge of music, across all genres, than Nick Feratu of The Limit Club. So here is the first of a weekly column on "must-haves" for your music collection.

The Rockats – Make That Move 

Rating = (4.5 out of 5 stars)

The mid-eighties were a scattered period for the musical underground. The young, loud and snotty punk bands of the late seventies had almost all completely lost their inertia and were either clinging to life (The Clash), experimenting with other sounds (David Johansen/Buster Poindexter) or had broken up and moved on completely (Sex Pistols, etc). The next wave of music to ooze out of the schlock and droll underground was not a single, coherent “wave” at all. It was a menagerie of styles, all still rooted in the free-thinking expressionism of punk rock but further tainted with traces of synthesizers, organs, saxophones and various other “non-punk” instruments. People had grown bored and impatient with the standard “guitar-bass-drum” format of straight-forward punk rock and began searching for alternative sounds. Very few of the bands to emerge from this period in rock and roll were built to last. Most of them were far too individualistic and experimental flirting with darker, more dance-oriented sounds that would come to be known as Neo-Rockabilly, New Wave and Death-Rock. All of these genres carried some flawless albums and some true stink-bombs.

I’m not a Rockats expert. I know that the original Rockats preceded most of the original Rockabilly-Revival bands like Stray Cats, Polecats, Robert Gordon, etc, but that they lacked some of the polish and commercial drive that those bands had.
I know that they started out with Levi Dexter doing lead vocals and they lost him somewhere along the way, causing guitarist Dibbs Preston to take over lead vocals and freeing up the band creatively, allowing them to try out new sounds.

A friend of mine recommended the song "Make That Move" by The Rockats a few months ago, so I looked it up on Youtube and gave it a listen. The song was good! It wasn’t your standard Rockabilly fare, but you could definitely still hear some hip twang and bopping reverb soaked guitar in the mix amongst the throbbing bass. I liked what I heard, so I picked up the Rockats album that the song was on which was also titled "Make That Move". From where I'm standing it sounds like a wonderful blending of all things new wave and neo-billy. It blurs the line between the two genres almost completely.

This short but solid album starts out with a catchy tune titled “Burning”, which seeped into my subconscious and caused me to sing along on the choruses without even realizing it. The next track, “One More Heartache” is a slow dirge that pulsates along with organs and background chants throughout. The next song, "That's The Way" which is one of my favorites, has a super synth driven sound which permeates and carries the song along with sexually suggestive lyrics and vocals. Track four, a cover of “Go Cat Wild” is passable (it’s not as good as the Buzz and the Flyers version, in my opinion) but it’s still worth a listen or two. The "Whoa-oh-oh" choruses on "Never So Clever" (and scattered throughout the rest of the album) are used creatively and never once become overwhelming or predictable. Their cover of “Be Bop A Lula” sounds good and was in good taste, but I find myself skipping over it most of the time. And filling out the album, we have a catchy, new wave sounding track called “Woman’s Wise” which is thoroughly enjoyable and would fit in perfectly at 80s Dance Night.

While listening to this album, I can hear traces of the sound that the Stray Cats (Cross of Love, Storm the Embassy), Polecats (Polecats Are Go) and the Quakes (New Generation) all flirted with at one time. I realize that the New-Wave-a-billy thing probably isn't for everyone. But damnit... if it's wrong to love some good, catchy, pop-infused rockabilly... then I don't want to be right!

Tracklist:
1. Burning
2. One More Heartache
3. That’s The Way
4. Go Cat Wild
5. Never So Clever
6. Make That Move
7. Be Bop A Lula
8. Woman’s Wise

Similar sounds:
The Quakes – New Generation
The Polecats – Polecats are Go!
Buzz and the Flyers - Buzz and the Flyers
Stray Cats – Choo Choo Hot Fish

The Rockats "Make that Move" video: