Coming home from the cinema after seeing this film I almost felt like I'd just seen The Damned in concert, there having been so much live footage of the current line-up, clips of past line-ups and the band formed recently by founder members Brian James and Rat Scabies.
To say that The Damned have had a chequered history is something of an understatement. With interviews to camera and also footage of them captured when they perhaps weren't so aware of being filmed, this is a real warts and all documentary, or rockumentary if you will. The warts were provided literally by Lemmy giving his thoughts on the band and we also saw him playing on stage with Dave Vanian, Captain Sensible and co a few years back, revisiting his brief tenure as one of the band's many bass players.
One of the most interesting parts of the film concerned their enigmatic singer Mr Vanian. That adjective was actually used by one of his band mates to describe him and while Vanian looked happy enough to be interviewed for the film, he was clearly less enamoured at cameras being left running in dressing rooms where he could be caught off-guard. This did indeed happen as near the end of the film he was shown having a rant about how badly The Damned have done financially compared to some of their contemporaries. The large sums given to members of the Sex Pistols for their Filthy Lucre reunion tour was mentioned with some venom by Vanian obviously hacked off at the blatant favouritism shown to the Pistols by the music industry.
At some cinemas audiences have had the chance of asking questions to past and present members of the band and I noticed online that bass players Paul Gray and Bryn Merrick have been doing these Q&A sessions together. It turns out that their current friendship is based not just on them having been amongst the nine bass players who have played with the Damned since 1976 but also by a bizarre and unpleasant coincidence - they were both diagnosed with cancer around the same time and saw each other at their regular treatment sessions in Wales. Bryn suggested that the cause of his illness could have been the amount of phlegm he had accidentally swallowed due to the lovely habit of audience members gobbing at him on stage, something which Rat Scabies has apparently been blamed for starting.
Having read an interview with Captain Sensible about how he and Scabies can no longer bare to even be in the same room at the same time, let alone play music together, I was curious to hear Rat's side of the story. During the course of the film he went from being quite calm talking about the financial problems the band has faced over the years to sounding pretty pissed off with life in general and making out that the records the band have recorded are no big deal. But the most memorable scene was when he was talking about the mid 80s when The Damned finally got some recognition due a deal with a major record label.
This was the Eloise era when Vanian well and truly took centre stage after the departure of Captain Sensible. However all was not well. Rat got quite emotional when he described how they arrived at an air-conditioned rehearsal room, complete with roadies on hand, which was set out with top of the range amplifiers and instruments provided by the record company. But they found that they couldn't actually play anything. The Captain described a similar turn of events in his life after the success of Happy Talk which brought in more money than he was earning with The Damned. He found that after two years of being a pop star, with all the pressures which came with that, he was so burnt out that he admitted himself to a clinic.
But despite all these ups and downs, The Damned continue touring and making the occassional new record. After the numerous personnel changes of the early years, the last 10 years have seen a settled line-up after Patricia Morrison (aka Mrs Vanian) left in 2004 to be replaced by Stu West. Pinch occupies the drum seat while long-time Sensible side-man Monty Oxymoron tinkles the ivories.
The film ended with scenes from a gig in London last year celebrating the Captain's 60th birthday with the words Old Age Punk written on the back of his jacket. The final song of the film was, suitably, Ignite. Long may they continue to set the world alight.
This review is dedicated to Bryn Merrick (12 Oct 1958 – 12 Sept 2015)
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