The U.S. Mails was kind enough to deliver my latest order today. From somewhere 100s of miles away in the vast nether regions of the USA comes a flimsy cardboard envelope containing The Damned – The Chiswick Singles… And Another Thing on CD. 24 songs, all of which I already own in innumerable permutations. Vinyl, cassette, CD, what have you. Had ‘em all for years. Decades, really. Nothing new here. No rarities, no demos, no live cuts, just the same old versions of The Damned’s Chiswick catalog we’ve all had for somewhere on the order of 30 years now.
Did I hesitate two weeks ago, even momentarily, placing The Chiswick Singles in my cart, and then clicking “Proceed to Check Out?” Fuck no. $13.67 for 24 songs I own two, three, five times over? Why the fuck not? Look at this description: “The package comes with brand new high-end transfers from the original master tapes.” Gotta hear that, for damn sure. How can any good Damned fan resist? “The booklet features a lavishly illustrated package including rare photographs and tons of memorabilia.” Well shit, sign me up, Chiswick Records. It’s one thing to, once again, for about the bazillionth time, dress up The Damned catalog and release yet another goddamn compilation, but “tons of memorabilia?” Now you’re cooking with gas, my friend. Liner notes by former Damned producer Roger Armstrong? Please rush me one (1) copy. Hell, rush me two. THREE. I already own all the goddamn songs, right? Might as well have a copy for the bedroom, one for the living room, and one suitable for hanging as a fucking conversation piece.
Love Song? I own three copies of the single (all with different picture sleeves, natch’), have it on The Best of The Damned twice (Vinyl, CD), and Machine Gun Etiquette three times (vinyl, original CD release, 25th anniversary CD release). Ditto for Smash It Up, except, additionally, I also own the 25th anniversary CD single reissue. The Friday the 13th EP? Got the original EP, have it on The Long Lost Weekend, and the Tales From The Damned CD. Hell yes, I’ll take it one more time. What have I got to lose? Maybe the new digital remaster will reveal some hitherto unheard single, half-second guitar note I missed the last five thousand times I listened to Disco Man. Why the fuck not?
Some years back a friend of mine explained why he downloaded all his music from illegitimate pirate sites. “They release it in a different medium every few years, and you have to re-purchase it to keep up with the technology,” he pointed out. “They trot out the ‘intellectual property’ argument, but you already paid for the intellectual property when you first bought the record back in 1978. Why do you have to keep paying for the same album over and over again? Something is fucked up here.”
And yet, all The Damned have to do with their pre-Phantasmagoria catalog is release it every few years in a new cover with new liner notes, and off I go, like some slobbering mutt sniffing a bacon treat in my master’s pocket, pulling out whatever cash is handy, or whatever credit card isn’t overdrawn, so I can buy the CD, listen to it once, read the liner notes, and place it triumphantly on the shelf with my other Damned CDs.
Such is the power of this band over me. Such is the nature of The Damned’s recorded output between 1979 and 1984: the planet’s greatest band recording their best-ever songs. Not Phantasmagoria, or Not of This Earth, or even Grave Disorder. No, the golden years, the proverbial halcyon days. The days when Dave, Rat, and the Captain were all in the band, when Algy Ward bragged about how he could play totally hammered (“without batting an eyelid”), when Paul Grey made out his will in the back of the van in Italy, certain he wouldn’t make it back to England alive after a month of relentless chaos. When they were all too young to know any better, to think about or even be aware of rules or limitations. When they calmed down every now and again from the endless barrage of drugs and drink, repaired to the studio and recorded some of the most glorious music ever visited upon human ears. There is none better in my estimation, and so The Chiswick Singles finds a permanent home within my collection.
I could get mad. I could ask why the countless number of Damned demos – Don’t Trouble Trouble, Blind Leading the Blind, Frantic, etc – have never been officially released. But what the shit; I’ve got time. Maybe it’s a test. Maybe the band is seeing how many asinine comps their fans will keep shelling out for before finally throwing in the towel and spending their money on something productive like anti-depressants. Fuck it. I’m not completely without willpower, you know. All it takes is a little discipline, a little… which reminds me, isn’t Music for Pleasure about due for some remastering? Maybe punching up those highs is all that’s needed to neutralize Nick Mason’s production. Let’s see what we can find out on the interweb...
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