Famously, The Damned were the first UK punk band to release a single, their debut seven inch New Rose emerging on Stiff Records on October 22, 1976. Six months later, the London quartet also became the first UK punk band to tour America, playing shows in New York, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The band’s first US show found them playing two sets at CBGB in New York on April 7, 1977. The Damned open both sets with I Feel Alright, the final song on their debut album Damned Damned Damned, and closed both sets with So Messed Up, the album’s penultimate song. The group would play the venue again on April 8, 9 and 10.
“New York was the most amazing place I’d ever seen,” drummer Rat Scabis recalls in a new interview with MOJO magazine. “To suddenly be in what appeared to be the set of Kojak, but for real, with the sirens and yellow taxicabs and steam coming out of the manholes in the road… And we’d see Joey Ramone in the street and say hi. I loved New Yorkers, and their directness.”
Scabies was less impressed, however, by New York’s legendary punk mecca CBGB.
“There was sawdust on the floor, dogshit everywhere, and tables so people could eat pizza while they watched the Ramones,” he complains. “It didn’t have any of the commitment that English punk had. You don’t eat pizza and watch the band – that just isn’t done! It was like some Andy Warhol experiment.”
Following their New York residency, The Damned played two nights at the Rathskeller in Boston. Faced once again with a pizza-eating audience, at the beginning of their second set on night two, the group dragged tables and chairs onstage, with guitarist Brian James telling the audience, “We can sit on our asses just like you.”
“I felt like a monkey in a cage again, and got confrontational,” Captain Sensible tells MOJO. “I had the road crew scare up a table and chairs, and we stopped playing for 10 minutes and ate some pizza ourselves on-stage, while the crowd watched.”
The tour closed with shows at The Starwood in Hollywood, and at San Francisco’s Mabuhay Gardens.
“We didn’t have enough money for our air fare back to Blighty,” recalls Sensible, “so we put a collection box on the stage during the shows, with a sign reading, ‘If you want rid of these “damned limeys” give generously to the fly-them-back-to-the-UK fund.’ We actually managed to make enough money to get us back home!”
For the full interview, check out the latest issue of MOJO.