Customer Reviews

Tales From the Damned

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Yes, this an essential disc for a few reasons....

First off, I always though it was Rat that handled the vocal duties on Burglar. After all, it's HIS mugshot on the back of my copy of Smash It Up b/w Burglar CHIS 116 on Chiswick records. ;)

Anyhow, the Friday the 13th EP tracks are great, and hard to find elsewhere. ...Great cover of The Stones' Citadel. Disco Man is the Vanian vocal version, different from the Capt. version found on Collection and Damned But Not Forgotten. Teenage Dream is a great insight into the Algy-era Damned live set, as that's part of The School Bullies disc on Receiver Records. Try and find that one! A Sanity Clause remix, a live cover of The MC5's Looking At You, and the 'fiddle solo' version of Anti-Pope are other rare ones from the There Ain't No Sanity Clause 12". The wacky banter surrounding silly tracks like I'm So Bored(yep, I'm So Glad) and the Turkey Song is fantastic. Also, there's the 'double band' version of Motorhead's Over the Top, where The Damned play WITH Motorhead SIMULTANEOUSLY, which turned up on Motorhead's Bomber single as the b-side.

Truly a must-have from The Pirates of Punk. AAARRRGGHHH!!!!

Tales of The Damned is an essential purchase simply because it contains the full Friday 13th EP:

Disco Man: a live favourite
Limit Club: one of The Damned's best songs
Billy Bad Breaks: good poppy number
Citadel: great original coverof the Stones song.

The fact the album comes with more songs is simply a bonus. Burglar is a fun b-side with the raspy vocals of Mr. Rat Scabies. Looking At You is a great song and this a strong live performance. Sanity Clause is the usual Damned mayhem with xmas bells!

I'm So Bored and The Turkey Song are throwaway fun, Antipope is an interesting alternative version with violins replacing the bongos. Sugar & Spite, Seagulls are instrumentals that you can take or leave Over The Top is a loud workout between Motorhead nad The Damned with Lemmy on vocals.

I think this is the only release Cleopatra issued by The Damned that was any good. This disc has 15 songs unavailable for sometime since all of these were released on vinyl. I like the song Over the top Motordamned it was only previously released on the Long Lost weekend best 1 1/2 LP. This cd also contains the entire Friday the 13th EP The Limit Club is my all time favorite Damned song post Brian James era. I recommend picking this up at once you won't regret it.

Sometimes a collection of rare item could be better than a few of the band's albums. Tales from the Damned is one of them. The cd first track "Burglar" a b-side from the Algy Ward days is a true punk classic, with its sore throated Algy or Captian vocal(I don't know which) and thundering drums. The collection then moves to the unavailable Friday the 13th ep's tracks making it an essential purchase for any Damned fan. "I Believe the Impossible", the violin included "Antipope" (which I enjoy better than the album version), "I'm So Bored", "Teenage Dream", and "Seaguls" are also included along with a few other suprises making a very good collection of tracks.

Fantastic set of extras and other rarities from the most obnoxious group of punk prototypes. "Tales" is staight from the bowels of late seventies, early eighties, english dirty punk. A few tracks are taken from another of the Damned's ep.'s, "Friday the Thirteenth Ep." The disc features a cover of the Rolling Stones song "Citadel" and the track "Over the Top" features ageing fart rocker Lemmy from the group Motorhead, who manned bass for a short while in the group. The Song entitled, "The Limit Club" excercises the groups "goth" styling and I think proves why this band surpassed all other early punk outfits in the arena of great music.

The Pistols were smart media manipulators. The Germs were extremists. The Damned were god Damned FUN. None of `em knew how to play and the funniest one took off his britches. But somehow the Damned sounded good anyway! How could a group of comedians who didn't know how to play make such great music? It's a Damned mystery and really it gets 5 bicycle bell rings which are better than stars.

And it's also a mystery why Captain Sensible took a leak on the bass player head.

All that god Damned fun comes out on this record. If you are expecting hard core here go buy one of the numerous cliché ridden copy cat punky bands. Just back away because we Damned people don't like you anyway you wankers. You are annoying twits. But if you understand how god Damned funny and fun the Damned were and how great rock can sound then you might want to shell out the extreme amount that this CD fetches. The Motorhead song is better than any Motorhead Motorhead song but Motorhead fans are prohibited from buying this record because they are stupid too. I was going to sell this one until I listened to it. I can't afford to keep it but I'm going keep it anyway. Screw you, I got mine and you are too dumb to understand anyway.

Really, I don't even like most of the Damned records but this one is the living end.