Latest news with #Damned
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Iggy Pop, Jack White Say ‘Hey! Ho!' To CBGB Festival
It has been 50 years since CBGB birthed the New York rock explosion led by Patti Smith, Talking Heads and the Ramones — a legacy that will be honored Sept. 27 at the first CBGB Festival. The event will be headlined by Iggy Pop and Jack White and will take place at Under the K Bridge Park, a new outdoor venue literally underneath the Kosciuszko Bridge roadway in Brooklyn. The 21-band, three-stage lineup will also sport Sex Pistols with new singer Frank Carter, Johnny Marr, Marky Ramone, the Damned, Gorilla Biscuits, Melvins, Lambrini Girls, the Linda Lindas, Lunachicks, Scowl, Cro-Mags, Murphy's Law and Pinkshift. Attendees will be treated such hallowed memorabilia as the original CBGB's bar and stage More from Spin: Eric Clapton's 'Unplugged' and the Peak Dad Rock Moment The Vernon Spring Finds Clarity in Haze Pearl Jam Revisit Vintage Songs For 'The Last Of Us' Tickets go on sale to the general public on Friday (May 16), and a trove of 350 GA tickets will be available only at the Music Hall of Williamsburg box office the next day for residents under 25. The 'Young Punk' discounted ducats will sell for $73, in line with the year CBGB opened. Pop hasn't played a headlining show in New York in nine years, although he has appeared at such events as the annual Tibet House benefit and a symphonic celebration of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, which was held just days before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. Other artists on the bill have longstanding connections to the music of the CBGB era, with White frequently covering Iggy and the Stooges' 'I Wanna Be Your Dog' and Marr featuring Pop's 'The Passenger' in his live set lists in 2024. Marky Ramone and the Damned are also no strangers to the original club, with the former having played it countless times with the Ramones and the latter among the first U.K. punk bands to visit in April 1977. CBGB closed its doors on the Bowery in 2006 after a farewell concert by Smith. Its building is now occupied by a John Varvatos store, although the CBGB name has since been licensed for a restaurant at Newark International Airport. In 2018, Target provoked the ire of New York music lovers by tweaking CBGB's famous awning to celebrate the opening of a new retail location in Astor Place. The four-lettered acronym was swapped out for 'TRGT' and 'BANDS,' which referred not to music but complimentary Band-Aids and exercise bands with Target logos on them. To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.
Perth Now
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
The Dammed guitarist Brian James buried at sea
The Damned guitarist Brian James has been buried at sea. The punk rocker passed away on March 6, 2025, at the age of 70, and on April 28 Brian's family, including his widow Minna, son, Charlie and daughter-in-law, Alicia - and nine of his closest friends laid him to rest on the ocean floor in a "very emotional" private ceremony that took place off the coast of Newhaven, East Sussex, England. Speaking to The Sun newspaper, Minna - who had been with the 'Love Song' rocker since she was 18 - revealed: "It was a beautiful day and the sea was calm. 'We've been together since I was 18, so it was very emotional. "A burial at sea is pretty unusual, but it was in his will so we had to do it." After the attendees went out to sea in a boat for "around three hours" from Eastbourne, they held a small memorial service at a church near Brian and Minna's home in Brighton. A source told the publication: "Brian now sleeps with the fishes, which is what he wished for before he died. "He was a true original in life and has carried that on in death. ''The spirit of punk never left him and he was adamant he wanted his final resting place to be at sea. ''A few loved ones went out on the boat for around three hours and watched as his coffin was dropped into the drink.'' James died on March 6 after a six-decade long music career. A statement posted on his Facebook account said: "It is with great sadness that we announce the death of one of the true pioneers of music, guitarist, songwriter, and true gentleman, Brian James. "Incessantly creative and a musical tour de force, over a career which spanned more than six decades, with his music also gracing film and television soundtracks, in addition to The Damned and The Lords of the New Church, Brian worked with a plethora of punk and rock 'n' roll's finest, from Iggy Pop to Wayne Kramer, Stewart Copeland to Cheetah Chrome.' After forming The Damned, he went on to establish Tanz Der Youth before co-founding The Lords of the New Church with Stiv Bators. The band released three studio albums and produced singles such as 'Open Your Eyes', 'Dance with Me', and 'Method to My Madness'. His career continued with The Dripping Lips and the Brian James Gang, releasing solo material and collaborating with a range of influential musicians. Brian reunited with the original members of The Damned in 2022 for a series of UK shows, marking more than four decades since the release of 'New Rose'.
The Guardian
31-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Gatsby by Jane Crowther; The Gatsby Gambit by Claire Anderson-Wheeler – Jay's eternal hold
It might seem unfathomable to us now, but F Scott Fitzgerald's third novel was something of a let-down when it was published 100 years ago; his previous books, This Side of Paradise and The Beautiful and Damned – there had also been a novella, The Diamond As Big As the Ritz, and short stories including The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – had been more commercially successful and found greater favour with critics. Fitzgerald's tale of obscure origins, extreme wealth and obsessional romantic desire appeared too unlikely, too contrived and, perhaps, too uncomfortable a reminder of class and financial inequality and its consequent social schisms to be recognised for what it was: a masterly exploration of delusion, self-delusion, myth-making and complicity. Fitzgerald himself died 15 years after its publication believing it to have been a worldly failure and unconsoled by any hint of its future cultural ubiquity. But literature, as we know, is studded with these anomalies, burials and rebirths and now, in an age of recycling and rebooting, it seems perfectly natural, if ironic, for The Great Gatsby to spawn a number of tribute acts. Nonetheless, it's striking that Jane Crowther's Gatsby and Claire Anderson-Wheeler's The Gatsby Gambit are debut novels, suggesting that the original is an artefact that feels fundamentally available, not forbiddingly off-limits; that both writer and reader might feel they have absorbed enough of Gatsby's internal workings as well as its superficial detail to find variation productive and interesting. (This is, of course, a generous interpretation; familiarity is also commercially attractive.) Crowther's approach is both straightforward and, in execution, intricate. She brings Gatsby to the very recent past, just pre-pandemic, and messes with gender; Gatsby becomes a female influencer, her apparently limitless funds provided not by bootlegging but invisible arrangements with beauty brands and real estate companies. Her love object is not Daisy but Danny Buchanan, the decent enough but none-too-deep husband of T, a far more savvy and implacable operator. Nick Carraway, Fitzgerald's implicated insider-outsider, is Nic, a young woman seeking to make her name not on the money markets but in the more cut-throat world of lifestyle journalism. These narrative switches take up a fair amount of energy to manifest, as Jay herself might describe it in one of her Instagram posts, and keeping track of how Crowther maps old on to new can eclipse some of her more interesting choices: that Tom's lover Myrtle, for example, becomes Miguel, an undocumented worker from the Dominican Republic with an interest in baseball and Warcraft, and a passing acquaintance with 'some guys out in Queens' who sell drugs at Gatsby's parties. For Nic, who has swallowed whole her new friend's bone-broth-and-vitamins persona, this is information to be brushed under the carpet, as is the suspicion that camera surveillance is a key part of those gatherings, and of Gatsby's modus operandi. But despite the novel sometimes over-signalling its ingenuity in reimagining the cultural landscape, Crowther still does well to portray its central figure as a tragic over-reacher, impelled by what she imagines to be love to enter into a social stratum in which preservation of the status quo is prized above all else. The Gatsby Gambit is a different affair altogether; a thoroughly enjoyable mystery story with all the tropes and pleasures of a golden age detective story. Our sleuth is Jay Gatsby's invented little sister Greta, who arrives for a summer at his West Egg home poised on the brink of adulthood and chafing at her much-loved brother's overprotectiveness. When Tom Buchanan is found dead – apparently by his own hand, in the face of spiralling debts – on Gatsby's boat, Greta's quiet persistence and powers of observation mean that she must exonerate Gatsby himself, who rapidly becomes the chief suspect. Well-written and pacy, inflected by the original characters and setting but otherwise unconstrained by them, The Gatsby Gambit romps along in rather happier vein than Fitzgerald might have recognised. As for the novel celebrating its centenary, the literary wheel keeps turning: Sarah Wynn-Williams's exposé of the Zuckerberg empire takes its title, Careless People, directly from Fitzgerald; switching on Radio 4 this week, I heard Alexei Sayle deliver the novel's final line – 'So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past' – to bathetic comic effect. That past does indeed remain another country, but one we love to visit. Gatsby by Jane Crowther is published by the Borough Press (£16.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at Delivery charges may apply The Gatsby Gambit by Claire Anderson-Wheeler is published by Renegade (£16.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at Delivery charges may apply
Boston Globe
25-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Brian James, pioneer of punk rock, is dead at 70
The Damned never shook British society, or the rock world at large, like the Sex Pistols, who sneered at the queen, hurled obscenities on television talk shows, and had pundits mulling the collapse of Western values. Nor did they play the part of political revolutionaries like the Clash, who were billed as 'the only band that matters.' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Nevertheless, the Damned made history. They were the first British punk band to release a single: 'New Rose,' written by Mr. James, in October 1976 (the Sex Pistols' anthemic 'Anarchy in the U.K.,' soon followed); the first to release an album, 'Damned Damned Damned,' in 1977; and the first to tour the United States. Advertisement Mr. James was a cornerstone of the Damned's early sound. He wrote most of the songs on the band's first two albums — their second, 'Music for Pleasure,' was released in late 1977 — and his guitar playing earned the praise of one of rock's most hallowed guitar gods, Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin. "We used to call Brian the riff-meister," Captain Sensible (born Raymond Ian Burns) recalled in a 2017 interview with Rolling Stone. "That's why Jimmy Page was such a fan of the band at the time." Writing "New Rose" was a marked achievement in itself. On the surface, it was a conventional enough love song, if a vaguely sinister one. ("I got a feeling inside of me/It's kind of strange like a stormy sea.") But that song, delivered with flamethrower intensity, "was the absolute redefinition of all that rock 'n' roll held dear," British music journalist Dave Thompson wrote in 1992, "a stunning return to basics which threw every last iota of expertise and experience to the winds." Advertisement Brian Robertson was born on Feb. 18, 1955, in the Hammersmith district of West London. (He adopted the surname James in 1976 to avoid confusion with guitarist Brian Robertson of the band Thin Lizzy.) Growing up in Crawley, about 30 miles south of London, he played in bands from an early age, drawing influences from the Rolling Stones and Chuck Berry and later from British blues guitar virtuosos like Peter Green, founder of Fleetwood Mac. In his midteens, he left the Hazelwick School in Crawley and doubled down on music, starting a band called Train that released a single, "Witchi Tai To," in 1969. He later fell under the sway of American punk progenitors like the Stooges (he would gig with their lead singer, Iggy Pop, in the late 1970s) and formed a more hard-edged band called Bastard. "We wanted an in-your-face name to go with the in-your-face music that we were playing," he said in a 2007 interview with Penny Black Music, a music site, "but unfortunately not a lot of people in Britain understood that or wanted to try and get into us. It was the age of the glitter thing." The band found some success after moving to Belgium, but they split upon returning to England and Mr. James joined London SS, whose other members included Mick Jones, the future Clash guitarist, and bassist Tony James, who went on to found the band Generation X with Billy Idol. London SS failed to take off, but it did set the stage for Brian James' career-defining next step when Rat Scabies (born Christopher Millar) impressed him at an audition for the band. 'It was like 'I've got no choice here,'' Mr. James told Penny Black Music. ''I'm going off with this guy to do my thing.'' Advertisement The Damned rode high for a time, joining the Sex Pistols on their infamous tour of Britain in late 1976 — although many of those shows were canceled because of the Pistols' penchant for chaos. The band's second album was a rush job, Mr. James later said, and had an unlikely producer: Nick Mason, drummer of Pink Floyd, a band that punks of the era routinely assailed as pompous corporate rock. (Nick Lowe, a label mate at the independent Stiff Records, produced the first one.) The album was generally dismissed by critics, and Rat Scabies left shortly afterward, followed by Mr. James. (The original three members, minus Mr. James, soon reunited with a new lineup. The Damned continued to tour and release albums with various members for decades.) Mr. James created a short-lived band called Tanz der Youth and then, in 1981, teamed with Stiv Bators, former lead singer of Cleveland punk band the Dead Boys, to form the Lords of the New Church. The group, with Bators as its singer, lasted for nearly a decade, earning airplay on MTV and achieving minor chart success with songs like 'Open Your Eyes' (1982) and their cover of the Grass Roots' 1967 hit 'Live For Today' (1983). Mr. James stayed busy over the years, releasing five solo albums. In 2001, he released an album with a supergroup called Racketeers, which also featured Wayne Kramer (MC5), Clem Burke (Blondie), Stewart Copeland (the Police), and Duff McKagan (Guns N' Roses). He joined the other original members of the Damned for a series of gigs in Britain in 2022. Advertisement Mr. James' survivors include his wife, Minna, and a son, Charlie. 'New Rose,' which was later covered by the likes of Depeche Mode and Guns N' Roses, lived on. So did Mr. James' legacy. In 2020, the punk magazine Vive Le Rock gave him its Pioneer Award for lifetime achievement. "They describe me as a pioneer," he said of the award in an interview with British newspaper The Observer. "A pioneer! Does that mean I have to wear a Davy Crockett hat to the ceremony?" This article originally appeared in
New York Times
23-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Brian James, Pioneer of Punk Rock, Is Dead at 70
Brian James, who helped spark the punk-rock revolution in Britain in the 1970s as the lead guitarist and chief songwriter of the British band the Damned, bringing a rare degree of musicality to a genre known for its chain-saw attack, died on March 6. He was 70. His death was announced on his Facebook page. The announcement did not cite a cause or say where he died. Mr. James formed the Damned in London in 1976 with Dave Vanian, a former gravedigger, on lead vocals; Captain Sensible on bass, and Rat Scabies on drums. The band was part of Britain's original punk vanguard. The Damned never shook British society, or the rock world at large, like the Sex Pistols, who sneered at the queen, hurled obscenities on television talk shows and had pundits mulling the collapse of Western values. Nor did they play the part of political revolutionaries like the Clash, who were billed as 'the only band that matters.' Nevertheless, the Damned made history. They were the first British punk band to release a single: 'New Rose,' written by Mr. James, in October 1976 (the Sex Pistols' anthemic 'Anarchy in the U.K.,' soon followed); the first to release an album, 'Damned Damned Damned,' in 1977; and the first to tour the United States. Mr. James was a cornerstone of the Damned's early sound. He wrote most of the songs on the band's first two albums — their second, 'Music for Pleasure,' was released in late 1977 — and his guitar playing earned the praise of one of rock's most hallowed guitar gods, Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin. 'We used to call Brian the riff-meister,' Captain Sensible (born Raymond Ian Burns) recalled in a 2017 interview with Rolling Stone. 'That's why Jimmy Page was such a fan of the band at the time.' Writing 'New Rose' was a marked achievement in itself. On the surface, it was a conventional enough love song, if a vaguely sinister one. ('I got a feeling inside of me/It's kind of strange like a stormy sea.') But that song, delivered with flamethrower intensity, 'was the absolute redefinition of all that rock 'n' roll held dear,' the British music journalist Dave Thompson wrote in 1992, 'a stunning return to basics which threw every last iota of expertise and experience to the winds.' Brian Robertson was born on Feb. 18, 1955, in the Hammersmith district of West London. (He adopted the surname James in 1976 to avoid confusion with the guitarist Brian Robertson of the band Thin Lizzy.) Growing up in Crawley, about 30 miles south of London, he played in bands from an early age, drawing influences from the Rolling Stones and Chuck Berry and later from British blues guitar virtuosos like Peter Green, the founder of Fleetwood Mac. In his midteens, he left the Hazelwick School in Crawley and doubled down on music, starting a band called Train that released a single, 'Witchi Tai To,' in 1969. He later fell under the sway of American punk progenitors like the Stooges (he would gig with their lead singer, Iggy Pop, in the late 1970s) and formed a more hard-edged band called Bastard. 'We wanted an in-your-face name to go with the in-your-face music that we were playing,' he said in a 2007 interview with Penny Black Music, a music site, 'but unfortunately not a lot of people in Britain understood that or wanted to try and get into us. It was the age of the glitter thing.' The band found some success after moving to Belgium, but they split upon returning to England and Mr. James joined London SS, whose other members included Mick Jones, the future Clash guitarist, and the bassist Tony James, who went on to found the band Generation X with Billy Idol. London SS failed to take off, but it did set the stage for Mr. James's career-defining next step when Rat Scabies (born Christopher Millar) impressed him at an audition for the band. 'It was like 'I've got no choice here,'' Mr. James told Penny Black Music. ''I'm going off with this guy to do my thing.'' The Damned rode high for a time, joining the Sex Pistols on their infamous tour of Britain in late 1976 — although many of those shows were canceled because of the Pistols' penchant for chaos. The band's second album was a rush job, Mr. James later said, and had an unlikely producer: Nick Mason, the drummer of Pink Floyd, a band that punks of the era routinely assailed as pompous corporate rock. (Nick Lowe, a label mate at the independent Stiff Records, produced the first one.) The album was generally dismissed by critics, and Rat Scabies left shortly afterward, followed by Mr. James. (The original three members, minus Mr. James, soon reunited with a new lineup. The Damned continued to tour and release albums with various members for decades.) Mr. James created a short-lived band called Tanz der Youth and then, in 1981, teamed with Stiv Bators, the former lead singer of the Cleveland punk band the Dead Boys, to form the Lords of the New Church. The group, with Mr. Bators as its singer, lasted for nearly a decade, earning airplay on MTV and achieving minor chart success with songs like 'Open Your Eyes' (1982) and their cover of the Grass Roots' 1967 hit 'Live For Today' (1983). Mr. James stayed busy over the years, releasing five solo albums. In 2001, he released an album with a supergroup called Racketeers, which also featured Wayne Kramer (MC5), Clem Burke (Blondie), Stewart Copeland (the Police) and Duff McKagan (Guns N' Roses). He joined the other original members of the Damned for a series of gigs in Britain in 2022. Mr. James's survivors include his wife, Minna, and a son, Charlie. 'New Rose,' which was later covered by the likes of Depeche Mode and Guns N' Roses, lived on. So did Mr. James's legacy. In 2020, the punk magazine Vive Le Rock gave him its Pioneer Award for lifetime achievement. 'They describe me as a pioneer,' he said of the award in an interview with the British newspaper The Observer. 'A pioneer! Does that mean I have to wear a Davy Crockett hat to the ceremony?'
