What to wear to the Damned

I first saw The Damned was way back in 1984 in Bristol. Next week I'm going to see them again in Bristol, which I'll do a write-up of some time over the next couple of weeks. The first time I saw them I knew exactly what to wear as I had my 'uniform' of black jeans, black Dr Martin boots, black leather jacket, some old punk t-shirt or another, and spiked hair. Not unsurprisingly most of those clothes are long gone, as is some of the hair, although I do think I still have a pair of old DM's kicking around somewhere. So, what do I wear? Actually I'm considerably less worried about what I look like today, but it does amuse me to think how important it was to me at the time, how my parents didn't understand why I wanted to look "deliberately scruffy", and why couldn't I be like that nice lad down the road.

The Damned are one of the bands whose material I still have mainly on vinyl, although I do think I have a compilation CD somewhere as well. I'll have to dig them all out over the next couple of evenings to get myself back in the mood. I'm particularly looking forward to listening to the Machine Gun Etiquette album again as that was always one of my favourites.

I have no idea what to expect at the gig ... perhaps still a smattering of anarchy, chaos and destruction ... but not too late past my bed time please.

Sebadoh, Lou Barlow

The great things about internet music sites is that I can just type in the name of a band (or several bands) or a genre tag that I feel like listening to and it will serve back to me the sort of music that I'm in the mood for. Much of it is recognisable. Some that I still listen to on a regular basis, and some that I've not heard for years, and some that I've never heard before.

One of today's selections was Sebadoh. I think I first heard Sebadoh on the John Peel show back in the early 1990's. I have most of the albums from around that period, but I also recall they did am amazing Peel session which I've never been able to find anywhere.

I was fortunate enough to get to see Sebadoh once. It was at the Glastonbury Festival, again some time in the early 1990's, at around the time they released their excellent Bubble and Scrape album. They were playing on one of the smaller stages and attracted a modest crowd. I recall Lou Barlow not being too impressed with the sound quality and suggesting to the crowd that they come and see Sebadoh somewhere better. He then quickly qualified that by stating that Glastonbury was cool, but that their performance would perhaps be better elsewhere. I thought it was just fine though.

I was of course aware that Sebadoh had spawned several side projects, solo outings and various other collaborations, but had no idea of just how many albums they had made between them all.

Over the years I have amassed far too many records and CDs for my own good. Now that we've entered the digital age I have uploaded the majority to iTunes. My CDs and records for sale can be found on my web site.