Damned
+
Penetration
Middlesbrough Town Hall
17 November 1977
I'm gonna smash it up till there's nothing left!
Middlesbrough is one rough arse town. My new friends Soo & Johnny Brotten must've been mental, walking round here last year with screaming red fire engine hair! Back in 76 it was like we'd landed from Mars. Walking down Borough road, the streets literally parted like Moses doing the Red Sea stroll. Now 1977 is turning into 1978, they can fit us neatly into their little box marked 'punk' & we are only seen as a threat by other youth tribes or the pigs. I am worried about the young punks I met in Stockton earlier, Rancid & Poison. They were robbed and chased, while they were waiting for me to come out of the pub. And what about my local contact Jacko Monkey, passed out in the back of my car? Rancid will land on his feet, he's a survivor that one. What kind of life has he had? His mum left them & his alcoholic dad beats the shit out of him! His macho pride will be dented having a girl get his prized leather jacket back off that big bully. Poison fascinates me; she's a gorgeous artistic star, wrapped up in a toxic outer skin of . . . well poison, pure poison. No of all my Boro friends, it's our Gash fanzine distributer Jacko Monkey that I'm worried most about. I don't know if it's her shame at working for the D.H.S.S or loneliness from leaving home or what, but the black dog's bit deep into her soul alright! I think Soo maybe a better bet for Boro Gash fanzine distributer.
"Look at the state of that" laughs the young bum-fluff skinhead from the pub.
Around the corner from the Town Hall, in an ally off Corporation Street, some cheeky buggers have set up a stall selling some shitty Damned T-shirts! This stuff is embarrassing, nothing like my designs on our Gash market stalls. The spiv is a punked out Billy Bunter look-a-like, minus the specs & the boarding school BBC accent. Amongst the T-shirts he's selling is a crude drawing of Captain Sensible wearing the porno nurses uniform, it's done in coloured felt pen! And there's a better one, a silhouette of singer Dave Vanian, looking typically ghoulish at the same Roxy gig.(What a night that was!) The pre-school artist probably traced both pictures out of Sniffin Glue fanzine.
"Oh I want that! I've gotta buy that!" I screech.
I've just spotted a Damned comb! I'm trying to negotiate with the spiv to sell some zines for me, (discount for him, cash up front for me) when his face fades to grey and he looks like he's shitting bricks!
"Jesus Christ: What's going on?" I hear myself scream!
The thug we saw lurking outside HMV earlier, (with the leather jacket thief) is here. He looks like he's lost his Sham 69 shirt & found a bloody big baseball bat. This big big monkey-man puffs out his horrible hairy chest & smashes the pasting table to smithereens with one God Almighty blow. I think the spivs melon sized head could be next! But Billy Bunter isn't impressed, he yanks the baseball bat out of the thugs hand & threatens to ram it up his 'how's yer father'! The weekend punks out spending their pocket money scarper. It's all happened in just 7 seconds; I expect to hear police sirens, not . . .
"Put that down son - NOW"
Three huge Town Hall bouncers don't have to act out any theatrical threats of violence. They look suitably intimidating like World of Sport wrestlers Big Daddy; Tony 'Banger' Walsh & Big Pat Roache squeezed into their tiny third division Kray Twin suits. Grinning behind them like a shithouse Cheshire Cat is Captain Sensible. The Damned speeding guitarist is flanked by his broken nosed fairground punch-drunk drummer Jon Moss. It's still just about daylight, so I guess singer Dave Vanian is hanging upside down from a beam down in the Crypt. I get into a slanging match with the Captain. He explains they've got wind of fake Damned T-shirts being sold. Sensible starts waffling on about
· "Shit quality fakes ripping off our fans"
· "Damned only get paid 12 quid a week each off Stiff, the merch sales is our beer money"
He even grasses me up to his hired goons as a punk clothes designer. As if my collection is the same as this old tat! I lose it with my old mate.
"What are you, a bloody pop star now? So the record labels set up a tour to sell your 'bag 'o' shite' new LP & some shitty T-shirts! How long before Damned start wearing business suites & changing into their punk panto costumes ten minutes before the curtain call? And don't think your kipping on my couch after your next Nottingham gig Ray! You want to be a proper band, then you can get your precious record company to pay for you to stay at the Hilton! And I'll bring your bloody bunny back too; it ate all my dad's wiring in the kitchen! That rabbit you gave me for Christmas is mental!"
