Chiswick Records - The Damned

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How did you end up with the Damned on your label ? Any memories. What did you feel seeing them on Top of The Pops with a top 40 hit ?

We nearly signed the Damned the first time out after seeing them at the Nashville Rooms, but Stiff got in first. I think that they were supporting a band called SALT who were essentially hippies. The tables at the front of the stage were occupied by cider drinking long hairs who did not like the Damned. Regardless the Damned played on and on and on. Eventually someone pulled the curtains over at which point all hell broke loose culminating in a bass drum careering through the curtains and sending the pints of cider all over the poor hippies at the front. The Damned had arrived at that point. When Stiff dumped them they broke u[p for a while with the captain forming King, Rat the White Cats and Dave joining Drs Of Madness. Eventually they came back together as the Doomed without Brian who laid claim to the name. Henry from King was bass player for about 5 minutes, but he was much too sensitive to handle it. Lemmy played with them occasionally. Eventually they got Algy.

Chiswick publicity photo for Machine Gun Etiquette

One of the four sleeves for Love Song

By this time our press officer Rick was managing them. They were playing the Lyceum one night and it was packed. The third business partner in the company Trevor came along out of curiosity – he certainly was not a punk fan. He encouraged us to sign them on the basis that they were drawing crowds who bought records – pretty straightforward. The band had the Dodgy Demo out and so we re-recorded Love Song. The late Eddie Hollis (manager of Eddie & the Hot Rods) produced a version, but the vocal and the mix were not happening, so I took Dave into the studio – did the vocal again and mixed it. We certainly used the fan base to manipulate it into the charts.

As regards Top of The Pops, it should have been amazing. On the the first appearance Captain discovered that he could use the BBC costume dept. So at the rehearsal he turned up in a full wedding gown and Doc Martens. Everyone in the studio just stood and applauded when he walked in – looked amazing. Then the producer told him that he could not go on in the wedding dress. They had an exclusive on Bowie’s ‘Boys keep Swinging’ video that featured the grande Dame in drag and they thought that he might think that the Capt was taking the piss – bollocks! So what could have been one of the great television events of all time was still pretty good, but not as good as it would have been with Vanian in full bow tie and tails singing Love Song to Capt in a wedding dress.

The superb Machine Gun Etiquette LP