HW: Damned by the curse of Damned (was Re: Greasy Truckers Party 2001)

[Doug Pearson]

On Sat, 20 Oct 2001 04:51:57 +0100, Nick Medford <nick at HERMIT0.DEMON.CO.UK>
wrote:
>> >a good band with multiple Hawkwind connections
>>
>>Could it have been... pause.. roll of thunder.. The Damned?
>
>Yet another connection is that Lu Edmonds and Ginger Baker were both in
>PiL, although I'm not sure if they overlapped.

I was thinking about this subject, and I'm continually amazed at how RIFE
the Damned are with Hawkwind connections (some mighty tenuous):

* Didn't bassist Algy Ward (ex-Saints) play in the Atom Gods with Judge
Trev?  Or at least in a band (Tank, maybe?) with Atom Gods members?

* Bassist Paul Gray (ex-Eddie and the Hot Rods) played in UFO ... much
earlier, Larry Wallis played in UFO ... Larry Wallis played on lots of Mick
Farren records ... Mick Farren wrote the lyrics to "Lost Johnny" and was in
the Deviants with Paul Rudolph ...

* The second Damned album, 'Music For Pleasure', was produced by Nick Mason
of Pink Floyd.  After leaving Pink Floyd, original guitarist Syd Barrett
played two gigs with Stars, featuring Twink on drums ... Twink played in
the Pink Fairies with Paul Rudolph ...

* During the break in their career (between 'Music for Pleasure'
and 'Machine Gun Ettiquite'), Damned singer Dave Vanian joined the Doctors
of Madess with Richard Strange ... Richard Strange appears on "Work",
Martin Griffin's solo track on Hawkwind's 'Twice Upon A Time / Friends &
Relations, vol.2' ...

* Current Damned bassist (yes, they've had a lot of them) Patricia Morrison
used to play in the Sisters of Mercy (any connections through them that I'm
forgetting about?), and before that, in the Gun Club ...  Ward Dotson was
one of the guitarists in the Gun Club (the other was Kid Congo Powers, who
was also briefly in the Cramps) ... after the Gun Club, he was in the
Pontiac Brothers ... one of the other guitarists in the Pontiac Brothers
was Jon Wahl, who later formed Clawhammer and the Amadans ... the drummer
for both those bands was/is Bob Lee, whose other band Backbiter backed
Twink as the "LA Pink Fairies" ... long before that, Twink was in
the "real" Pink Fairies with Paul Rudolph (told you some of these were
tenuous!)

* And, of course, they broke Michael Moorcock's guitar ...

I couldn't figure out a way to connect the Damned to the Cure for the Andy
Anderson connection.  The Sex Pistols will work, though, since before
joining the Pistols, Sid Vicious made his "musical" debut as drummer in
Siouxie and the Banshees, and Robert Smith of the Cure played guitar with
Siouxie for a couple tours in the early 80s.

    -Doug
     jasret at mindspring.com