“This is when Captain found his ear!” In 1979, the reformed London punks were shunted off to a studio to “make some noise” – result: a hippy-baiting powerpop hit of complex proportions.
The feature on William Burroughs in this month's issue by John Robinson made me think of some of the bands who took their names from Burroughs' books, most famously The Soft Machine, Steely Dan, and Grant Hart's Nova Mob
The Damned were always a proficient and exciting live band, and they still are. However, their air of danger disappeared with Rat Scabies, and it's disturbing to find a keyboard-playing goon with a perm and a drummer in a gorilla costume compounding Sensible's permissible buffoonery.
