Grimly Fiendish – The Damned (1985)

Description

Additional information about this, The Damned vinyl art.

The Damned – The Artists

The Damned are an English punk rock band formed in London in 1976 by lead vocalist Dave Vanian, guitarist Brian James, bassist (and later guitarist) Captain Sensible, and drummer Rat Scabies. They were the first punk band from the United Kingdom to release a single, “New Rose” (1976), release a studio album, Damned Damned Damned (1977),nd tour the United States. They have nine singles that charted on the UK Singles Chart Top 40. The band briefly broke up after Music for Pleasure (1977), the follow-up to their debut studio album, was critically dismissed. They quickly reformed without Brian James, and released Machine Gun Etiquette (1979). In the 1980s they released four studio albums, The Black Album (1980), Strawberries (1982), Phantasmagoria (1985), and Anything (1986), which saw the band moving towards a gothic rock style. The latter two albums did not feature Captain Sensible, who had left the band in 1984. In 1988, James and Sensible rejoined to play a series of reunion gigs, one of which was released the next year as the live album Final Damnation (1989). Their fast-driven punk rock has been cited for influencing and shaping the emergence of hardcore punk in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the United Kingdom and the United States.

Grimly Fiendish – The Song

‘Grimly Fiendish’ is a single by English rock band the Damned, released on 18 March 1985. The band was offered a deal by a major label, MCA, and moved further in the direction of goth music under the influence of guitarist/keyboardist Roman Jugg and vocalist Dave Vanian. Given a substantial promotional budget, including a video directed by Jonathan Gershfield, two separate 12″ releases (each featuring a different remix of “Grimly Fiendish”) and several limited edition 7″ variants, the song was the band’s biggest hit since 1979, reaching No. 21 in the UK Singles Chart in April 1985.The song takes its title (although misspelled for copyright reasons) from a character – Grimly Feendish – The Rottenest Crook in the World – in the UK children’s Wham!, Pow! and Smash! comics from the 1960s, as well as Cor!, Shiver & Shake, Monster Fun and Buster in the 1970s and 1980s. Created by Leo Baxendale, Grimly is an over-ambitious and generally incompetent, childlike criminal mastermind, who is often shown wearing a long, black coat, starting initially as the villainous foil to Eagle-Eye, Junior Spy. Although popular enough to merit his own strip, the regular restructuring or shelving of his strip due to the comics he appeared in being merged with others meant that he never achieved longevity in any single publication, though he was a staple in many IPC/Fleetway comic annuals until the 1980s.
The inspiration behind the song is a throwaway remark by a BBC Radio One DJ, who wondered whether anyone still remembered the character. The lyrics depict Grimly on trial for being a bad influence on children, but protesting that he was never given much of a chance (an allegory to his fate in the comic world).

Nosferatu – The Shape

This record has been modelled into the body of Nosferatu the vampire from the film of the same name. Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror is a 1922 silent German Expressionist vampire film directed by F. W. Murnau and starring Max Schreck as Count Orlok, a vampire who preys on the wife (Greta Schröder) of his estate agent (Gustav von Wangenheim) and brings the plague to their town.

the lead vocalist Dave Vanian in his gothic costume. Vanian changed his name from Lett to Vanian in early life after a stint as a gravedigger – Vanian being a play on “Transylvanian”. He remains one of the early influencers of gothic fashion, wearing dark and otherworldly clothing both on stage and off. He is known to be a fan of renaissance art, film noir and horror movies, all of which manifest in his stage appearance.

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