Yes, a Motorhead UK Tour with us and Girlschool. The Damned are second band onstage SO GET THERE EARLY!!!
11th, Plymouth - Pavilion
12th, Bristol - Colston Hall
13th, Newport - Centre
15th, Swindon - Oasis
16th, Nottingham - Royal Concert Hall
17th, Newcastle - City Hall
18th, Darlington - Inside Out - SEPARATE DAMNED GIG (full set!)
19th, Glasgow - Academy
20th, Leeds - Academy
21st, Manchester - Apollo
22nd, Cambridge - Corn Exchange
24th, Southend - Cliffs Pavilion
25th, Portsmouth - Guildhall
27th, Bournemouth - Solent Hall
28th, London - Hammersmith Apollo
29th, Wolverhampton - Civic Hall
Best to stay tuned to officialdamned.com for any possible updates / changes. Cheers - Cap
Chris Monk - our long suffering agent is now taking bookings so if you have think any promoters or venues in your area might be interested ask them to contact us via here or the Official Damned website - http://www.officialdamned.com/
Influences
As a schoolkid in the 60's I purchased every single by bands like the Small Faces, Kinks and the Who... and then when rock and psychedelia came along I fell in love with Soft Machine, The Groundhogs and Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd (not to be mistaken for the other lot...) amongst others like the Pretty Things, Brian Auger, The Stooges, Marc Bolan, The Cowsills, Pink Fairies, Traffic, Santana, King Crimson, etc... all wonderful stuff that I play over and over to this day.
There's not so many current bands that can match that lot for inventiveness but Stereolab, Zero Zero, Sing Sing and Zoot Woman sound like the real thing - well, to my ear anyway.
Working with wonderful bands like Zombina and the Skeletones, Spookey, The Priscillas and Polysics keeps us on our toes as well... check them out if they're gigging down your way.
And now, by popular request I'm gonna post my all time top ten fav albums.....
1) Groundhogs - 'Thank Christ For The Bomb'
2) Brian Auger's Oblivion Express - 'Brian Auger's Oblivion Express'
3) Syd's Pink Floyd - 'Piper at the Gates Of Dawn'
4) Pink Fairies - 'Never Never Land'
5) Soft Machine - 'Vol 1+2'
6) Egg - 'The Polite Force'
7) Electric Prunes - 'Lost Dreams'
8) Bee Gees - 'First'
9) Stray - 'Stray'
10) Jimi Hendrix - 'Smash Hits'
You could do a lot worse than giving some of these superb records a spin playmates, but don't expect to go trawling through them looking for nicked riffs and the like - I never do THAT kind of thing.... ahem!
Sounds Like
The Captain material could possibly be described as highly melodic, occasionally anthemic pop...tinged with melancholy.
But, for those of you who've not had the pleasure (fnar fnar!) let me tell you a bit about myself and my wonderful and occasionally bizarre music carreer..............
Well, after a few years punking it up with Johnny Moped and the Damned somehow I found myself on Top Of The Pops singing a showtune from South Pacific... 'Happy Talk' it was called (how could you ever forget!) and nothing was ever the same again.
As a former toilet cleaner for Croydon Council I wasn't going to tell the record label to stick all that dosh up their bums now, was I... so that's how I became the most unlikely popstar in Britain.
After 2 albums of (even if I say so myself) classic synth-pop on A+M Records - 'Women an Captain's First' and 'The Power Of Love' I left to record more indie sounding guitar based records like 'Revolution Now' and my cosmic rock opera 'The Universe of Geoffrey Brown' which I'm rather proud of.
These days I still perform with that lovable bunch of rogues The Damned - who are playing better than ever currently.... and also with Mike Peters and Slim Jim Phantom on an as yet un-named band project - they're nice chaps and we see eye to eye musically as well... so we're gonna make a pretty interesting album sometime soon methinks!!
*** HEY - I"M NOW ON U-TUBE (click the banner) ***
Oh, feel free to knock up a quick work of art while you're here playmates. Blimey, old Picasso would have loved THIS now wouldn't he!
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*** DOWNLOAD ***
I have had a few complaints that Xmas Catalog has been unavailable to download from the music player on this page, which shouldn't be the case as the lovely Tintin has set things up so you can download the songs if you feel that way inclined. Anyway, just in case things ARE a bit iffy I have posted my poptastic Xmas ditty in the Captain Sensible section of the (click the link)
Ladies and Gentlemen..... until now my 2 wonderful 80s A+M albums have been unavailable on CD but those lovely people at Cherry Red Records have plucked them out of obscurity and restored them to their former glory.
Any synth buff worth his salt could easily name the years these records were made as they are full of classic early 80s synth sounds:
Linn LM-1
Roland Jupiter 8
Prophet 5
Oberheim OBX
Oh, and occasionally they let me play a bit of guitar too!
FIND OUT WHO'S WHO ON THE RECORD SLEEVE ON MY BLOG
Needless to say, I'm thrilled so I've helped out with the sleeve notes and rummaged through my drawers for some fun photos from way back and I have to say that I am EXTREMELY happy with the results.
I've also added quite a few interesting bonus tracks - some of which are a trifle off the wall it has to be said (Damned on 45 anybody?) so, if you fancy hearing some of my 80s recordings with genius producer Tony Mansfield click the button below. Cheers playmates!
Oh, and I also play in a pretty good band called the Damned.... did I mention that?
Anyway, for those that don't know - we are not the most prolific of artistes in terms of releasing albums so the surfacing of last years SO, WHO'S PARANOID? was quite an event in Damned terms.
It's a heady concoction of garage punk, psychedelia and goth and has proven there's life in the old dog yet.
Try and get hold of a copy if you can.... there's a few real surprises on there I can assure you! Click the cover.
HELLO EVERYBODY - and welcome to this... my dodgy Myspace. Please feel free to poke about - there's all sorts of diverse stuff in here for y'all. And I do love to read your messages... no matter WHAT they say (try and keep it clean, lol)
This site is actually being run for Cap by a web-savvy friend.
Mr Sensible has this to say...
"Luddite? Well, I have to admit you have got a bit of a point there.... all this new fangled technology and all that - well, to be honest I have got better things to do than tap tap tap away all day on a computer keyboard answering stacks of messages. Consequently - I DON'T ACTUALLY EDIT THIS SITE MYSELF so please don't be offended if there's no reply... I really do appreciate you dropping by - and maybe the lovely Tintin (see my friends) who is the techie genius who keeps the site together and uploads my blurb will say hi on my behalf as she's got a much better grasp of this MySpace thing and is also a lot prettier that your old punk guitarist chum.
This IS definitely my site though!"
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." Hunter S. Thompson
Ey up lad.....owz tha doin? Brill show at Darlo 500 people in a 400 capacity room....real sardine city.....so hot n sweaty.....seen youze in recent years in Leeds @ Rio's and Irish Centre which were brill & 02 academy not so brill coz youze were kicked off early for bloody disco....not interested this time coz youze are too D.A.M.N.E.D good to play second fiddle to lemmy n the gang....should have been other way round....any road up like i say youze were class....great mix of songs.....and.....wait for it....you personally were top notch! Best Ive ever heard you play, guitar sounded brill with and without the old tin can.....hope you got some top class trainspotting in while you were in Darlo....Hope to see youze lads again soon but top of the bill where you belong....how about Leeds again but not the academy.....Holmfirth good venue too.....oh yeh youze were pretty D.A.M.N.E.D good in Barrow......remember? Any road up thats it for now.....gan canny me old steam packet.... if i dont see you through the week ill see you through the window....seasons greetings.....T-Bone
P.s This is on behalf of my dad!!! K.Trigg Cos hes crap on computers!
This is him with you @ Irish Centre Leeds! Afta Gig your his hero!
great show in darlo last night. theres more to this town than feckin trains !! theres always been a massive damned following here. been a diehard fan myself since 79 and a big thrill to see yas at my home town....... get yerselves back here soon !!
Don't tell Lemmy but The Damned edged it for me in Swindon last night. Nice one Capt. Next time Jet Boy Jet Girl. Agreed last night wasn't quite the night for it, lol! Al.
I was at one time quite a successful photographer, with work being shown on a national and international scale. Then I fell ill with a mobility related condition which utterly naffed my life up. Thanks to years of fighting back I have managed to regain the mobility which I lost, and through a process of ongoing pain management and medication have been able to start work again. As a result I have decided to re-enter the photographic world as career. I know this links to a competition, but the competition is being judged on the number of votes, and I have no chance of winning it at all. However, I am hoping that this image, from a series of images showing British pre-christian landscapes, will be of a quality to get my name into the NT sphere of consciouness. Becoming an NT photographer is almost impossible, but I believe I have something as a pagan to add, and I have always been a sucker for trying to achieve the impossible.
Recorded: live on March 16, 2003 at the Beta Lounge in San Francisco
In 1967, San Francisco’s Fifty Foot Hose were certainly one of the
innovators of a sound that took Psychedelia to new heights and was
captured on the band’s one record, Cauldron. They are a totally
unique hybrid—on one hand pulsating bay area acid rock, on the other,
fractured electronic freakery, becoming one whole cohesive being. The
sci-fi-ish video game-like artwork hinted at the sounds within, as did
the Limelight label’s pedigree for truly progressive sounds. Band
leader, Cork Marcheschi, used homemade electronic devices to create
crude and experimental soundscapes and instrumental compositions that
were sprinkled throughout the album.
Often starting shows with a swelling rumble that exploded into the
first song, they soon developed a rabid following on the SF scene,
though there was the occasional totally wrong gig, like when a
very-pregnant Nancy had to perform at a Catholic Girls’ school! Still,
the group wowed the crowds, performing with greats like Chuck Berry and
Fairport Convention.