That the Damned should still be around, still plugging the same level of 2-D technicolor bombast, should be no surprise. Cartoon characters don’t age, so why should the Archies of Punk? But these are grown men, all approaching 70 from one direction or another, and nobody lives forever. Which is sort of the point and the purpose of Not Like Everybody Else.
This is a true tribute album, a celebration both of the band’s influences and of their bandmate Brian James, who died last March. James was the catalyst who pulled this motley crew of reprobates together, back in the dim and distant 1970s, writing the vast bulk of songs on their first two albums, cementing their name and reputation as trailblazers in the emergent punk scene. With chaotic and rabid live performances their calling card, this first iteration of the band burned at both ends, lasting barely a couple of years.
In the fifty years since, there have been innumerable variations and versions of the band, stumbling from lineup to lineup, label to label, yet always guaranteed to kick up a skirmish live, with a slow and steady trickle of singles to keep them in the public eye. With, as always, Dave Vanian at the helm, on vocals and Dracula impersonations, there have been upward of 20 members, yet it is that earliest line up that is inked in most indelibly: Vanian, James, Rat Scabies on drums, and Captain Sensible on bass and then guitar. So much so that, in 2024, that lineup convened for a sellout tour. With James already ill, that was as much as anything a means to give him a financial leg up, but it was nonetheless triumphant.
Now, with his death, the band celebrate his life with this set of covers, the sort of songs that inspired them back in the day, and probably still do. Possibly a surprising selection, but then, they were never really hardwired for punk, with always a love of psychedelic garage rock coursing through their veins, and a good touch of goth for good measure. The omnipresent Vanian leads from the front, with Captain Sensible on guitar. Having patched up their differences on the re-union tour, Rat Scabies has stayed on behind the drum kit. Paul Gray, on and off bassist since 1980, makes up the quartet, abetted by Monty Oxymoron, a permanent fixture since 1986, if curiously always absent from publicity shots, on keyboards.
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Paul Weller is a great songwriter. When you are a songwriter, the writing royalties can be the most lucrative part of the business, so when a talented and successful songwriter such as Weller voluntarily gives up that opportunity for royalties, you know that he really loves the songs.
Given that Robyn Hitchcock hails from a day where content may not always match the label, his succinctness of title is here pitch perfect. 1967: Vacations in the Past is a set of songs, all of which came to fruition during the (first) summer of love. Hitchcock formulated the selection to bookend his memoir 1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left. The jacket copy states, “In January 1966, Robyn Hitchcock is still a boy pining for his green Dalek sponge and his family’s comforting au pair, Teresa. By December 1967, he’s mutated into a 6 ft 2-inch rabid Bob Dylan fan, whose two ambitions in life are to get really stoned and move to Nashville.”