OMG, "Fan Club" was the first
British punk single I ever heard (on the radio), up to then I had only heard and bought The Ramones debut. The Sex Pistols were all over the (English music) papers at that time, but you never got to hear any music from them because notoriety was more important to McLaren than his proteges actually putting something down on vinyl. So I actually heard music by The Damned and The Clash before I finally got to hear Never Mind The Bollocks.
And I remember thinking when I heard that Damned song that Joey Ramone was "somehow the more melodic singer" - no doubt my nasty BOF instincts at work failing to recognize true art!
Vanian was a wonderfully English vaudeville character though. I loved what he did years later to Barry Ryan. And he could sing by then too.
Another thing I remember from the very early Damned was Rat Scabies' (drummer, great name!) snappy answer to an NME scribe questioning his street credibility why he had only a rubber rat and not a real dead one dangling from his drum kit: "
A real rat would smell too much. You'd need to change it all the time."
