When are The Misfits not The Misfits?

[Dave W]

A trademark dispute that makes me smile.

Punk Band Misfits Issues Trademark C&D To 'Punk Rock Flea Market,' Receives C&D From Flea Market In Return

[Psycho Bass Guy]

The article isn't very clear. Glenn Danzig has not been in the Misfits since 1983 and has no part of this suit. As a matter of fact, he lost his OWN lawsuit against the Misfits recently over royalty sharing from a 1995 agreement between he and current Misfits band leader Jerry Only which completely shut him out of all Misfits royalties. The flea market actually makes the argument that because he is NOT in the band, the band has no right to claim ownership of the logo, which is undermined by the previous ruling, but I think it's more for laughs than anything.

The real Misfits were a horror-punk band who had few fans ("We are 138" referred to the number of members in the national fan club)and imploded years before their influences started popping up in thrash metal bands, namely Metallica, who made them famous on their Garage Days Re-Revisted EP with a mashup of "Last Caress" and "Green Hell". The 1995 royalty agreement came from a revival tour series by bassist Jerry Only who recruited singer Michale Graves and fronted a serious incarnation until Graves left for good in 2000. I saw them on tour in '99 and still have Jerry's oversized forearm sweatband he chucked into the crowd; great show and faithful to the spirit of the original incarnation.

Jerry's a very nice guy; he stayed for two hours after the show signing any and everything and talking to anyone who was interested. Problem is, he's a father and family man who has tried to reconcile his personal conservative politics/religion with being in a band who got famous singing about killing babies and slinging dead cats on poles for Halloween and has turned what now remains of the Misfits into a joke worse than post-fascist Dave Mustaine, making them into a pseudo-Christian rock parody.

Hot Topic merch sales alone will keep Only comfortably wealthy for the rest of his life and Glenn Danzig has stated many times unequivocally that he will never play with Only again, so the band is about over in whatever incarnation it now resides and this suit is simply a cash grab.

[gweimer]

Is it just me, or is there something amusing and ironic about a discussion that discusses punk rock (and The Misfits at that) and royalties in the same breath?   

[nofi]

i think the misfits were famous long before metallica came along. i still have some original misfits vinyl around. i don't think i have heard the jerry version of the band. but i like this.



not so evil, kinda' nice but factually questionable.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

i think the misfits were famous long before metallica came along.

Metallica was playing the East Coast and recording in the New York/New Jersey area for John Zazula's Megaforce records in 1982, (Kill 'Em All came out in 1983) so odds are decent that Metallica may have actually seen the Misfits play. Glenn and Jerry agree on one thing only: the Misfits barely ever had an audience in the old days, which is why Glenn, aside from animosity to his old friend, has expressed no interest in reforming that band. Last year's Danzig solo release, Skeletons, is an album of covers and more like Misfits material than anything else he has done and bluntly, it's terrible. The only saving grace is that the just-released video for his cover of N.I.B. has lots of topless and barely dressed women- watch it with the sound off.

It was Cliff and his Crimson Ghost tattoo and shirts on the Master of Puppets tour that had so many people asking about them and also what prompted Rick Rubin to seek out Samhain, convince Glenn to drop ambience for blues rock in 1987 and created his most successful, eponymous band. After four albums, Glenn and Rubin parted ways over- wait for it- royalties and the band began falling away and he has never recaptured that level of success. I have every Danzig album and most of his solo releases and if I lost the ones post-Rubin the only one I would miss is Deth Red Sabboth, which was Glenn's most "classic Danzig" effort. It's telling that when Glenn emptied his vaults for outtakes from the Rick Rubin era, The Lost Tracks of Danzig outsold all of the band's post-4p (fourth album) output combined.

i don't think i have heard the jerry version of the band. but i like this.

There have been multiple incarnations, each straying progressively further from what the Misfits were. Doyle, Jerry's brother and guitarist, left the Misfits for good a few years ago and now orbits the Danzig camp fronting his own band. The first "reunion" tour with Michale Graves was a very credible effort, with a good album, Famous Monsters and Graves ably being belting out 'fits classic without being a Danzig wannabe or parody. After that the band devolved and began relying on various projects for publicity while milking the band's decaying 70's legacy.  Jerry and Doyle were supposedly partnering with a revived US-made Acoustic amp company (before Guitar Center bought out the name and began selling them; anyone remember the post from the crazy guy who owned the name in the amps section here a few years ago?) and selling their own line of guitars and basses which were supposedly manufactured in a family owned factory in New Jersey, but aside from a single magazine review bass, I don't think they were ever built.

[Dave W]

The article isn't very clear. Glenn Danzig has not been in the Misfits since 1983 and has no part of this suit. As a matter of fact, he lost his OWN lawsuit against the Misfits recently over royalty sharing from a 1995 agreement between he and current Misfits band leader Jerry Only which completely shut him out of all Misfits royalties. The flea market actually makes the argument that because he is NOT in the band, the band has no right to claim ownership of the logo, which is undermined by the previous ruling, but I think it's more for laughs than anything.

......so the band is about over in whatever incarnation it now resides and this suit is simply a cash grab.

Looks to me like the counter C&D is pointing that out, i.e. The Misfits aren't the real Misfits in any way. That probably wouldn't hold any legal weight if the band were to file suit, since the band as a legal entity does apparently hold a trademark on the font. IMHO the purpose of the counter C&D is to ridicule the idea of the current band threatening a lawsuit, hoping that the threat of ridicule will make the band think twice about going any further.

Is it just me, or is there something amusing and ironic about a discussion that discusses punk rock (and The Misfits at that) and royalties in the same breath?   

Yep, another irony.

[nofi]

what made the original misfits great imho, was that the songs were good. vocal melodies and guitar hooks were in abundance, crammed into 2 min., no solo songs.

kinda' sounds like the ramones, don't it.

[lowend1]

I always get a kick out of this stuff. I graduated high school with Jerry.

[lowend1]

...and so it continues.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/misfits-jerry-only-explains-how-he-reunited-with-glenn-danzig-20160513

[Dave W]

Now that's a real surprise.

[Pilgrim]

I thought: "The Misfits? Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe?"

[Highlander]

Anarchy in the UK died a death many years back... it appears at the "system" won, and as for Mr Johnny "Rotten" Lydon... appears it landed butter-side up...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mSE-Iy_tFY

[gweimer]

I'm going to read this as "we're both broke and need money"

[Granny Gremlin]

The drummer in my band is upset because the reunion tour was going to stop here in Toronto, but the festival they were gonna play dropped the ball on some regulatory /permit stuff and is now cancelled.  He's spending a lot of time in Detroit lately (filming a doc about a proto punk group from there... which just so happenned to start getting a bit of press recently) so I told him to see if he could catch them there and he brightenned up.

[Dave W]

I'm going to read this as "we're both broke and need money"

That's probably it. Even so, if they can pull it off, why not?