The first of the Punk bands to release a single (“New Rose”) and also the first to release an album. Now, no matter what I say here, I do love this record, but…

I was 14 when this was released, I didn’t hear it until after I’d already gorged on the debuts by the Pistols, The Jam and The Clash. I knew that they made the first Punk single and there was also “Neat, Neat, Neat” that I’d heard (gawd love ya John Peel) so I was always gonna like this album. We read things back then about influences on Punk and we knew ABOUT the Velvet Underground, the New York Dolls and Iggy & The Stooges but we’d never really heard them so we didn’t know. So come on, let’s call this for what it is, as much as I like this record it is basically a rewrite of the first two Stooges albums !

And that’s OK. I guess if you were one of those people in 1976 who was lucky sussed enough to be intimately aware of Lou, Iggy and the Dolls you laughed at this pastiche. But this was everything we wanted it to be at the time, loud, fast and musically anarchic (I’ll leave the politics of anarchy to others).

Produced by Nick Lowe the album is thrashy, confused, funny and messy. Both the singles are here kicking off either side. 12 tracks all done and dusted in around 30 minutes. With absolutely no shame at all The Damned close things out with a cover of the Stooges “1970” they just retitled it “I Feel Alright”!

At the time of release it was claimed that a printing cock-up caused a few sleeves to be printed with a picture of Eddie & The Hot Rods on the back instead of the Damned. These have become very sought after and collectible. I only discovered in recent years that it wasn’t a printing cock-up but a Stiff Records publicity stunt, how very Stiff.

I Feel Alright - https://youtu.be/Hg_ASTGuR-4