Brian James, revolutionary Punk guitarist and songwriter, 18/02/1955 - 06/03/2025
I don’t know why, I don’t know why
I guess these things have got to be
Brian James, a true originator, died last week on 6th March, aged 70 years.
Fuelled by Delta blues, American garage rock, the MC5 and the Stooges, James’ want to shake music out of its indulgent stupor 50 years ago didn’t need a Malcolm McClaren, a Bernie Rhodes or a major label – just two concert hall toilet cleaners and a grave digger.
Brian James found his guitar chops with Bastard. And recruited similarly explosive, similarly inventive drummer Rat Scabies while a part of the ever-nascent London SS, which spawned The Clash and Generation X too, of course. James then brought in Dave Vanian while Scabies introduced Captain Sensible, their enthusiasm and potential ranking far ahead of any proven prowess.
Together, as The Damned, they realised Brian James’ imagination, recording and releasing two LPs, 23 songs – almost all of them written by the guitarist – in only 12 months.
James left the Damned at the end of 1977, frustrated by the process, the production and the people around the second album sessions.
After a short spell with Tanz Der Youth and Brain James Brain, he took to the extra-curricular, adding signature riffs to ‘Pretty Face‘ on JJ Burnel’s ‘Euroman Cometh‘ album, for example, and playing guitar for Iggy Pop on tour.
Brian James went on to form Lords of the New Church with Dead Boys’ singer Stiv Bators and Sham 69 bassman Dave Tregunna. Together for most of the 1980s, the Lords released three albums and toured them pretty extensively on both sides of the Atlantic.
A glam step across from the Damned’s noise, noise, noise, James suggested it was a direction that band could have gone in had they stayed together. As it was, with Bators’ dramatic persona to the fore, coupled with elements of the Stones, the Stooges and Billy Idol in the music behind him, Lords of the New Church didn’t fit any neat critical box. Beyond being the literal epitome of ‘post-punk’.
Furores forgotten post-Doomed, post Dimmed, Brian James was happy to see the Damned reunited and following a fertile ‘Machine Gun Etiquette‘, ‘Black Album‘, ‘Strawberries‘ path. In 1988 he rejoined ‘for a few dates’, along with Sensible who’d also left by then, touting the original sound. The tour actually wrapped in 1989 with a cover of the Stones’ ‘Last Time‘, which it wasn’t. Of course.
Post-Lords of the New Church, through soundtrack LPs, solo records and with the likes of The Dripping Lips and The Racketeers, James stayed busy. He toured Damned songs with Rat Scabies, going on to record them with various players and releasing a record bursting with those interpretations in 2013, ‘Damned If I Do’.
Delayed by the pandemic, in 2022 the original Damned reunited again for five UK dates. Brian James, Rat Scabies, Captain Sensible and Dave Vanian finished at the Birmingham Academy on November 5, aptly enough. And that really was the last time.
James made his last live appearances in 2023, at the Vive Le Rock Awards at Shepherds Bush Empire, and in 2024, with Lenny Kaye’s Nuggets at the 100 Club in London. The video below was taken by Punktuation Editor Ruth; this was the last time she saw ‘New Rose‘ played live by Brian James himself, with Rat Scabies on drums joining Michael Monroe with Lords of the New Church for the finale.
In their tributes to Brian James, each of his Damned bandmates stressed what a lovely, funny man he was and how much they had learned from him. On top of that, James wrote the first British punk single and was an integral, uncompromising part of changing popular music. What a legacy.
We got that new rose; we got it good.
Main Photo Credit: CRIS WATKINS
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