Closer to the Misfits were British punk pioneers the Damned, who by 1979 had transformed themselves from a vague Ramones clone into an undeniably distinct and acutely extrinsic keyboard-driven rock band. Smoky-vocaled singer Dave Vanian, whose backstory included an alleged stint digging graves, routinely wrapped himself black capes and white stage makeup like Bela Lugosi; other members included the Renfield-esque Rat Scabies on drums and oddball guitarist Captain Sensible, whose penchant for mohair occasionally made him look like a neon gorilla. The Damned’s records routinely featured gloomy aural exercises like droning injury ode “Feel the Pain,” demented carnival creeper “These Hands,” and the band’s most celebrated depression ode “I Just Can’t Be Happy Today.” Even some of their rawer material suggested a penchant for evil, such as nihilist’s delight “Born to Kill” and the surprisingly catchy “Stab Your Back.”[23] The Misfits saw the Damned if not as a direct influence than at least kindred cobwebbed spirits.
In June of 1979 the two bands shared a bill at Hurrah’s in New York City, a hot ticket if one goes by some of the musical luminaries who attended (reformed Stooge Iggy Pop and Blondie chanteuse Debbie Harry). Afterwards, Jerry Only engaged Vanian and the Damned’s management in a brief conversation about the Misfits supporting the Damned on a tour in England that fall. The Damned camp regarded the conversation as little more than after-gig pillow talk, but Only took their word as bond. Six months later, on November 21, the Misfits flew to the United Kingdom (funded by Only’s father) for their orally agreed upon tour with the Damned.[24]
The month that followed was an unmitigated disaster. The Damned were not prepared to have the Misfits show up on their doorstep; they had already booked an opening act called Victim for this six-date tour of their native land. Trying to be nice, the Damned’s management added the Misfits to the bill anyway, but an awkward tension hung in the air. Various members of the Damned and their entourage made no bones about disliking their forward American guests. There was also the issue of payment—the Misfits would receive none, as the exposure to British audiences was to be considered valuable enough.[25] The tensions compounded when the Misfits decided the musical equipment provided for them was substandard (Joey Image in particular would complain his drum kit was the “rinkiest dinkiest” he’d ever seen[26]). Feeling disrespected, the Misfits cancelled their remaining appearances on the Damned tour and tried to find arrangements of their own. A mysterious figure named Derek befriended the stranded punks and offered to help the band get dates opening for rising British punk heroes the Clash, but days stretched into a week or so and still nothing was confirmed.
The malaise was beginning to get to the Misfits. On December 2, Glenn and Bobby tried to alleviate their hotel-based boredom by attending a Jam concert at London’s famed venue the Rainbow. Outside the concert hall, a group of skinheads began harassing the duo. Things quickly escalated. Somehow Bobby slipped away in an attempt to find some authorities; Glenn stayed behind, arming himself with a broken bottle.[27] When police eventually did arrive they arrested Glenn and Bobby for disturbing the peace. The Misfits spent two nights in Brixton jail, an experience that birthed one of the group’s most solemn and memorable dirges.
“I just turned to Glenn [in the cell],” recalled Steele in 1993, “[and] said, ‘We should make a song about this called “London Dungeon.”’ We were like sitting in this cell, it was like ten feet perfectly square, you know, solid painted walls, it was real echoey in the room . . . and we were just like slapping the beat out on our legs and humming . . . it sounded so cool . . . [and] Glenn took it from there.”[28]
Glenn and Bobby were released on December 4, and a week and a half later there were still no gigs in sight. Fed up with the stagnant situation, on December 15 Joey Image flew back to America by himself, effectively leaving the band for good.[29] Three days later the rest of the Misfits returned to New Jersey, metaphorical tail between their legs, having done little more than spend Jerry’s father’s money and obtain arrest records in England. At least the financially fruitless overseas jaunt had provided a jolt to the band’s creativity. In addition to “London Dungeon,” the Misfits came home from England with a great title for their next vinyl offering.
The EP Beware was released in January 1980 and took its name from a series of confusing road signs the band noticed in England marked “Beware Bollards.” A bollard is a traffic control structure similar to a traffic cone; the Misfits at first thought a bollard might be some kind of strange cryptid like their own Jersey Devil.[30] Combining the “Bullet” and “Horror Business” singles, Beware was originally planned as something of a catch-all record the Misfits could bring with them on their failed UK tour (the cover, a fun house mirror rendering of the band, was not completed in time, however).[31] Beware would prove landmark anyway because of its final song, the previously unreleased punch drunk anthem “Last Caress.”
The violent, nihilistic lyrics of “Last Caress” outline the bold confessions of a remorseless killer and rapist and are delivered by Danzig with such romantic melody that the crimes almost seem like triumphs. Ostensibly on death row, our protagonist moans in the chorus about his yearning for the inevitable arrival of “sweet lovely death,” suggesting it may somehow release him from the pain and apathy he feels. “Last Caress” is punctuated by the most dramatic of pauses at the end that finds the instruments stalling so Glenn can offer a clear affirming snarl of “One last caress!” This moment, coupled with the song’s similar roustabout opening where Glenn proclaims “I got somethin’ ta say!” over a lone guitar chord, helped put an already excellent creation over the top to become a defining punk rock salvo on the same cathartic level as “Anarchy in the U.K.” or “Psycho Killer.” Incredibly, “Last Caress” was nearly left off Beware as Danzig didn’t feel the recording was good enough. At the urging of Bobby Steele, the song was tacked on at the last minute.[32]
Joey Image continued playing in punk bands following his departure from the Misfits, turning up in the likes of the Whorelords, the Undead, the Strap-Ons, Human Buffet, the Mary Tyler Whores, Jersey Trash, and the Bell Ringers (the feisty punker also later took a bride, the alluring Patty Mullen, a one-time Penthouse Pet who gained infamy in 1990 by portraying the title character in the horror farce Frankenhooker).[33] Rendered Image-less at the dawn of 1980, the Misfits would not find a new drummer until four months after the release of Beware. Joe McGuckin, a gaunt Queens native who preferred to keep his hair closely shorn in a blonde shock and had previously played in his older brother Thomas’s new wave band the Accidents,[34] joined the fold when his girlfriend, a mutual friend of Bobby Steele’s, brokered a successful audition.
McGuckin chose the pseudonym Arthur Googy for his stint in the Misfits—an inexplicable tag that appears partially inspired by late nineteenth-century New York gangster Googy Corcoran. Googy quickly impressed the band with his zeal and dedication. The drummer would make the roughly two-hour journey from Queens out to Lodi several nights a week for practice in the Caiafas’ garage, mostly via public transportation.[35] Unfortunately, Googy’s percussive fundamentals were a considerable step down from those of Jim Catania and Joey Image, giving the Misfits a more savage and unsteady beat. The drummer often fell behind in the live setting as well. Government Issue vocalist John Stabb said, “We were always playing shows with the Misfits, and our running joke was, ‘Wait up for Googy! Wait up for him! He’s still trying to catch up!’ . . . [It was] embarrassing . . . I saw them and thought, ‘People like this shit?’”[36]
Arthur Googy may not have been the world’s greatest drummer, but he was enthusiastic and available and, at the time, there were no other applicants jockeying for the Misfits timekeeping position. The same could not be said for the band’s guitar slot. Jerry Only claimed that Steele was showing up late and unprepared for practices; the bassist also expressed concern that the frail Steele would have difficulty keeping up with the Misfits growing stage show (namely, the bassist couldn’t see the cane-wielding guitaris
t kicking his way out of a prop coffin).[37] Only wanted to bring in his sixteen-year-old brother, Paul Doyle Caiafa, to replace Steele. Doyle, as Paul preferred to be known, seemed like the perfect replacement: he was healthy, agreeable, and built like the high school linebacker he actually was. Steele couldn’t deny his weak condition but claimed any rehearsal or studio absence was because of Only lying to him about the Misfits’ schedule to make it appear he no longer saw the band as anything beyond a hobby.[38] Danzig, unsure of how to handle the situation but feeling pressured to resolve the struggle quickly, acquiesced to Only, who informed Steele he was out of the band just before Halloween.
Doyle immediately made an impression. Rosemary’s Babies singer Vincent “JR” Paladino said, “When I met Paul he was a pretty big guy and he always had a serious look on his face. I kept thinking, ‘Does this guy wanna fight me? Man, fuck him!’ Eventually I asked [a mutual friend], ‘Does he have a problem with me?’ And [the friend] goes, ‘No, I don’t think so.’ So I started talking to Paul and, yeah, we got along great.”
Doyle’s expression of stone and similar physicality may have been a better aesthetic fit for the Misfits (the band members were just starting to lift weights to they could appear more imposing and monster-like onstage), but Jerry’s little brother was just as inexperienced on his instrument as Arthur Googy. Doyle often pounded his guitar strings so barbarically they’d go out of tune after just one song, forcing the axeman to spend long stretches of gig time desperately trying to re-tune. The younger Caiafa wasn’t particularly adept at solos yet, mangling in his early outings the guitar breaks in “Horror Business” and “We Are 138.” From this point forward, the Misfits live experience would often descend into haphazard mess, the saving grace of which was usually the sight of these strange ghoulish men pounding out their racket.
Initially relations between Bobby Steele and the Misfits remained friendly. Danzig financed the recording of 9 Toes Later, the debut single from Steele’s other band the Undead (Danzig even offered to release 9 Toes on Plan 9; the Undead took a deal with England’s prominent Stiff Records instead). Things soured between Steele and the Misfits a short time later, something Steele has long blamed on the music press’s quick appraisal of the Undead as a better, more productive Misfits. Whatever caused the shift, suddenly Bobby Steele was persona non grata to his former band.[39] A year later the two groups performed together at the Ritz in Manhattan; the Misfits threw bottles at Steele during the Undead’s set and taunted him during their own, infamously altering the chorus of “Teenagers from Mars” to “Bobby Steele’s an asshole, that fuckin’ cunt” (a practice they would continue in concert for a number of performances).[40]
Bobby Steele’s Undead would soldier on for several decades in various forms, at one point even including fellow Misfits castaway Joey Image. In 1985 the guitarist achieved a unique milestone when he scored work as an extra in filmmaker Martin Scorsese’s critically acclaimed comic thriller After Hours—milling about in the background during one of the movie’s bar scenes, Bobby Steele became the first Misfit to appear in a horror movie.[41]
The year 1980 signaled a new era for the band. “Around 1980 or 1981 I started hearing about the Misfits,” remembers Death Piggy’s Dave Brockie. “I didn’t know what to make of them . . . it kinda didn’t make sense. These guys, these big lugs—these palookas!—dressing up like vampires? Then I heard their music and I thought it was really cool. They were like a ‘roided out Damned. They always seemed kinda dangerous. They scared people.”[42]
Indeed, many people started hearing about the Misfits as the 1980s broke open, as their proverbial heat continued intensifying. On Halloween Day 1980 the band made their television debut, appearing on Garden State cable Pee Wee’s Playhouse precursor The Uncle Floyd Show. As the titular character, comedian Floyd Vivino welcomed the sneering black-clad Misfits to his colorful spoof of 1950s kiddie shows and allowed them to lip synch to a couple of their less intense offerings. That evening Doyle came out as a Misfit, as it were, when the band opened a show at Irving Plaza for none other than Screamin’ Jay Hawkins; the Eisenhower era wild man had never stopped performing but was still a few years out from his underground renaissance. Fulfilling Jerry Only’s vision while also paying homage to forbearer Hawkins, the Misfits started this show by bursting out of four individual coffins. In his own act of tribute to the sci-fi gods of yesteryear Doyle sported a blue Star Trek uniform shirt under his guitar during the performance which gave him the appearance of a mutated Vulcan warrior. Eclectic pioneering rocker Frank Zappa was among the revelers at Irving Plaza this night, blowing off steam from his own two-date stand at Manhattan’s neighboring Palladium.[43]
The following year found the Misfits playing their first Midwestern and West Coast dates where the Lodi foursome crossed paths with brewing legends such as lewd Michigan shock troopers the Meatmen, California pop princes the Dickies, and caffeinated Texan weirdos the Big Boys.[44] Also in 1981 the band released two more singles: April’s “3 Hits from Hell,” noted for its secretive cover that displays nothing more than the band members’ eyes, included the aforementioned “London Dungeon” (a brooding, bass-leaning drag that opened up room for one of Glenn’s most powerful vocal performances), a by-the-numbers spook scare called “Horror Hotel,” and the expertly arranged “Ghouls Night Out” whose Orbison-inspired melody change in the second verse proves nothing short of transcendent.
In October the Misfits followed up with “Halloween,” the ultimate 4/4 stomp dedicated to their favorite holiday. Reverb washes over the song as Danzig rhapsodizes about “brown leaf vertigo” and poisoned candy, ultimately concluding, “This day, anything goes!” In an interesting move, the flip side takes the same song, slows it down, and adds Latin phrases pertaining to lycanthropy. The record’s black-and-white cover photo, surrounded by a frame of skulls on a field of orange, once again only gives a partial view of the Misfits as they linger menacingly in the shadows. On the far right, Doyle bares his teeth like a caveman. Closer to center, the lighting illuminates Googy’s face in such a way that he eerily resembles the Crimson Ghost. Danzig, hunching over between his drummer and guitarist, barely looks human at all. Above the band is a brand new Misfits logo, written in the same font as treasured horror geek magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland.[45]
Both “3 Hits” and “Halloween” garnered critical praise. England’s New Musical Excess heard these new singles and declared the Misfits superior to UK spook rock heroes the Damned. Just as shocking was Wave Sector placing “3 Hits” ahead of any Cramps release in terms of “ghoulish fantasy” before pegging “London Dungeon’s” lyrics as “the most evocative and agonized” of the year.[46]
Many have wondered how a relatively unknown band from New Jersey could afford to pump out so much material so quickly. Were they really turning enough of a profit? The only band member with an outside job was Jerry Only. Working at his father’s machine shop, Only would often pull double shifts before a tour or release to make sure expenses were covered. Another benefactor was a neighbor of the Caiafas, George Germain. A former musician himself, the portly Germain lived across the street from the Caiafas and was known around Lodi as a kind of Svengali to struggling musicians. The Misfits were apparently just one of many bands Germain, a few generations ahead of the late 1970s crop of punks, helped—not only with production expertise (passing down various secrets regarding “studio magic”) but also financially, throwing cash behind several of the group’s earliest recordings.
It’s rumored that trouble with the IRS kept George Germain largely in the shadows at his own behest, especially as the legacy of the Misfits grew. Many who worked with Germain, though, describe the focused, dedicated craftsman as a sweet and kind soul who may have simply preferred the young musicians have all the credit. At least one New Jersey musician referred to George Germain as the Phil Spector of the East Coast, a knob-twiddler of meticulous nature who would think nothing of spending hours trying to squeeze the best possible sound
out of an enclosed space and who put his work with artists far ahead of anything else in his life.[47]
Despite Germain’s quiet support, the Misfits were still releasing everything themselves via their Plan 9 label, pressing singles in relatively low numbers—usually between 2,000 and 3,000 copies. That, coupled with various artwork variants created both on purpose and accidentally by the band during sleeve copying/folding sessions (artwork that was more visually arresting than the standard Xerox-heavy punk rock image paradigms of the day), has ensured the rarity and value of every Misfits single among punk collectors. A separate encyclopedia set could be written about the market that exists for original Misfits seven/twelve inches and their now equally valuable bootlegs. Luckily, the advent of the cassette tape help disseminate the music within those singles after all the vinyl had been snapped up, which perhaps only compounded the mystery of this band. Generally fans didn’t replicate artwork or liner notes on the blank tapes they passed around containing fragments of “Beware” and “3 Hits.” With nothing to go on but the music, this band seemed even more mythic and foreboding.[48]
This Music Leaves Stains Page 7