Damning The Damned
Dave Vanian realllllly wants to be a vampire
Before Lestat joined Satan’s Night Out, before Alice Cooper and Johnny Depp formed Hollywood Vampires, the rocker to set the style was Dave Vanian. He looked like Eleven from Stranger Things was sent a bunch of clothes that The Vienna Opera thought were a little much.
Aside from looking like Udo Kier boofed The Penguin, Dave Vanian fronted seminal punk and proto-goth band The Damned, a band whose evolving sound has allowed them to appeal to a broad swath of subcultures consisting of White People In Black Clothing.
Call them the Ernie Hudson of British music — they didn’t flame out like the Sex Pistols and they didn’t achieve the mythic status of Joy Division and they can’t fill a stadium like The Cure, but they are a very likable and quite reliable band that keeps going when others quit, appreciated by many even if not a household name.
And now you’re wondering who Ernie Hudson is. Jesus people, he’s got over 200 screen credits. Try to get out more!
In his 40+ years as a performer, Vanian — a man who can turn any old grocery store into a literal black market — has made several efforts to add “vampire” to his resume, all more or less successful.
In an interview in The Independent, Vanian revealed, to those of us too slow to get it on our own (ahem, me), that one of The Damned’s best songs was in fact about a relationship between James Dean and Vampira, with a bit of license around their relationship, both mortem and post-mortem.
The song made it onto several releases by the band, including — and of course they’d make a record with this title — The Black Album.
Strained analogy part 2: Ernie Hudson is also black.
The Black Album was recorded at Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, Wales. And Monmouth, locals will know, is the home of the Monmouth Vampire, which rises from one of the local cemeteries and has done so since 1980.
Why such a precise date on the local vampire’s origin? It’s because, in 1980, while taking a break from recording The Black Album, Dave Vanian went for a walk alone through a local cemetery when a pair of headlights swung around a corner and lit him up, leading to a visage that can only be described as peak Marilyn Manson.
Keep in mind Dave Vanian was still dressing like this in 1980:
And so the passengers became convinced that they had seen not a 70s punk-come-goth icon out for a stroll, but the Ghost Of A Vampire Emerging From The Cemetery.
In short, Dave Vanian is the Monmouth Vampire.
You read it here second, since Vanian admitted as much a few weeks ago in a press released ahead of the band’s upcoming album and tour.
Speaking of cemeteries, Ernie Hudson was in the TV series “Graves.”
Dave Vanian made one last push to fool the demonic undead into thinking he is one of them, and it happened last week.
As per makeup and sfx artist Brian Kinney:
I went round to (Vanian’s) to do a lifecast with my friend Tytti Vaaleri assisting, and we had a long chat about Hammer and Amicus 70s horror films, motorbikes, and music of a certain era over tea. The concept I started to visualize was an idea that this original man in black and pale-as-death proto-goth icon, could really be a vampire, all this time… As it wasn’t exactly a stretch, Dave was game.
And so, with the help of his bandmates, the local media, and the crack team behind the White Walkers, the proto-Goth has spent a lifetime embracing the terrors of the deathly night. More to the point, like vampires and ghosts, The Damned just keep coming back, seeming to never suffer a true death.
Neat. Neat. Neat.
And speaking of things that stick around long after they should be dead: Ernie Hudson was one of the original Ghostbusters.
Got him now?
Toothpickings is a blog you can read. It is mostly about vampires and is dedicated to raising Ernie Hudson awareness.
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Image credits: The Damned, Whisper Magazine, Brian Kinney, Columbia Pictures
