The Other Guitar Heroes Volume 1

The Other Guitar Heroes Volume 1: Captain Sensible

As I chimp this out, I’m in the midst of recording another record with my poster band 28.8k and the Bauds (find it here!). The premise is simple: pretend I’m a bunch of guys in circa 77 trying to form a punk band. (Hey, it’s the only drumming I’m ok at!) I tried to make it sound like a cross between the Ramones and Teenage Head, that odd point where what was once rock was mutating into something fresher. Of course, little bits of other bands creep in: little dabs of DOA, little bits of the Dickies. But when it can to the solos, every damn one I cut, I could only channel one guy:

I first heard the Damn when I was 17 or so. I think Chris turned me on to them. Machine Gun Etiquette. The energy and insane musicianship really struck me. But the good Captain really caught my ear. I was ready to make some movement out of the guitar mindset I was in at the time (more on that next instalment!) and was in search of inspirations. They were starting to come to me (I discovered Husker Du in this period as well), and they were ready to fire my ass into gear.

You youngsters gotta remember, I first heard this stuff circa the fall/winter of 1985. Hair metal was ready to raise it’s quaff. Everybody was talking about Knopfler as being the great new guitar hope. It was the dawning of a frighteningly dark age for guitar. There were tons of great guitarists, but you had to start digging deeper to get at them. And it wasn’t easy: the music media was becoming less daring (man, remember when Spin was a great magazine, a risk taking mag? Seems so long ago… guess it was, actually), radio was becoming ever more useless, you usually found great pickers by pure blind dumb luck. 

Trust me, at 17 I’d been listening to DOA and the Subhumans for years (thanks again Putz). I bought This Year’s Model when it came out. I wasn’t unfamiliar with the new genres. But as great as Johnny Ramone was (and shall ever be), I lacked that discipline. I was a fucking teenage boy, filled with frustrations, wanting to express what feeble thoughts I possessed, and I was armed with a Raven Les Paul and a yearning to play like a fucking somebody.

And here was a guy, perhaps the only guy of the first London wave of punk (save for Mick Jones) who wasn’t only unafraid to show off his chops, but seemed ready to throw down a daring gauntlet: “That was how you used to rock, this is how we rock now. That was how you used be a lead guitarist, this is how you do it now.” Unabashed fills, long solos, the sonic pose, and coming from an incredibly fresh angle and attitude. I swear Capt Sensible was the first guitarist I ever heard that blatantly did not give a shit about Clapton, just like me.

I was immediately smitten. I mean, come on:

That’s as wank as anything that Thin Lizzy was doing at the time, but instead of classic, it sounded fresh, even today. And Capt was cool, he was funny, he was a total rock star without having to be bedeck in the finery that was the 70s. You got bells, Capt had fur pants. Yer wearing girls blouses, Capt was wearing nurses uniforms. He did not take any of the trappings seriously: seriousness was for the music.

The fun part for me was when the Damned expanded it’s punk roots to include dollops of garage rock and sprinklings of psychedelia (that’d be the Floyd, not the Dead). And when Roman Jugg joined, the 2 guitar/guitar and organ sonic assault made the Damned sound infinitely more massive than the dinosaur rockers they helped usurp.

Great songs, great playing, and the nutter guitarist kept getting nuttier.

Of course, when the Capt left, the Damned suffered, and spent a good 15 years in neigh unlistenable yawnness. (Grimley Fiendish indeed) Not that the solo stuff Sensible did fared much better. Although though I find the reunited Damned lineups to be a tad too nostalgic for my liking, at least it’s worth listening to.

So, salvation from guitar blandness was at hand, and The Fat Teenager started copping ideas that he’s still ripping on decades later. Great music, great playing. Thank you Captain Sensible! Now go win the Prime Minister race!