This Music Leaves Stains: The Complete Story of the Misfits

by James Greene Jr.

  Soon, the Misfits would emerge from their relative obscurity to stake a firmer claim on the punk scene. During the summer of 1981 the group booked time in several different New Jersey studios to begin work anew on a full-length album. The resulting piece of vinyl would prove one of the most stylish, affecting, and explosive records of punk rock’s second wave.

  1. Bruce McCulloch, telephone interview with the author, February 16, 2012.

  2. Mike Stax, “Image of a Misfit: An Interview with Joey Image,” Ugly Things, no. 13 (1994): 13–14.

  3. Kaufhold et al v. Caiafa et al, Case No. 11-cv-01460-WJM-MF, originally filed June 11, 2010, 12.

  4. “Bobby Steele Interview,” TV Casualty, April 25, 1998, http://www.tvcasualty.com/articles/a_bobby.html.

  5. The Misfits, “Max’s Kansas City 12/20/78,” live recording, 1978, cassette tape.

  6. “Misfits Time Line,” Misfits Central, http://misfitscentral.com/misfits/timeline.php.

  7. The Crimson Ghost, directed by Fred C. Brannon and William Witney (1946; Republic Pictures), film; IMDb, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038435.

  8. “Bud Geary,” The Files of Jerry Blake, http://filesofjerryblake.netfirms.com/html/bud_geary.html.

  9. A. J. Ryan and Pamela Hazelton, “I Am Misfit,” Lucanae, no. 7 (April 1996).

  10. The Misfits, “Horror Business,” Plan 9 Records, 1979, seven-inch vinyl record (single).

  11. Ian MacKaye, telephone interview with the author, January 28, 2011.

  12. Mike Stax, “All Hell Breaks Loose: The Jerry Only Interview,” Ugly Things, no. 12 (Summer 1993): 14.

  13. Stax, “Image of a Misfit,” 10.

  14. “Misfits Time Line,” Misfits Central.

  15. Elena Romanello, “Captain Harlock,” Anime Mundi, November 30, 2008, http://www.terrediconfine.eu/captain-harlock.html, Pushead, “Danzig,” Thrasher (June 1986): 65–66.

  16. Stax, “Image of a Misfit,” 13.

  17. John Waters, Crackpot: The Obsessions of John Waters (New York: MacMillan, 1983), 16–19.

  18. “The Misfits: We Want, We Need, We Take,” Misfits press release, 1979.

  19. “Discography of Official Misfits Releases,” Misfits Central, http://misfitscentral.com/misfits/timeline.php. The Misfits, “Night of the Living Dead,” Plan 9 Records, 1979, seven-inch vinyl record (single).

  20. Stax, “Image of a Misfit,” 11.

  21. Rachel Leibrock, “Cramps Singer Lux Interior Dies at 60,” The Sacramento Bee, February 4, 2009, http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/ticket/archives/019288.html.

  22. Christian Death, Only Theatre of Pain, Frontier Records, 1982, vinyl record; T.S.O.L., Dance with Me, Frontier Records, 1981, vinyl record; Various Artists, Darker Skratcher, Los Angeles Free Music Society, 1980, vinyl record.

  23. Ned Raggett, “The Damned,” AllMusic, http://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-damned-mn0000138520.

  24. “Misfits Time Line,” Misfits Central.

  25. Stax, “All Hell Breaks Loose,” 15.

  26. Stax, “Image of a Misfit,” 11.

  27. Stax, “All Hell Breaks Loose,” 15.

  28. “Bobby Steele Interview,” Punk Floyd (October 1993).

  29. “Misfits Time Line,” Misfits Central; Stax, “Image of a Misfit,” 11–12.

  30. “Song and Name Information,” Misfits Central, http://misfitscentral.com/misfits/timeline.php.

  31. “Discography of Official Misfits Release,” Misfits Central.

  32. The Misfits, Beware, Plan 9 Records, 1980, twelve-inch vinyl record (EP).

  33. Stax, “Image of a Misfit,” 12.

  34. John Carlucci, e-mail interview with the author, February 2010.

  35. Steven Blush, American Hardcore: A Tribal History (Port Townsend, WA: Feral House, 2010), 230.

  36. Mark Prindle, “John Stabb—2008,” MarkPrindle.com, 2008, http://markprindle.com/stabb-i.htm.

  37. Stax, “All Hell Breaks Loose,” 17.

  38. Geoffrey Tilander, “Bobby Steele Interview,” MaximumRockNRoll (1992).

  39. Blush, American Hardcore, 228–230.

  40. “Misfits Time Line,” Misfits Central; The Misfits, “Hitsville 12/25/81,” live recording, 1981, cassette tape.

  41. Mark Kennedy, telephone interview with the author, October 20, 2011.

  42. Dave Brockie, telephone interview with the author, March 14, 2011.

  43. Charles Ulridh, “Frank Zappa Gig List: 1980,” http://members.shaw.ca/fz-pomd/giglist/1980.html.

  44. “Tour Dates,” Misfits Central, http://misfitscentral.com/misfits/timeline.php.

  45. The Misfits, 3 Hits From Hell, Plan 9 Records, 1981, seven-inch vinyl record (EP); the Misfits, “Halloween,” Plan 9 Records, 1981, seven-inch vinyl record (single).

  46. “The Misfits—3 Hits From Hell”; “The Misfits—Halloween,” Wave Sector, 1981.

  47. Tommy Koprowski, telephone interview with the author, April 15, 2012.

  48. Kennedy, telephone interview.

  Astro Zombies

  4

  Those comic book lyrics, [Danzig] took it seriously. And he was a really morbid, depressed guy. One time he was walking around the supermarket going, “Don’t you ever feel like the human race just disgusts you, man? Like you want it wiped out?” And it’s like, “No, Glenn.” The guy just takes everything way too seriously. ―John Stabb, Government Issue[1]

  Punk rock was roughly a half decade old by March of 1982, and the genre that put safety pins and glue in a new context was experiencing growing pains. The Ramones, America’s flagship band of the genre whose string of peppy late 1970s albums the music press cherished but mass audiences ignored, faced the harsh reality that they might never break through after a 1980 collaboration with reclusive producing legend Phil Spector failed to bring Top 40 stardom (the record in question, the stuffy End of the Century, also sapped the Ramones of their trademark buzzing guitar sound; it wouldn’t fully return until four albums later).[2] English upstarts the Clash began as Ramones imitators but quickly distinguished themselves with a rootsier, more anthemic sound; oddly, they moved away from punk rock with smashing results, shooting up the Billboard charts and garnering a five star review from Rolling Stone for 1980s world music fusion triple platter Sandinista! In May of 1982, the Clash experience their greatest commercial success with Combat Rock—the album’s dance-infused third single “Rock the Casbah” became a Top 10 hit across the globe, securing the group’s position on countless future “Hits of the ’80s” compilations.[3]

  The surviving members of punk rock’s most infamous assembly, the Sex Pistols, all softened or significantly altered their signature soundscapes following the group’s messy 1978 dissolve and the sudden 1979 death of bass player Sid Vicious. Guitarist Steve Jones and drummer Paul Cook formed a meat-and-potatoes hard rock group called the Professionals who fizzled out after two albums in 1980 and 1981. Pistols singer Johnny Rotten reverted to his Christian name, John Lydon, and put together an experimental post-punk group Public Image Ltd. Incorporating elements of dub reggae, pure noise, and Lydon’s newly relaxed caterwaul, Public Image crafted affecting atonal exercises that came to help define the post-punk movement.[4] Naturally, the spirit of Lydon’s former band informed his latest—an appearance by PiL on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand in May of 1980 went down in history for the singer’s counterproductive behavior (refusing to play the part of lip-synching pop idiot, Lydon summoned the audience to the stage to dance while he hid behind various set pieces).[5] Public Image also famously locked horns with NBC’s Tom Snyder on the Tomorrow program that June, admonishing the host for his lack of preparation and generally being standoffish. At one point during the interview, seeming to acknowledge punk rock’s failure as a form of revolution, the still wild-eyed Lydon addressed Tomorrow’s viewers by saying, “I’ll find a way to your hearts yet, though, I’ll tell ya!”[6]

  Hardcore, punk rock’s faster and angrier derivative, was rising so quickly by early 1982 it seemed in danger of burning out more quickly than it
s predecessor. Hardcore’s two figurehead bands were Washington, D.C.’s Minor Threat and California’s Black Flag. Minor Threat, authors of pounding livid rants such as 1981’s “Filler” and the anti-drug “Straight Edge,” splintered apart when guitarist Lyle Preslar left to attend Northwestern University; Preslar would ultimately abandon school because he missed the fury and excitement of his band. The reformed Minor Threat would only last a rough year, though, breaking up again in 1983 over creative differences.[7] Black Flag, the California collective that practically invented hardcore with 1977’s rage-soaked “Nervous Breakdown” single, were by 1982 rapidly moving toward a slower heavy metal sound.[8] Also floating away from their core genre were former Misfits colleagues the Damned—touched by the rumblings of the paisley underground, the Damned dedicated their later albums to churning out progressive rock sounds more in line with the fare of any given classic rock radio station.

  In short, punk rock’s playing field was clear in March of 1982 for a brief, brutal, reaffirming aural statement. That’s exactly what the genre received in Walk Among Us, the Misfits debut full-length release, with a hot pink cover on which the band plants itself inside the action of 1959’s martian terror picture The Angry Red Planet. Thanks in part to nimble work by engineer Pat Burnette (nephew of rockabilly legend Johnny Burnette)[9], Walk Among Us boasted a sleeker, cleaner sound than all previous Misfits recordings—which would spurn some purists to bemoan the loss of the band’s sloggy amateur charm. Walk’s raised production values helped to zero in on the band’s ferocity as they rollicked through a host of angry schlock anthems. Danzig’s vocal menace was similarly amped as he unleashed on the material with renewed authority. The album opened with the churning “20 Eyes,” a primal blast in which the protagonist is either lamenting or celebrating his ocular mutant status, before segueing into the heart-pounding (and somewhat literal) alienation anthem “I Turned into a Martian.” The immediacy of “Martian” was felt in its tense verses before they give way to a chorus of cathartic “whoa-oh” chanting. Less therapeutic were the doomsday visions of evil-hewn nightmares outlined in “All Hell Breaks Loose” (the menace is accented instrumentally by a lack of cymbals and palm-muted guitar for the first two-thirds of the song). The robot/human love diatribe “Nike-a-Go-Go” was similarly foreboding, rocking ahead on a stuttering beat and football-type chants.

  Curiously enough, the Misfits chose to break up their debut’s slick presentation midway through with a very rough live recording of the proto-speed metal half-joke “Mommy, Can I Go Out & Kill Tonight?” (taken from a performance the previous December at Manhattan venue the Ritz). The slightly off-time performance is an interesting palate cleanser but manages to keep thematically with the rest of the album’s frustrated outcast mantras, telling of an outcast school boy who knows he’ll “laugh last” regardless of his peers’ taunting. The turgid opening prologue stomps along before abruptly stopping so Danzig may belligerently inquire, “Mommy . . . can I go out . . . and KILL tonight?” to an eerie silence. The band then launches into a messy double time as Glenn growls angrily about keeping the toes and teeth of a girl he slaughtered at Lover’s Lane.

  Singling out a hit on Walk Among Us is tricky business, but most point to the thrashing delight “Skulls,” a twisted love letter in which Danzig dreams of sharing warm blood baths and showing off his severed head collection to his betrothed. Danzig imbues so much passion into this performance (quieting down to a whisper at certain points to drive his longing home) that one tends to forget the startling reality of his words—not to mention the rudimentary smashing of the chord progression beneath him. More nuanced but just as romantic is the explosive empowerment anthem “Astro Zombies,” which pairs an addictive descending guitar riff with bold bellowing about a quest for intergalactic power to impress an unknown ingenue. Much like “I Turned into a Martian,” “Astro Zombies” sews a succession of elongated “whoa-ohs” into its refrains; this particular melodic cry in “Zombies” would become another celebrated Misfits hallmark akin to the ending of “Last Caress.” Walk Among Us offers an unprecedented third love song, a shockingly straightforward ode to the ultimate horror hostess Vampira where Glenn concedes his power and begs the micro-waisted and “feline-faced” female ghoul to “come a little bit closer” (Maila Nurmi, the actress who portrayed Vampira, would learn of the tribute shortly after Walk’s release; touched, she eventually met up with the band at a record signing to express her gratitude).[10]

  Of course, the lean sadomasochist ode “Devil’s Whorehouse” offers Walk’s one pure dose of raw kink, a song about a “demon slut” dominatrix who “loves carnality.” The Misfits peppered “Devil’s Whorehouse” with simulated whipping noises—a rare moment where the band actually employed the type of cheesy sound effects found in the Z-grade films they took inspiration from.

  Those searching for levity on Walk Among Us found it perhaps in the wry commentary “Violent World” offered about that era’s trend of gore-based tabloid journalism; more likely, the lighthearted ate up the album’s closing thirty-second chant “Brain Eaters” in which the Misfits ache about their limited dining options of “brains for dinner [and] brains for lunch.” They would prefer some “guts,” they heartily intone.[11] A video was later filmed for “Brain Eaters” that captured the goofy spirit of the song; the clip features the Misfits and their friends around a dinner table at Boston’s storied Durgin Park restaurant, pounding and chanting as they’re served all manner of squishy innards (procured earlier that afternoon by the Caiafa brothers, in full stage regalia, from a local butcher shop).[12]

  In what might be construed as a bit of overkill regarding their evil image, the Misfits sandwiched a quote from Revelations on the back cover of Walk Among Us between the track listing and production credits; the quotation reads: “Here is wisdom. Let him hath understanding count the numbers of the beast, for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred three-score and six.” The blue-tinted close-up shot of the band also featured on the album’s back cover works just as well as a final spook—Glenn, Doyle, and Jerry peering out at the listener from behind their thick devilocks, clear glint in their eyes, ready to feast on your soul (or your innards, whichever comes first).

  Among Misfits fans Walk Among Us was an instant triumph, the record everyone had patiently been waiting for since Beware and “Horror Business.” Underground fanzine The Terror Times praised the album in a write-up the same month it was released, saying, “This unpleasant upheaval of sound will grind on your brain for as long as you can bare the pain . . . there is no compassion shown for anything here except for death, hate, and complete annihilation . . . what reason could you not have for buying this wonderful record?”[13] WNYU DJ Tim Sommer hailed Walk Among Us as “awesome” in a May issue of Sounds.[14] Forced Exposure’s review cut more to the point, stating bluntly, “Just [buy] this fuckin’ record.”[15] Writing about Walk Among Us decades later for AllMusic.com, Ned Raggett noted that part of the album’s charm is that it “willfully violated so many [of punk’s] rules . . . [it’s] utterly devoid of political confrontation or social uplift . . . the Misfits just want to entertain and do their own thing.”[16]

  Originally the Misfits planned to release Walk Among Us through their own label, Plan 9. That changed when I.R.S. Records, home of punk’s all-female breakout stars the Go-Gos, contacted the band about releasing the record on their label. Wary of rumors surrounding the way I.R.S. treated their talent but intrigued by the prospect of greater distribution power,[17] the Misfits sniffed around other companies and decided in the end to hand Walk Among Us over to Ruby Records. An imprint of Slash Records (home of cultish Cali punk band the Germs and itself an extension of West Coast punk chronicle Slash magazine), Ruby Records was basically a one-man operation run by Chris Desjardins of Los Angeles band the Flesh Eaters.

  Desjardins, a Misfits fan who dutifully snapped up all the of the band’s early singles, already had two releases under his belt on Ruby—his own band’
s second album and an EP by bluesy punks the Gun Club—when he first touched base with Glenn Danzig about working together (Desjardins can’t recall whom initiated their first conversation, although he doesn’t discount the story that Danzig called him looking to purchase ad space for Plan 9 in Slash magazine). A contract was eventually brokered for a one-album deal. Impressed with the demo tapes from a 1981 New Jersey recording session, Ruby flew Danzig out to Los Angeles for a final marathon twelve-hour mixing session with Burnette.[18] Despite the huge chunk of time spent meticulously tweaking and repurposing various aspects of the recordings, in the end the Misfits weren’t entirely satisfied with Walk Among Us. Danzig in particular commented years later that he wasn’t sure the record accurately reflected the specific sound for which they were known. There were also issues with the album’s art work. “I remember I flipped out on [Ruby] because [the cover] was supposed to be in all these different colors,” Danzig said in 2009. “Such as red, black, and orange, but the way it came out was truly awful. . . . they had not shown us any proofs beforehand. Because it was this little label, it was a really big nightmare working for them.”[19]

  Desjardins remembers things differently, claiming he and Glenn “got along great” during Walk’s mixing and production—at least when it was just the two of them. “When the whole band came back out to do some [concert] dates when the record was released, he was much more . . . I don’t know, hardcore?” Desjardins opines. “The brothers who played guitar and bass, Jerry and Doyle, they were pretty hard guys. I didn’t have a rocky relationship with them personally, but it just seemed everything was very adversarial in general. Glenn was like that when he was around them.”

  Though there was no question from fans regarding the greatness of Walk Among Us inside and out, exact sales figures have long been hard to nail down. Danzig began claiming as early as 1983 that Walk Among Us had moved upwards of 20,000 copies and even greater numbers overseas (he also bitterly charged Ruby with never paying the band royalties on these large sales and that legal action would be their only recourse). According to Desjardins, Danzig’s numbers are most likely inaccurate, as general sales on the high end for most of Ruby’s releases at that time fell somewhere between 2,500 to 5,000. Real-time sales figures were not always forthcoming to Ruby from Slash’s accounting department, however, so there is a possibility Danzig’s claims had some basis—though not enough, apparently, to warrant the aforementioned litigious pursuits.[20] “It’s possibly an accurate number,” muses Minor Threat’s Brian Baker of Danzig’s five-figure sales claims. “Our record Out of Step has to have sold 15,000 [copies], and my perception is the Misfits were bigger than Minor Threat. I mean, some of the shows on the Walks Among Us tour were huge. They were playing to over a thousand people sometimes.”[21]