We Talk About Danzig

Let's start this off as weird as possible

The Misfits - Braineaters

Hey hey hey
Brains for dinner
Brains for lunch
Brains for breakfast
Brains for brunch
Brains at every single meal
Why can't we have some guts
Hey hey hey
Brains are all we ever get
In this rotten fuckin' place, hey hey
Brains are all we ever get
Why can't we have a change of pace
Brains for dinner
Brains for lunch
Brains for breakfast
Brains for brunch
Brains at every single meal
Why can't we have some guts, hey hey
Why can't we have some guts, hey hey
Why can't we have some fuckin' rotten guts
Hey hey hey hey hey hey hey hey

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"Welcome to my book collection :)..."
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Danzig?
-- basically a rock and roll singer

Who is Glenn Danzig? Is he this guy, catching roses* in his teeth at a show?


*Rose toss over approximately 30 seconds into video

The Devilock
-- hair-style that is at once ridiculous and awesome if you have straight black hair and you're not someone's fucking dad

Is he the inventor of the Devilock?



Well maybe or maybe not, but that's beside the point. The point is that he rocked it a lot better than the rest of them, given his size and height.

I posit that Danzig is an indestructible egotistical force that is more than a man. By being and representing this Danzigian essence, Glenn Danzig created some special place in time. A place where the American concept of sub cultures became stronger -- more visible because of infusion with another cult culture (such as horror movies) -- and then diverged.

The Misfits
-- lame ass 138 kids chanting "WE ARE 138" with fists in the air

What the fuck do The Misfits mean to anyone these days? Jerry Only is the only former member still in the band, which has played up the horror punk theme up so much that it's no wonder little kids are the only ones digging this shit now.

See the following two videos for a comparison.


New Misfits, circa too recently -- I recommend turning the video off close to the end because they attached some wack commercial to it


Original Misfits, circa 1983.

There's clearly more feeling in the second video -- not just the singer, but from all members of the band. The first video feels very Disneyworld, and the least of these causes is the inappropriate lights. There's also Jerry Only's boring showtunes-ish delivery of the vocals and -- ok, I'll be honest: it's mostly the "extreme" camera work and the lighting. I mention the difference between these videos to illustrate that the band was clearly an energetic force, one strong enough to merit resurrection long after the band's original death, with an entirely new lineup. What other bands exist and sell lots of merchandise as ghosts of themselves? Ghosts of the Misfits: staying with the horror theme to the grave (and clearly, beyond).



Mis > Sam > Dan > Mis
-- some sort of wonky circular phenomenon

The Misfits were around for a while and they were pretty cool. Danzig started a new band called Samhain that was a lot like the Misfits but with a slightly different aesthetic. It's sort of like the way Frankenstein and all the other movie monsters started off really cheesy, but as time goes on their film incarnations tend to get grittier and darker.

The final form of Danzig wasn't really a true final form at all, but the name had been finalized: Danzig was the new name of the band, and, as one might postulate, would be the future name of any band that Glenn Danzig helmed. Initially releasing records on Rick Rubin's American Recordings label, they also had the assistance of Rick in the studio to help them polish their sound. Thus, Glenn Danzig's band took on a polished hard rock feel with a morose theme as opposed to a less-polished punk rock feel in earlier bands.

See this video for some idea of how the band changed:


After the first four records, though, the band's aesthetic changed again, along with the band's lineup, and some say the magic was lost. That being said, though, one is still left to consider the legacy of Danzig and his bands. The effects are arguably more important than the music that was created, or the aesthetic channeled at the various points in time.


G. Danzig, H. Rollins

So here we are, some 30 years after The Misfits first performed. The band saw far more popularity as an undead reincarnation of itself than it did during its original tenure. Their commercial success was not nearly their only success, because that commercial success is indicative of something else: the existence of sub culture. In short, some people identify with The Misfits very strongly. For some, the band's logo is synonymous with sub cultures like punk rock, and the history doesn't even matter because they know everything they need to know about The Misfits based on whatever their views on punk are. Even more interesting is the effect of the band's then-unique theme; who else tried to infuse their music with then 20 year-old horror movie icons, or any other icons at all, save religious ones? And what happened to the newly seeded trend of fusion among sub-cultures with cult icons afterward? People who now worship The Misfits are a lot like The Misfits themselves, in this one way: they're paying tribute to ideas that are 30 years old. Horror in 1978 wasn't the same as the 50's themes Danzig was espousing, and Punk today isn't the same thing it was when Danzig was doing it.

The devilock, though: that's timeless. But Lord, not when 50 year old circus clowns rock it!


and check out the fingernails and pants on his friend :)