THE MISFITS’ horror business started in 1977 around Danzig and bassist Jerry Only. The band released singles and EPs while shifting its lineup and building its increasingly extreme fringe-culture image, an identity soaked in B-movie fake blood and cartoony occultism. It sounds trite, and maybe on the face of it it was, but what the Misfits did for punk rock, especially on their 1982 album Walk Among Us, should not be underestimated: they made it totally unacceptable again. “I got something to say,” Danzing bellowed on “Last Caress,” in an earnest, searching-for-validation tone that left first-time listeners totally unprepared for what came next. “I killed your baby today. And it doesn’t matter much to me, as long as it’s dead.” My own theory is that the Ramones’ song “Chainsaw” has never gotten the credit it deserves for providing the musical and thematic blueprint for the band’s entire output, but that’s neither here nor there. Danzig took the bloody ball and ran with it, and if I may risk for a moment sounding like a total moron, I’d say the Misfits songs taken as a whole actually lay out a pretty vivid and strangely literate mythology-a gritty, ghoulish EC Comics for punk music that has held up better than far less funny and catchy bands like 45 Grave or Cannibal Corpse that tried to sound evil or dangerous but are mostly just boring.
It didn’t hurt that Danzig could sing the hell out of these songs. He is possibly the only person on Earth who could make the Lovecraftian rapey-monster anthem “Hybrid Moments” sound romantic. (Although Pajo’s lulling acoustic cover is also gorgeously inappropriate.) Though they could barely get a record out in their time, you can’t throw a rock in a room full of punks now without hitting a Misfits patch or T-shirt. Jerry Only reformed the band, but Danzig had long since moved on, and for many fans, the Misfits reunion project will never measure up. However, I saw them a few years ago, after they ditched their terrible vocalist Michele Graves, which paved the way for Jerry Only to take over on vocals. I have to say, they were surprisingly good. The sound is as gutter-riffic as ever, and Only does a damned good Danzig impression.
Sunday, 8pm
Avalon Nightclub, Santa Clara
$23/$28
