Fanatics! Henry Rollins' KCRW Show Tomorrow Night: Machine Gun Etiquette

Fanatics! Welcome to weekend three of our October Damned Fest! Tonight we warm up the pot with an hour of peerless jams. Then, in the second hour, we rock the third Damned album, Machine Gun Etiquette.

MGE marked a radical change for the Damned. Brian James, the band's guitar player, was gone. The band went through months of chaos as they resettled and the new line up stabilized. Captain Sensible took over on guitar, Algy Ward from the Saints joined on as bass player. Rat Scabies stayed on drums. Dave Vanian remained on vocals.

In November of 1979, the band released MGE, their third album. Make note that this is two years after Music For Pleasure. MGE is very different than what came before it. It becomes clear how much Brian James had dominated the previous line up. MGE is looser, wilder and more rock than the two previous Damned albums. Punters and press gave this one the thumbs up and the Damned were back in business.

This album came out a few months after the band came to Washington DC and played at a venue called The Bayou. That was one of the pivotal shows for many of us in the small DC music scene. Seeing the Damned was a big deal, but it was the first time many of us ever saw the band that opened that night, Bad Brains. That show proved to be one of the most influential in our short lives. The Damned were great as we had hoped they would be, but it was Bad Brains that melted us down and forced us to do a bit of a re-set, much like the Clash show we saw months before in February of that year.

MGE is an album that I still play very often. It is usually my Friday night opener when I go into my usual heavy rotation on the weekends when not on tour. I have also lit up many backstage areas with this album all over the world. "Ladies and gentlemen, how do?" is carved into the front of my brain pan at this point.

I hope you enjoy the show. While you are digging it, I will be in Boston, post in-store appearance. I will try to listen in to be in real time with the rest of you.

This is going to be a great one! Tune in and STAY FANATIC!!! --Henry

Henry can be reached at: Henryontheradio@gmail.com, or follow him on Twitter @henryrollins.

Read on for Henry's tracklisting.