In the spirit of Halloween, every music site ever has to do a top 10 Misfits songs list, and honestly, we’re no better than your average pack of dorks with too much time on their hands. Anyhow, The Misfits are the quintessential Halloween band. They’re the godfathers of all things creepy intertwining within punk and metal. From songs about killing babies (not very PC, Glenn) to space monsters, the band laid a blueprint that’s pretty much one step below Black Sabbath in the lore of underground music.
Because it’s the season of the witch, it’s only right to let nerds duke it out in the comments section over my top 10 Misfits tunes. This list isn’t scientific, it’s the best I could muster up because I’m a fan boy who likes the band just a little too much and picking only ten is like picking which tooth I want pulled.
Disclaimer: There are no Michael Graves tunes listed. Why? Because while Michael Graves-era Misfits is pretty good, it’s not the same sport, it’s not even close. Yes, I will ackowledge Dig Up Her Bones is a catchy song, but it ain’t So I Turned Into A Martian. You wanna rate his songs? Go get your own overtly dork blog.
Anyhow, in the spirit of Halloween here are my Top 10 Misfits tunes:
Karly Driftwood is onto something interesting. The
singer-songwriter from Middle of Nowhere, Virginia up and moved to Nashville
and is making a serious play for figuring herself out and being weird as fuck
in the process.
While sure, moving to Nashville to pursue a career in
country music isn’t anything new - it’s the layered persona that Karly offers
that sets her apart. Think mortuary school meets working in a strip club meets
competent musician who’s obsessed with craft over façade. That’s a different
mix than the usual fare creeping out of Nashville these days.
She’s released a few songs via Soundcloud (I have no idea
why she keeps deleting them) and they offer a swath of identity signifiers
rather than just some lame songs.
The two tracks currently up are the Mazzy Star-esque Ain’t it Sad
How Things Can Change and the more Unknown
Hinson meets Minnie PearlThe Dead Guy Song.
Both are equally impressive as they show off the 22-year
old’s abilities as a budding writer. Hopefully, we get more peeks into the mind
of the funeral home – the darkness is welcomed in a world as bleak as this one.
What works about Karly is she’s after a darker game and persona
that plays to her strengths. There isn’t enough country that’s got a little
Danzig feel these days, and seeing a woman grab that swagger and vibrato and
turn the inherent darkness into some bleeding heart songs could cause some
serious damage.
Give her tunes a listen and find Karly on social media. Tell
her she should cover a Misfits song.
With their first show together in over 30 years, The Misfits
are finally back together - for at least
two shows. To put it lightly for many of us, this is a monumental, huge fucking
deal. From metalheads to punks, to goths, to weirdos and everyone in between,
there are generations of outsiders with a soft spot for those original Glenn
Danzig-fronted records.
For some, seeing
Guns n' Roses was a big deal. For many punk rockers like me, this is the
reunion we’ve waited our whole lives for. I won’t pretend to be an impartial
journalist in this piece – I can’t. I have the Crimson Ghost tattooed on the
back of my leg. My son has little Misfits shirts; I have a custom Chrome bag
with the Crimson Ghost on it that is my security blanket, its been all over the
world with me. I am most definitely a die-hard. They are without a doubt one of
my favorite bands, ever.
So, that leads us
to the point of this article: around here in FTMLand; we’ve been kicking around
some new article ideas. This is the first in a series I plan on penning that
revisits classic records, classic bands, some obscure records that are flawless,
but the group disappeared, or just bands that are fantastic that you’re not
thinking about.
The Misfits are
very much on everyone’s cultural radar. But, to kick off the series, I wanted
to do a retrospective review of what I feel is the unquestionable best Misfits
record: Legacy of Brutality.
While yes, the catalog is small, and they’ll likely play
everything during their sets, it’s Legacy that shows so much of what the band
could have been, and what a lot of Samhain and Danzig did go on to become.
Legacy of Brutality
is a steamroller of a record with zero weak spots, hell on Theme of a Jackal: they manage to get your violent sleaze going
with a piano driven riff that more swagger in two notes than most virtuosos can
muster flying down the ivories. But, that’s the classic concoction of the
Misfits, the songs are laughably easy to play, but in their simplicity lies the
real genius: they’re catchy and so raw they seemingly get better with age. They
never feel dated, the Misfits have the quality of many of the great classic
rock bands, that despite audibly signaling a different era, the concoction was
perfect.
Given its basement
budget, Legacy of Brutality is still
clear despite having any technical bells and whistles. The pace and tonality is
frantic. It works because it’s a real DIY recording and without pretense.
These guys were hitting record and nailing everything just
as they would live. When punk bands layer guitars and try to be like The Who,
it just sucks. On Legacy, the guitars and bass are a murky buzz saw that melds
together into one moving wave of crust. No one was doing Misfits stuff, before
the Misfits – the spooky tinges of rockabilly on American Nightmare so what Danzig’s mind was on, while Angelfuckis a scream your heart out thrill ride. Come Back is almost a violent country tune, while Some of Kind of Hate has a feverish groove that
is a slow burn, but a song that’s considered one of the All Time Classics.
Legacy of Brutality has She, Halloween,
Who Killed Marilyn and what’s widely considered the greatest Misfits song
ever: Hybrid Moments. But, what makes
the record work like a ticking time bomb are all of the musical flavors
present, the weird samples in TV Casualty,
the sheer blackness of just - everything.
Danzig has had a long, colorful career and has some amazing
things in his life, but this is a homecoming, a moment his fans have been
clamoring for. Why sure, you can love his vocal range on the later stuff like, How The Gods Kill, but it’ll never have
the bite of him screaming, “I ain’t no
goddamned son of a bitch, you’d better think about it, baby.”
So many riffs,
fashion trends, iconography has been drawn from this little punk band in black
from Lodi, New Jersey that was around for six years. But, three decades after
they broke up, all of the old guys, the new kids and everyone who got turned on
to the Misfits with those ambitious “collection” records is finally witnessing
the reunion we swore Jerry and Glenn would never allow. Halloween is upon us.
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Legacy of Brutality is available on iTunes, Amazon, etc.