So where did Destroy All Monsters spring from? Well, first of all the
final incarnation arose from an earlier one. which sported the same name but was vastly different in terms of both personnel and
musical style. The original D.A.M. came together at the end of 1973 in
This latter-named young lady turned out to be the
band's pivotal element, having remained a member
from those early days to the present. Just what the
rest of her name (or her real name) is, nobody
seems to have discovered; in fact,
The original quartet made music based on a concept of filling a given airspace with an
assortment of noise — much as one might fill a
canvas with paint. The theory might have been
artistically valid, but aurally it presented a distinctly
unresolved racket! I can't resist quoting Kris
Needs, who speaks
of the band thrashing out "a formless blur on cheap plastic organs,
electronic drum boxes, fuzz guitars and Niagara's
violin". It wouldn't have needed much of a prophet to suggest that
this lot were destined to go nowhere very fast; nonetheless they held loosely
onto each other and their joint cacophony until the end of 1974. When Mike Kelly conceded to himself that this was not the way up
the yellow brick road. Exit Kelly and Shaw, and goodbye D.A.M. mark
one.
Loren's masterplan for resurrection was quite
straight forward, requiring simply the addition of new band members with
established musical credits. The two he got — the ex-Iggy & The Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton, and former MC5 bass player Mike Davis —
were quite a coup. Asheton (a resident
To complete the band came brothers Ben and Larry
Miller on sax and guitar, and Rob King on drums.
Since then the band played support to the Ramones, Pere Ubu, Devo and our own lovable exports the Stranglers. What they didn't do was get snapped up by a record company — but it was only a
matter of time before they put themselves onto vinyl. A single was recorded in
October 1977 and eventually saw the light of day in February 1978 on the band's
own I.D.B.I, label (stands for 'I Don't Believe It', which figures!). The
titles are 'Bored' and 'You're Gonna Die', and Kris Needs sums up their sound
as: "kind of raw
An EP was recorded as a follow-up, assuming the band don't get a legit
recording deal
before it's issued. Titles are not known, but possibly include some of the
songs featured
in their regular stage set, like 'November 22nd, 1963', 'Tab Machine', 'Broken
Mirrors',
'Lou Lou', 'Soul Divider', 'Turn Your Every Page', 'Jet' (with Ron Asheton lead vocal),
and the Nancy Sinatra oldie 'These Boots Are Made For Walkin'.'
The band's sound is basically an aural battering ram, using all the tricks of
cacophony
in which the psychedelic groups of the mid-60's delighted, plus assorted heavy-metal
borrowings from all points since. Niagara's voice is reckoned to be cold,
detached, monotonous — and indeed the lass herself is quoted as saying (in reference to
her
performance of the Nancy Sinatra hit): "I used to think that
IDBI records, in the interim, can be contacted at
EPITAPH: Destroy Alll Monsters continued playing until 1985. They also made a new batch of studio recordings
as well as some video work from this period. Although in 1981 Ron Asheton had also joined ex-Radio Birdman members Deniz Tek and Rob Younger in their
underground supergroup The New Race. Ron also
did some acting in low budget horror movies in the 80's and 90's. Before rejoining
LISTEN TO DAM(under downloads on the left)