Oh, My Sweet Misfits…What Have You Become?
So today I was sitting at my computer with Winamp on random and classic Misfits track “She” came on. I thought “Goddamn, what a great song. How tragic that the people currently calling themselves “The Misfits” suck really really hard.” I basically understand how the transition from classic Misfits to the travesty Misfits happened, but I decided to research just what exactly went so wrong.
The Misfits began in 1977 with ‘original’ members Glenn Danzig on vocals/keyboards, guitarist Jimmy Battle, little-known bassist Diane DiPiaza and drummer Manny Martinez. Thought this is the official original line-up, this is not the ‘classic’ line-up. Just a couple months later, Diane DiPiaza left the group and was replaced by Jerry Only on bass. After a style change from Doors-sounding rock to horror-themed punk and COUNTLESS line-up changes, the ‘classic’ line-up debuted Halloween of 1980: Glenn Danzig, Jerry Only, Doyle, and Author Googy on drums (personally, the classic line-up for me was after Googy left and was replaced by Robo, from Black Flag, on drums). Three years later, their final album Earth A.D./Wolf’s Blood was released, with a much thrashier sound. Danzig wasn’t pleased with it, and started to write songs for a new project, Samhain, and on Halloween of 1983 the Misfits played their last show.
That’s that, right? Well, it should have been. Samhain was later signed to a major label before morphing into just “Danzig”, and was enjoying mainstream success. Jerry Only, since the breakup of the Misfits, had begun to regret a lot of the decisions he made during that part of his life, and fell victim to the lame-ification process involved with becoming a born-again Christian. This is where it all started to go downhill.
In 1989, wishing to “correct” the mistakes he had made during the Misfits era and in response to the much more “evil” and occult-oriented Samhain, Jerry changed his stage name to Mocavius the Great (or just Mo) and started Christian metal band “Kryst the Conqueror”. I’m not kidding. This is a part of the Misfits history I never knew about. This album features songs like “In God We Trust”, “Trial of the Soul”, and “Thunder Thruster”. Hahahahaha
Needless to say, Kryst the Conqueror failed miserably, and the album never received a proper release. A 5 song EP was released in limited quantity and is supposed to be quite the collector’s item. Jerry, displeased, decided that the only way he could right the Misfits name would be to take Danzig to court over the name. Every Misfits fan knows the outcome of this. In litigation for years, Jerry and Danzig finally settled out of court allowing Jerry to record and perform under the Misfits name. He also obviously got rights to the Crimson Ghost logo because it’s on EVERYTHING these days. Around 1995, Jerry started trying out new lead vocalists and drummers. Finally settling on Michael Graves on vocals and Dr. CHUD on drums, the “new” Misfits released 2 albums, American Psycho and Famous Monsters in 1997 and 1999, respectively. The purists were outraged, but honestly, I didn’t mind the new Misfits. Of course, I would have preferred that they played under another name, because this really had nothing to do with the Misfits at all. Danzig did all the song writing and took that with him when the Misfits broke up. The “new” Misfits were still horror-themed, but cleaner in nature. In 2000, Michael and CHUD left the band during a tour that me and a couple friends had actually hoped to attend. What little respect I held for Michael Graves was destroyed when I learned that he went on to help create www.conservativepunk.com, one of the greatest oxymoronic websites ever conceived. Rest assured that any “punk” calling himself right-wing is either a schizophrenic or doesn’t know what “right-wing” means; both of which are pretty punk.
At that point, I quit caring about the Misfits altogether, but Jerry Only refuses to let it die, clinging to the Misfits namesake like a bereaved widow. For the 25th anniversary Misfits tour, Jerry recruited Dez Cadena of Black Flag and Marky Ramone of the Second Shittiest Band Ever. This “punk all-stars” line-up travelled the country, dragging the Misfits name behind it in the mud for 3 long years. Shortly afterwards, Jerry Only released a “Misfits” album in which he covered 10 classic 50’s songs called Project 1950. If Danzig was dead, he’d be rolling in his grave, but he’s not, so I’m pretty sure he’s just really really pissed. Earlier this year, Doyle came out on stage during three stops on Danzig’s tour and they played a full set of Misfits songs. I would KILL to see that, and Danzig says it will most likely happen on next year’s tour schedule. That is as close as anybody is going to get to seeing classic Misfits.
Later this year, the “Misfits” (as Chuck likes to call them: The Jerry Only Show, as I like to call them: Jerry Only and the Only Jerries, often referred to as the Kissfits) will actually be coming to my humble town. As much as I hate what they have become, I almost feel obligated to go. I know I will be disappointed, but something draws me to it. Meanwhile, projects like this continue to appear, and I wonder what else could possibly be done to ruin the Misfits name. If other options exist that could possibly make Jerry money, I’m sure he will find them.
July 29th, 2005 at 5:49 am
haha, I don’t know if anyone reads this dude, but I think you know I got to see the “25th anniversary show” if you can call it that, and man oh man, what a pathetic group of fucks. The only decent part was watching Dez and Robo play Black Flag songs, and watching “Spooky” Mocavious sing and bop along to blitzcreig bop. PATHETIC. KRYST RULES!21!!!@#@#!
July 31st, 2005 at 7:43 pm
I think we should all dress up like KISS fans and go. Then we could yell “Play Detroit Rock City!” and act really confused about what’s going on.