The Doctors Of Madness
The Doctors Of Madness were launched with much fanfare by Polydor in 1975. They received plenty of press and TV coverage and played prestige venues and festivals. Yet by the end of 1978 they had got nowhere and were still playing low key venues like the Marquee.
They had a punkyish name, a punkyish look and punkyish pseudonyms and predated the Pistols. However to bracket them in with punk might be stretching it slightly too far and they fell between the old and new. Part of their problem was convincing people they weren’t a load of pseudo twaddle.
Good single Bulletin / Waiting ( Polydor 1977) abounds with energy and worth a listen and they made three albums the pick of which is Sons Of Survival. By its release Urban Blitz their guitarist and violin player had left and not even a short lived join up with Dave Vanian as dual vocalist or a name change to just The Doctors could save the band.
Diminishing faith from their label Polydor, management troubles and poor records sales of roughly 8-10,00 for each each album by The Doctors Of Madness caused Kid Strange to say in Sounds 4.11.78 about Sons Of Survival “Either it’ll elevate us in status and in the number of people we’re playing to, or it’ll do exactly the same as the others, in which case I’ll break the band up.” It did exactly the same as the others despite good reviews and true to his word the band broke up.
Also remembered for Dave Vanian’s of The Damned’s short stint as a dual lead vocalist with Kid Strange and for Kid Strange’s excellent collaboration with TV Smith of The Adverts on writing Back From The Dead which both bands recorded.
Gareth Holder from The Shapes recollects “They dropped the “of Madness” bit when trying to desperately pass themselves off as a punk band. I saw them in Sheffield in 1975 when they were a little bit like Peter Gabriel era Genesis with the stage make up and set pieces. Not too bad though. Hopelessly fucked as a knock-off punk band though. Dave Vanian lasted about a week with them I seem to remember, Urban having already fled the sinking ship. Kid Strange became Richard Strange after that, and had a reasonable if low key solo career with projects like the Engine Room.”
TalkPunk
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