Famously, The Damned were the first UK punk band to release a single, their debut seven inch New Rose emerging on Stiff Records on October 22, 1976. Six months later, the London quartet also became the first UK punk band to tour America, playing shows in New York, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The band's first US show found them playing two sets at CBGB in New York on April 7, 1977. The Damned open both sets with I Feel Alright, the final song on their debut album Damned Damned Damned, and closed both sets with So Messed Up, the album's penultimate song. The group would play the venue again on April 8, 9 and 10.
"New York was the most amazing place I’d ever seen," drummer Rat Scabis recalls in a new interview with MOJO magazine. "To suddenly be in what appeared to be the set of Kojak, but for real, with the sirens and yellow taxicabs and steam coming out of the manholes in the road… And we’d see Joey Ramone in the street and say hi. I loved New Yorkers, and their directness."
