| Static Age | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by the Misfits | ||||
| Released | February 27, 1996 | |||
| Recorded | January–February 1978 C.I. Studios, New York City | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 35:02 | |||
| Label | Caroline | |||
| Producer | Dave Achelis, Tom Bejgrowicz | |||
| The Misfits chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |    [1] |
| Pitchfork | 8.8/10 [2] |
Static Age is an album by the American horror punk band Misfits, recorded in 1978. Although it was the first album the band ever recorded, it was not released in its entirety until 1996. [3]
In August 1977 The Misfits released their debut single "Cough/Cool" on Blank Records, a label operated by the band's lead vocalist Glenn Danzig. Several months later Mercury Records issued a Pere Ubu record on their own Blank Records imprint, unaware that Danzig held a trademark on the name. The parties came to a settlement, with Danzig accepting thirty hours of studio time for his band in exchange for the rights to the Blank Records name. [3] In January and February 1978 the Misfits, then consisting of Danzig, guitarist Franché Coma, bassist Jerry Only, and drummer Mr. Jim, recorded seventeen songs at C.I. Recordings in New York City with engineer and producer Dave Achelis. [3] Due to time constraints, the band recorded the songs live in the studio with only a few takes and very few overdubs. [3] Ultimately fourteen of the seventeen tracks produced during the sessions were assembled for the Misfits' anticipated debut album, to be titled Static Age. [3]
However, the band were unable to find a record label interested in releasing the album. Instead, the Misfits released four of the new tracks ("Bullet", "We Are 138", "Attitude", and "Hollywood Babylon") as the "Bullet" single in June 1978 on Danzig's newly created label Plan 9 Records (the same four tracks, along with a remixed version of "Last Caress", were reissued on the Beware EP in January 1980). [3] While on tour in Canada that October, guitarist Franché Coma abruptly quit the band, followed by drummer Mr. Jim at the tour's conclusion. With the band's future far from certain, the Static Age recordings were shelved indefinitely. Danzig recruited new members Bobby Steele and Joey Image and the Misfits shifted their style away from the traditional punk rock of the Static Age sessions to a more horror film-inspired direction. None of the remaining Static Age tracks were released during the early era of the band, though a re-recorded version of "Teenagers from Mars" appeared on the "Horror Business" single in 1979, and a live version of "We Are 138" appeared on the Evilive EP in 1982.
After the band's breakup in 1983, Danzig overdubbed guitar and bass tracks on nine of the unreleased Static Age tracks ("Static Age", "TV Casualty", "Hybrid Moments", "Come Back", "Some Kinda Hate", "Theme for a Jackal", "Angelfuck", "Spinal Remains", and "She"), releasing these new versions on the 1985 Legacy of Brutality compilation album. Misfits followed in 1986, reissuing the tracks "Bullet" and "Hollywood Babylon" as well as the overdubbed version of "She". Collection II (1995) reissued "We Are 138" and "Attitude", the remixed version of "Last Caress", and the previously unreleased "Return of the Fly".
With the release of the Misfits box set in 1996, the complete original Static Age album saw the light of day for the first time on CD, eighteen years after the songs were recorded. The box set included all three compilation albums as well as a disc with all fourteen Static Age tracks that had been mixed in 1978. The remaining three tracks, "She", "Spinal Remains", and "In the Doorway", were mixed by Alan Douches and Tom Bejgrowicz on February 24, 1997, at West West Side Music and were included when Static Age was finally released as a standalone album that July. [3] "In the Doorway" had never before been released, as it had remained unmixed on the master tapes for nineteen years. [3] The album also included an unlisted eighteenth track consisting of a collage of studio banter and outtakes.
Several of the songs on Static Age were based on horror films and American historical events from the 1960s and 1970s. "Return of the Fly" borrows its title from the 1959 film Return of the Fly , and most of the song's lyrics consist of repetition of the film's title, actors, and characters: "Return of the Fly, Return of the Fly/With Vincent Price/Helen Delambre, Helen Delambre/François, François/Cecile, Cecile". [4] "Bullet" references the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, with sexually explicit lyrics directed at his wife Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: "Texas is an outrage when your husband is dead/Texas is an outrage when they pick up his head/Texas is the reason that the President's dead/You gotta suck, suck, Jackie, suck". [4] Although the subject of "She" is not mentioned in the lyrics, Misfits associate Eerie Von noted in The Misfits box set that the song was about Patty Hearst. [4] The lyrics reference Hearst's participation in a San Francisco bank robbery in 1974: "She walked out with empty arms, machine gun in her hand/She is good and she is bad, no one understands/She walked in in silence, never spoke a word/She's got a rich daddy, she's her daddy's girl". [4] "Hollywood Babylon" borrows its title from Kenneth Anger's 1959 book Hollywood Babylon .
Early in his amateur career, Mike Diana, who would later become the first American artist to be convicted of obscenity in the United States, [5] produced a 1988 comics magazine called Angelfuck, which was named after the song on this album. [6]
The indie rock band Texas Is the Reason later derived their name from the lyrics of "Bullet".
All tracks are written by Glenn Danzig
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Static Age" | 1:47 |
| 2. | "TV Casualty" | 2:24 |
| 3. | "Some Kinda Hate" | 2:02 |
| 4. | "Last Caress" | 1:57 |
| 5. | "Return of the Fly" | 1:37 |
| 6. | "Hybrid Moments" | 1:42 |
| 7. | "We Are 138" | 1:41 |
| 8. | "Teenagers from Mars" | 2:51 |
| 9. | "Come Back" | 5:00 |
| 10. | "Angelfuck" | 1:38 |
| 11. | "Hollywood Babylon" | 2:20 |
| 12. | "Attitude" | 1:31 |
| 13. | "Bullet" | 1:38 |
| 14. | "Theme for a Jackal" | 2:41 |
| 15. | "She" | 1:24 |
| 16. | "Spinal Remains" | 1:27 |
| 17. | "In the Doorway" | 1:25 |
| 18. | "Outtakes" | 8:15 |
| Total length: | 43:17 | |
The Misfits are an American punk rock band often recognized as the pioneers of the horror punk subgenre, blending punk and other musical influences with horror film themes and imagery. The group was founded in 1977 in Lodi, New Jersey, by vocalist, songwriter and keyboardist Glenn Danzig. Danzig's first recruit to the Misfits was drummer Mr. Jim and bassist Diane DiPazza, however, DiPiazza never showed up. Mr. Jim was replaced by Manny Martinez shortly after. Jerry Only joined on bass guitar shortly after. Over the next six years, membership would change frequently, with Danzig and Only being the sole consistent members. During this time period, they released several EPs and singles, and with Only's brother Doyle as guitarist, the albums Walk Among Us (1982) and Earth A.D./Wolfs Blood (1983), both considered touchstones of the early-1980s hardcore punk movement. The band has gone through many lineup changes over the years, with bassist Jerry Only being the only constant member in the group.
"Cough/Cool" is the first single released by the horror punk band the Misfits. It was released in August 1977 on singer Glenn Danzig's label Blank Records. 500 copies were produced on black 7" vinyl. Both songs from the single were re-recorded and re-released in various versions over the following twenty years.
"Bullet" is the second single released by the horror punk band the Misfits. The four tracks comprising the EP were recorded, along with thirteen others, in early 1978 for the proposed Static Age album. When the band could not find a record label to release the album, they instead released four of the songs as "Bullet" on singer Glenn Danzig's label Plan 9 Records. The songs were re-released in different versions over subsequent years, until Static Age was finally released in its entirety in 1996.
"Horror Business" is the third single released by the American horror punk band Misfits. It was released on June 26, 1979 through vocalist Glenn Danzig's own label, Plan 9 Records, and is commonly said to have been inspired by the unsolved murder of Nancy Spungen. The B-side of the single features the songs "Teenagers from Mars" and "Children in Heat".
"Night of the Living Dead" is the fourth single by the horror punk band the Misfits. It was released on October 31, 1979, on singer Glenn Danzig's label Plan 9 Records. 2,000 copies of the single were pressed on black 7" vinyl. The night of its release the band performed at Irving Plaza in New York City and sold the single at the door.
Beware is the fifth release by the American punk rock band Misfits. First issued in January 1980, this EP combined the Misfits' previously released singles "Bullet" and "Horror Business", and was originally intended as a recording that the Misfits could bring with them on their tour of the United Kingdom with the British punk rock group the Damned in late 1979. Along with songs from "Bullet" and "Horror Business", Beware also includes the track "Last Caress", which had never been released previously.
Samhain was an American rock band formed by singer Glenn Danzig in 1983, immediately following his departure from Misfits. Glenn Danzig originally planned Samhain as a side project with Eerie Von. After the Misfits' contentious 1983 dissolution, Samhain became Danzig's full-time band.
Collection II, also known as Misfits II, a compilation album of songs by the American punk rock band Misfits. Released on November 14, 1995, it serves as a companion album to the band's previous compilation, Collection I. Both compilations collect all the early singles and the entire Earth A.D./Wolfs Blood album, and are meant to complement Walk Among Us and Legacy of Brutality with little overlap. All the early singles are supposed to be represented, although alternative versions of some songs are used instead of the original releases.
Misfits is a 1986 compilation album by the American punk rock band Misfits. Officially titled Misfits, but also known as Collection, Collection 1, or Collection I, the album features twenty songs by the band. The tracks include some of the group's early singles, as well as songs from their 1982 album Walk Among Us, their 1983 album Earth A.D./Wolfs Blood, and the 1985 compilation album Legacy of Brutality, which was curated exclusively by vocalist Glenn Danzig after the band had dissolved in 1983.
"Halloween" is the fifth single by the American punk rock band Misfits. It was released on October 31, 1981 on singer Glenn Danzig's label Plan 9 Records. 5,000 copies of the single were pressed on black 7-inch vinyl, some of which included a lyrics sheet. This was the first Misfits release to use their Famous Monsters of Filmland-inspired logo, as well as the first to refer to the band as simply "Misfits".
The Misfits is a boxed set of material by the horror punk band the Misfits, released in 1996 by Caroline Records. Packaged in a coffin-shaped, velvet-lined box, the set includes four compact discs covering most of the band's recorded material from the years when Glenn Danzig was their singer and songwriter. It also includes a "Fiend Club" pin and a booklet containing photographs, song lyrics, a discography, and a history of the band written by their photographer and associate Eerie Von. The exterior cover of the booklet was illustrated by artist Dave McKean.
Jim Catania, commonly known as Mr. Jim, replaced drummer Manny Martínez in The Misfits in the fall of 1977 and remained in the band until November 1978. Catania had been in an earlier band called Koodot And Boojang with Glenn Danzig. Mr. Jim is featured on the same songs as Franché Coma. Jim left the band soon after Franché did and returned to his other band Continental Crawler. He later played for The Adults and Aces and Eights. Both Jim and Manny were from Lodi, New Jersey and graduated from Lodi High School in 1971. After leaving Lodi, Jim moved to Hawthorne, New Jersey with his wife. Mr. Jim and his wife later moved to Hoboken, New Jersey. He opened his own music and DVD store called Mr. Jim's House of Video in Belleville, New Jersey in December 2008.
Legacy of Brutality is a compilation album of early songs by the American punk rock band Misfits, released in September 1985. It contains overdubbed mixes of previously unreleased songs, mainly from the January–February 1978 Static Age sessions. Besides The Misfits box set, this is the only official album containing the songs "Who Killed Marilyn?" and "American Nightmare".
"We Are 138" is a song by the American punk rock band Misfits. Written by vocalist Glenn Danzig, the song was recorded in 1978 and released that same year on the band's single "Bullet", sharing the A-side with the title track. It was also included as the opening track on the Misfits' 1980 EP Beware, as well as the opening track on the 1995 compilation album Collection II. "We Are 138" was recorded with the intention of it being included on the band's proposed debut album Static Age, which remained unreleased in its entirety until 1996.
"Last Caress" is a song by American punk rock band Misfits, first released on their 1980 EP Beware. Written by vocalist Glenn Danzig, the song was later included on the compilation album Collection II, released in 1995, as well as on the album Static Age, which was recorded in 1978 but not released in its entirety until 1996.
"Teenagers from Mars" is a song by the American punk rock band Misfits. Written by vocalist Glenn Danzig, the song was first released as the B-side of the band's 1979 single "Horror Business", alongside the song "Children in Heat". "Teenagers from Mars" was later included on the Misfits' 1980 EP Beware, as well as on the 1986 compilation album Misfits. In 1996, when the band's proposed debut album Static Age first received an official release as part of the boxed set The Misfits, "Teenagers from Mars" was included as one of the tracks.
The discography of Misfits, a horror punk band formed in Lodi, New Jersey, in 1977, consists of seven studio albums, three live albums, four compilation albums, four EPs, nineteen singles, one video album, five music videos, one box set, one demo, and one cancelled album.
Misfits Meet the Nutley Brass: Fiend Club Lounge is a tribute album to the American horror punk band Misfits, recorded by the Nutley Brass and released in 2005 by Misfits Records. It features cover versions of Misfits songs from the band's early era, 1977 to 1983, performed in an instrumental "lounge" or "space age pop" style.
"Attitude" is a song by the American punk rock band Misfits. Written by frontman and vocalist Glenn Danzig, the song was recorded and first released in 1978 on the B-side of the band's single "Bullet". It was also included on the Misfits' 1980 EP Beware, as well as on the 1995 compilation album Collection II. "Attitude" was originally intended to be included on the band's proposed debut album Static Age, and it remained included when the album was eventually released in its entirety in 1996.
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| Live albums | |
| Compilation albums | |
| EPs | |
| Singles |
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| Other songs | |
| Associated acts | |
| Tribute albums | |
| Related articles | |
