Glenn Danzig is no stranger to being an outcast. He’s been scaring the hell out of parents for three decades now and he has no intentions of stopping anytime soon. Satan’s favorite renaissance man is into much more than just music. Danzig is an accomplished graphic designer, photographer, comic book publisher, screenwriter and composer. In fact, Danzig is finishing up a script for a movie about road rage. It involves angry stoner kids who get really fucked up and drive around listening to heavy metal while they beat the shit out of “yuppies.” I pray that this movie gets made really soon. I don’t want to wait 30 years to see The Lost Movies of Danzig pop up after I’m too old to see the humor in randomly pummeling yuppies. Yeah, you’re right. That will always be funny.
The Lost Tracks of Danzig is a 2-CD set of outcast songs that either just didn’t fit into the theme of the respective albums for which they were originally recorded, or Danzig simply hadn’t finished them in time to record them. It took Danzig nine months to finish the 26 lost tracks that make up the 2-CD set because many of the songs were left in various stages of incompletion. Danzig himself filled in the blanks and finished the instrumentation and the vocals on all the lost tracks. The result is a set of songs that chronologically spans Danzig’s entire discography. Tracks 1 and 2 of disc 1 are actually Samhain-era songs that never made it onto the Danzig I album. Track 1 is entitled “Pain is Like an Animal” and it’s composed of that classic Danzig I sound of John Christ’s chunky blues rock riffs and well-placed artificial harmonics. Tracks 3, 4 and 5 were recorded during the Danzig II: Lucifuge sessions. Track 5, entitled “Cold, Cold Rain” is my favorite song on the entire collection. This track should have earned a spot on the Lucifuge record because nothing else on that record sounds like it. The song embodies the greatness of Danzig’s timeless croon sung on top of a really cool chord progression that you’d find on a Velvet Underground album. Apparently Rick Rubin didn’t like this track and it’s been confined to a lonely reel of tape from the early 90s until now. Damn you Rick Rubin…uh, wanna produce my next album? Let me call Steve Albini. We’ll do lunch.
Danzig decided to put 3 cover songs on the lost tracks collection. Being a big Marc Bolan fan, Danzig recorded his own version of T-Rex’s “Buick McKane.” Danzig has a way of making cover songs sound like his own. He turns David Bowie’s “Cat People” into a riff-heavy little bundle of evil. I’m playing this track at my next sacrifice for sure. The backup vocals have a menacing Gregorian chant-like feel to them that are perfect for bleeding something cuddly and furry. “Caught in my Eye” is a Germs cover found on disc 2. It’s a bit repetitive but it fits the image of Danzig as a predator, possibly a snake, slithering around looking for something to kill. Why not? When asked what he’d be doing if he had no talent at all, Danzig simply replies: “I’d probably be killing people.”
The Lost Tracks of Danzig is out now
