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Brian James, Founding Guitarist of Punk Greats the Damned, Dead at 70

Brian James, the founding guitarist for the Damned and writer of the first punk single, "New Rose," has died at the age of 70.

A lovely bloke that I feel so lucky to have met all those years ago and for some reason chose me to help in his quest for the music revolution that became known as punk. He went on to say that while the lyrics suggest “New Rose” was a kind of punk love song, that was never what he intended: “The rush of it — especially Rat Scabies’s drumming at the start and the opening riff — was like the heralding of a new era,” he said. After the Damned, James founded the short-lived group Tanz Der Youth, toured with Iggy Pop, and released two solo singles, “Ain’t That a Shame” and “Why?

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