Nothing Says Merry Christmas Like the Misfits!

Nothing Says Merry Christmas Like the Misfits!

When I was in high school and pretty much everything 80’s metal was dying and grunge and alternative rock was rising.  Besides listening to a lot of Nirvana, for the first time in my life I started to explore punk and via my friends I was introduced to the Sex Pistols, Black Flag, and Rollins Band and I just loved punk, especially old school punk.  However, in 1993 for the first time in what seemed like a long time at age 16 (two years) MTV started to show a live video for “Mother” by Danzig.  It was a huge breath of fresh air to hear something on the radio and on MTV that actually resembled metal.

During my senior year of high school I bought Danzig 4 shortly after it came out and within three months I had all of their albums up to that point, with Danzig and Danzig 4 being my two favorites.  However, during this time I was reading a really good interview with Glenn Danzig where he was asked about his days in the Misfits.  It was literally not until this moment that I found out he was the singer and primary song writer for the Misfits.  Growing up I had always seen punk and goth kids wearing Misfits shirts and even the members of Metallica for that matter, but they got no airplay in Utah whatsoever and MTV never touched them to my knowledge.   Since I had really got into Danzig at this point I was extremely curios about the Misfits.  While at the same time Guns n’ Roses released The Spaghetti Incident and did an excellent cover of the Misfits song “Attitude” and was the very first Misfits song I ever heard.  Fortunately, around this time Collection 2 by the Misfits had just come out which I bought very quickly (“We Are 138”, “Children in Heat”, “Halloween” and “Nike A-Go-Go” ranked as my favorite tracks).

About a year later I would begin my LDS mission and my first proselyting area was the Highland Park section of Pittsburgh.  My second companion was Tyler from Layton, Utah.  When we first started serving together I had been out three months and he had been six months and in many respects we were both pretty green as far as missionary work was concerned, but Tyler and I hit it off and became friends very quickly.  On our first day together we were talking about music and we had a lot of bands in common and Tyler especially loved Nirvana, Nada Surf, Sunny Day Real Estate, Helmet, and Jars of Clay, but at the same time he had a soft spot for 80’s metal and punk.  He played me a cassette of a local ska band out of Erie, PA, that I cannot remember the name of anymore.  Much to my complete surprise as we listened to this tape out of nowhere this band did a ska cover of the Misfits “Return of the Fly”.  I was in complete shock to say the least.  At first I had feelings of white hot rage.  How dare this freaking band ruin an awesome Misfits song.  But the funny thing is after a few days I started to enjoy it.  “Return of the Fly” works surprisingly well as a ska song and I still think my apartment of Callowhill Street in Pittsburgh when I hear it.

Four months later I would be serving in Slippery Rock, PA.  At the time I was serving with Jeff from Sandy, UT.  I initially thought that because we were from the same hometown we’d get along great.  I found a way to make it work, but he was difficult to serve with.  However, the Lord works in mysterious ways, on the day Jeff arrived in Slippery Rock one of my best friends in the world, Brian from Eugene, OR, was transferred to Grove City, PA, and Brian and I hit it off instantly.  As my time in Slippery Rock progressed my friendship with Brian grew and became especially important to me because I just could not really stand my companion.

Brian and his companion in Grove City, PA, had become good friends with a family that lived up the street from them.  One of their daughters was going away for school and had a box of cassettes that she didn’t want anymore and they let Brian go through the cassettes and take whatever he wanted and Brian took a few good ones.  He noticed Collection 1 by the Misfits and although he had never heard of them, he looked at the cassette and figured that it might be something I would be into so he snagged it.  A few days later Brian gave it to me for Christmas 1996 and my jaw about dropped to the floor when I saw it!  At this point on my mission because I had to leave my massive music collection at home I had 12 CD’s, but no CD player, and my cassette collection consisted of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars By David Bowie, Music from the Elder by Kiss, Made in Europe by Deep Purple, Armed Forces by Elvis Costello, and The Best of ZZ Top.  Collection 1 by the Misfits was a way welcome addition to my missionary cassette collection.  As missionaries our correspondence was limited to exchanging snail mail letters to our friends and family back home and we were not allowed to telephone home except on Mother’s Day and Christmas under LDS missionary rules.  However, my companion did not feel that this rule applied to him and he called his friends back in Sandy, UT, almost every day of the week.  Every evening Jeff would take the phone into the bedroom, shut the door (he did not want me to know to whom he was calling and what he was talking about), and make his phone calls which would often go on until 2:00am and sometimes later.  I used to listen to Collection 1 by the Misfits sitting on the living room couch and reading and writing letters from home while Jeff was on the phone until heaven knows when.  The Misfits just sounded beyond awesome during my time in the Borough of Slippery Rock.  My friends and family have given me several awesome and memorable Christmas gifts over the years.  But to this day this is my favorite Christmas gift I have ever received.  It was honestly the last thing in the world I expected to receive as a gift (especially as a missionary) and to this day I still thank my buddy Brian for this cassette. 

One of my favorite memories recently with Collection 1 by the Misfits again happened with my buddy Brian.  Last April I flew to Eugene, OR, to visit Brian and his family.  Brian and I went to the Guitar Center in Eugene and I was jamming around and playing Brian a few songs on guitar.  I played him “Skulls” which is my favorite Misfits song ever.  However, just for the fun of it I thought to myself I wonder how “Skulls” would sound if I slowed it down a little bit and lo and behold, I figured out how to play “Prison Bound” by Social Distortion.  90% of the song is almost identical to “Skulls”; it just has a different strum, tempo, and a couple of quirks.  To me that is the beauty of what punk rock is all about.  Most of the songs are played with fairly basic chords, but the amount of creativity that comes from just sticking to the basics never ceases to amaze me.

When it’s all said and done the Misfits are viewed by many critics and music fans alike as the greatest underground/indie punk band in history.  Although they have never received any mainstream recognition whatsoever, the Misfits are still being discovered by many young music fans even today.  If you own only one Misfits album, make it this one.