Misfits
Static Age
Label: Caroline
Released: July 15, 1997

Glenn Danzig – vocals
Franché Coma – guitar
Jerry Only – bass guitar
Mr. Jim – drums

1. Static Age
2. TV Casualty
3. Some Kinda Hate
4. Last Caress
5. Return Of The Fly
6. Hybrid Moments
7. We Are 138
8. Teenagers From Mars
9. Come Back
10. Angelfuck
11. Hollywood Babylon
12. Attitude
13. Bullet
14. Theme For A Jackal
15. She
16. Spinal Remains
17. In The Doorway
18. Unlisted Track
19. Studio Screw Ups

As many of you know, this album was originally recorded in 1978 but not released until 1997. This delayed release has had a big impact on a few of the other Misfits CDs and could potentially cause some confusion for newer fans. If Static Age had been properly released in 1978 things would be a lot different. Let me try to explain:

The 1985 album “Legacy of Brutality” would basically not exist…NINE of those songs were Static Age material that were poorly remixed for “Legacy” Now that Static Age is out, I’m surprised that “Legacy” is even still in print.

Collection I featured a few more Static Age songs such as “Hollywood Babylon” “Bullet” and another duplicate of “She” These are suffer from an inferior remix, thou not as bad as “Legacy”

Collection II contains “We Are 138″ “Attitude” “Last Caress” and “Return of the Fly” which all sound almost identical to the Static Age versions except the noticeable reverb on “Last Caress”

Using these three compilations you can actually piece together “Static Age” and it would be virtually complete except for “Teenagers from Mars” (The version on Collection 1 is taken from the Horror Business 7″ and not Static Age sessions)

Now that Static Age is readily available, I question the necessity of those older CDs. [Although Collection 1 remains a popular "Best of" compilation with many people]

A Compilation CD of all their 7″ singles would be the perfect way to complement The Misfits three studio albums “Static Age” “Walk Among Us” and “Earth AD” Until then, you are going to be buying all these other compilation CDs and ending up with a lot of repeat songs.

If you get the chance, give it a listen.

Rating: ** * two out of three stars

On to the story . . .

Every once in a while, I’ll do a post where I mention my dad. I’ve always meant to write something lengthy about him. Something that served as a tribute to him. But as the years go by since his passing, I sort of freeze up every time I sit down to write about him, whether it’s good or bad memories.

I’ve mentioned my dad here and there, but nothing in depth, nothing like him warning me not to start any fights at a local Hell’s Angels rally, or him asking me to calm down after I started tossing bodies onto the hood of his car in order to protect him. Nope, too hard to go into.

Dad had a very sarcastic wit, sometimes a little dark. As kids whenever my brother or I saw something we liked, or wanted, and made the mistake of saying “I want that,” our dad would just smile and say, “Now you know what it is to want,” and he’d walk away. It wasn’t in our vocabulary, but more than likely we’d be saying in our head, “What a dick.” When he passed away in November of 2005, I bought a pair of dog tags, and on one it says, “Now you know what it is to want,” and on the other, his date of birth and the date he passed.

One of the thousands of stories that I could share about my dad is the one about his tattoo. My dad was still a student at Taft High School, and at the age of 16, he went to Hollywood, fake ID in hand and got a Chinese dragon tattooed on his right bicep. It was crawling down his arm, and the claws were inked in a way that it appeared as if they were digging into him and drawing blood. As kid I always loved this thing.

So in July of 2009, I went too my sister-in-law’s husband (he’s an insane tattoo artist) about doing some sort work as a tribute to my dad, I know, I know, every tattoo show is based on that concept. A guy walks in and says my mom died, and she liked the ocean, so I want a tattoo of a dolphin so that she’s always with me. It’s all bullshit. But I wanted to do something. So, I came up with the idea of getting his dragon tattooed on my back. Something small and hidden that I knew it was there, but not the world. So, I searched for months trying to find something similar to what my dad had done forty-three years earlier. I couldn’t find anything.

Then one day I’m thumbing through a book on old tattoo flash art, and I see a dragon almost identical to my dad’s. I make a copy sent it to David (my sister-in-law’s husband), and tell him I’m on my way over.

He sets me up in his tattoo chair, asks where I want it, and how big, I say: in between my shoulders, and about the size of a dollar bill. He then says “it’s too detailed to do small, it has to be big.” Uh oh, how big, he says at least ½ your back. Shit, I haven’t been tattooed since 1995, how am I going to hold up?

I didn’t, I damn near pussed out. Every 20 minutes I got up for a break. Whenever he would ink on my spine it would feel like I was getting drilled at the dentist. These electric shocks would shoot through my body. It took 2 and a half to three hours to complete. The last hour David refused to let me get up.

So, about 11:30 that night I was done. I was sore as shit, felt like I had come home from a blind date that had gone horribly wrong (or right for some of you).

As I came home I pulled off my shirt to show my wife, and she snapped this picture, in the picture you can still see some of the blood on my back. So, corny or not, I’ve got my own personal tribute to my dad on my back

LAST ONE TO DIE is officially out, order at: https://www.createspace.com/3669330.