The Doctors of Madness are the missing link between David Bowie and The Sex Pistols. Exploding onto the music scene in 1975 with their theatrical, William Burroughs-inspired Sci-fi nightmare, they were misunderstood by many, but those who knew understood the importance of the band's dangerous, uncompromising approach to lyrics, to music and to performance. Among the many fans of the band were acts as diverse as The Damned, Vic Reeves, Joy Division, Joe Elliott of Def Leppard, Spiritualized, Julian Cope, The Adverts, The Skids and Simple Minds.
The Sex Pistols supported them, so did The Jam. They were the first to combine the avant-garde approach of The Velvet Underground with a distinctly European aesthetic. The blue hair, exotic stage-names, the lyrical themes of urban decay, political propaganda, mind control and madness were all taken up by the punk bands who followed in their wake. The Doctors of Madness were trailblazers, pioneers, adventurerspushing the boundaries of rock music and theatre to see how far it would go before it bust. What happened after them was due, in no small part, to what they achieved in three short years. They may not have been Jesus Christ, but they were arguably John The Baptist!!!
Now, forty years later, they are back