Where: Cheese & Grain, Market Yard, Frome

When: Friday, June 5

Tickets: £20 from office@cheeseandgrain.com, 01373 455420/464666

WHETHER you remember punk from the first time round, or were born way after The Dammed first burst onto the scene but love the gothic scene, you're sure to find something to like in this gig, with the movement's founding fathers.

The English gothic punk band were formed in London in 1976 by lead vocalist Dave Vanian, guitarist Brian James, bassist (and later guitarist) Captain Sensible, and drummer Rat Scabies. They were the first punk rock band from the United Kingdom to release a single, New Rose (1976), release an album, Damned Damned Damned (1977), and tour the United States. They have had nine singles that charted on the UK Singles Chart Top 40.

The band briefly broke up after Music for Pleasure (1977), the follow-up to their debut album, was critically dismissed. They quickly re-formed without Brian James to release Machine Gun Etiquette (1979). By the 1980s, they evolved into one of the forerunners of the gothic rock genre. That decade they released four studio albums, The Black Album (1980), Strawberries (1982), Phantasmagoria (1985), and Anything (1986). The latter two albums did not feature Captain Sensible, who had left the band in 1984. In 1988, James and Sensible rejoined to play what was said to be The Damned's final live show, which was released the next year as the live album Final Damnation.

The Damned would again re-form for a tour in 1991. In 1995, they released a new album, Not of This Earth, which would be Scabies' last with the band. This was followed by Grave Disorder (2001), and So, Who's Paranoid? (2008).

The current formation of Vanian, Sensible, keyboardist Monty Oxymoron, drummer Pinch and bassist Stu West, have been together since 2004.