The Damned Horoscope
People are surprised to hear that a band can have a birth horoscope, but of course a group like The Damned came into the world just like a person… Albeit an eccentric English person who is half punk, half Goth. And a person who has has so far refused to retire. Listen to the podcast here.
Does this punk energy, but also this Gothic darkness, show in the chart for The Damned? If we use the night of Saturday 3rd April 1976 at The Nashville Rooms in London for the real start of the group, when Rat Scabies, Brian James and Captain Sensible found Dave Vanian – yes it does.
The Arrival of Dave Vanian
Brian James, composer of the classics to come, New Rose and Neat, Neat, Neat was first struck by Sid Vicious as a potential frontman, that night. But it was not to be. The astrological chart for that night (when The Damned was arguably born) has a heavily fated quality. It’s the sort of horoscope where a few minutes can dictate what happens for decades…
Sid Vicious and Dave Vanian
The gig that night in April 1976 featured The Sex Pistols and Joe Strummer’s 101ers, the core of The Clash. On the night, based on looks alone, both Sid Vicious and Dave Vanian were asked to audition as lead singers by Scabies and James, for The Damned.
The next day, Sid Vicious failed to show and Vanian got the job.
We could use 10.00pm on 3rd April 1976 and get a likely chart for The Damned. Perhaps that was when talk flowed. Certainly beer would have done.
In John Robb’s Punk Rock Oral History, Brian James explains the name, The Damned.
“It came from a Visconti film called The Damned. Dirk Bogarde was in it. I liked it because of the decadent thing and there were a couple of British black and white Village of the Damned and Children of the Damned films…”
The band’s chart shows a Scorpio Ascendant, if we use 10.00pm with Uranus in Scorpio and the North Node in Scorpio too. There is an exact aspect from Pluto the ruler of Scorpio at 10 degrees to the Ascendant at 10 degrees Scorpio. As a film, The Damned was X rated for its sexual content. Every single Scorpio factor in The Damned’s chart is in exact aspect to something else. It’s triggered for Scorpio.
The Money in Punk Rock
The Nashville, on the corner of Cromwell Road and North End Road, near West Kensington tube station, charged music fans (including four future Damned members) a mere 50 pence admission to see Joe Strummer and John Lydon on 3rd April 1976.
Today punk rock in all its forms through rare memorabilia and ongoing album sales is worth a lot of money.
One of the striking patterns in the chart for the birth of The Damned that night, is the oppositions between Taurus and Scorpio. My money and our money. My money and their money. Rich and poor. Skint and squillionaires.
This is the 50p ticket, then, to a much, much richer future for The Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned.
Punk rock came from the council estates and squats of London, or from suburban parental homes (being rent-free) and ended up being a big business. This big business is still selling to teenagers who weren’t even born, nearly fifty years later – as The Damned go on tour in 2024 following the release of the number one UK rock and metal album, the excellent Darkadelic, in 2023.
A crumpled, folded promotional poster from Stiff Records for a series of four 1977 Damned gigs on July 3rd to 6th is now $1691. Admission on the night was a mere pound. That’s classic Taurus and Scorpio and it’s across that chart. The Damned had nothing – and had the potential to get the lot.
The Damned and T.Rex
Even more striking, given the heavily Taurus-Scorpio nature of this chart, a poster for a humble Monday night gig on 14th March at 7.30pm with The Damned and T.Rex at Bristol Colston Hall is now asking a staggering $198,876,39.00.
I asked the affable Dave Vanian in the latest episode of Long Way To The Top, if he’d kept all the posters and fliers since the 1970s and he said he’d not had the storage space. The astrological chart suggests it might have been an idea to get a shipping container somewhere in the summer of 1976 for all those future collectors’ items.
If the band, The Damned, was a person, the big Taurus and Scorpio patterns in the chart would immediately make an astrologer think of an antiquarian worth a fortune (but one who refused to sell what mattered). There is a touch of that in the group. And of course, Captain Sensible (his chart is at the end of this article) has Vesta, the Sun, Cupido and Venus in Taurus. He’s funny. And funny is money. Something else the chart shows? The IC or Immum Coeli in Aquarius. This band came up from British group roots of the Fifties and Sixties.
Hades and Pluto
The Scorpio stellium in the band’s chart in the Eighth House, ruled by Pluto, fits The Damned well for other reasons. It’s the area of the astrological chart associated with the Underworld. Hades. The realm of the dead, or shades. If you didn’t know better, you’d guess Vanian was a Scorpio or the band itself. It’s the Goth sign. What we actually have here, are a couple of horoscopes which show that sign absolutely dominating.
Dave Vanian and the band recently staged Night Of A Thousand Vampires at the London Palladium. This shot of Vanian in a coffin was taken during a show with the Texas Chainsaw Travelling Horror Picture Show.
Getty Images/Marc Brouselly/Redferns.
Sleeping In A Coffin?
‘People always ask me if I sleep in a coffin,’ Dave said, when I asked him about it in the podcast. His punk rock middle finger gesture says it all, though. He’s the Goth with the punk philosophy. And The Damned have always had a sense of humour. Unlike other punks of the 1970’s they never took themselves seriously.
Vanian is a Sun Libra gentleman, as was Marc Bolan, who played such a huge part in the band’s early rise.
There is no birth time for Vanian, but he was born on 12th October 1956 in Hemel Hempstead, where he would later work as a gravedigger. In fact, he was offered the management of three cemeteries in Hemel Hempstead, which he turned down, to become The Damned’s lead singer. He explained to me that they’d offered him quite a tempting package – but the band called.
You’d expect to see fated connections with the astrology chart for the birth of The Damned, but also with the remaining touring members, Scabies and Sensible. They do all in fact, line up.
The 29 Degree Connection
The Damned as a band, was born with the Moon at 29 Taurus.
Vanian was born with the South Node at 29 Taurus. He knew the band in a past life and he was owed money by its members, according to that.
In this life, he collects the karmic debts in real money. His North Node is at 29 Scorpio.
Sensible has Proserpina at 29 Pisces. His feminine side meets Vanian’s very well (his tutu was legendary). Sensible’s Proserpina trines Vanian’s North Node, perfectly.
Proserpina was Pluto’s bride, as you may know. She was married in Hades and became Queen of the Underworld. Tutu much?
The Rat Scabies Grand Trine
The star drummer, Leo Rat Scabies (above, second from right) has Mercury at 29 Cancer.
This is a Grand Trine between the three core original touring members. It’s what every band wants. It also explains why these three have pyramid power, the trine being that rare pyramid shape in a chart. So many people wrote The Damned off decades ago, but here they are in 2024 at number one and still big in Japan. Every band has a ‘birth’ chart when the core members met for the first time, and something sparked. These dates with fate not only show what was going on, at the time of meeting (The Damned chart with all that Aries shows the aggression in the air in April 1976) – but the future to come.
The Family Feel and Partnership
Vanian’s North Node at 29 Scorpio, Sensible’s Proserpina at 29 Pisces and Scabies’ Mercury at 29 Cancer is stunning.
If it feels like a dysfunctional family that’s because it is, though. The trine begins in Scabies’ Fourth House of relatives.
Incredibly, Brian James (no longer touring with them, but at the heart of the original band with its two massive hits, New Rose and Neat, Neat, Neat) was also born with the Sun at 29 Aquarius. This is an aligned bunch of people, for better or worse. Fated, you might say.
That Vanian and Sensible Marriage
Speaking to GQ, Vanian was asked if he had two marriages to maintain (as well as the real marriage to his wife) because of Captain Sensible. Laughing, he said, ‘I suppose being in a band is a bit like a marriage.’
When I asked Vanian if it was true that he’d once refused to put out a fire starting in Sensible’s fluffy jumper because it would be a good waste of beer, he confessed immediately, “Yes.” And yet like a lot of rock couples, they stay together.
Sid Vicious and Destiny
Rat Scabies remembers meeting Dave Vanian through Malcolm McLaren. When Sid Vicious walked into The Nashville that early April night in 1976, Scabies recalls thinking Vicious looked good in his gold lame jacket.
He recounts, “Then quarter of an hour later Dave Letts (Vanian) walks in and Brian said, ‘There’s another one.’
The die was cast. Both were asked, one chose the crossroads marked The Damned.
With Sid’s absence at the church hall on Lisson Grove for the subsequent audition, Vanian got the job straight away and Vicious took what turned out to be a powerful, tragic, short lived road to the top. And down.
If you are wondering if the Vicious natal chart also lines up at 29 degrees, incredibly, it does. He was born with Panacea at 29 Virgo (Data: Astro.com).
Vanian remembers (talking to Kieron Tyler for his biography, Smashing It Up) that he was asked to sing Iggy Pop numbers. The natal chart below, also sings.
Vanian’s Forks In The Road
Vanian’s forks in the road have been quite extreme. He was born David Lett, changing his name to Vanian inspired by the word Transylvanian, early on.
“I was told at one point, at a meeting with the school careers officer, the only thing you’re fit for is working in a factory,” he remembers. Some prediction.
His chart shows an incredible capacity for hard work and it is this meticulous, heavily Virgo attention to detail and capacity for perfectionism that has helped him front one of the world’s most successful bands.
Vanian’s look in 1976 onwards, came from Thirties movie stars with black eyes and white faces (so they could be seen on screen in black and white films) but also his interest in Dracula. Without a time, we can’t find an Ascendant or Rising Sign, but in later life he has become the very picture of a man with six Virgo factors. Perfectly suited. Booted.
The North Node and Bacchus
It’s amazing how one aspect in Vanian’s chart dominates and that’s the North Node at 29 Scorpio in a conjunction with Bacchus at 28 Scorpio. This is of course the sign that rules sex, death and money. Bacchus was actually found in 1977 itself, the year punk rock broke.
Bacchus is a symbol of pleasure, given and received. Bacchanalia in fact. Next to the North Node of karma, Vanian has enjoyed this rock’n’roll lifestyle before. In what era of history we don’t know, but it’s past life stuff.
Masters of the Backside
Dave Vanian also spent time in a band called Masters Of The Backside with Chrissy Hynde before The Damned was born, as part of Malcolm McLaren’s Sex Pistols world. As many astrologers will tell you, it’s quite true that you won’t go far in life with a Scorpio conjunction without (in fact) mastering the backside.
Even in the Middle Ages the scorpion was drawn on bodies, as Scorpio, firmly facing behind. And of course Scorpio rules sex, full stop. The Damned came into being with Uranus in Scorpio.
When the band eventually played with the Sex Pistols on July 6th 1976, 100 Club manager Ron Watts introduced them this way: “Alright you cocksuckers, you’d better get your ears pinned back.” (recounted in the biography, Smashing It Up).
Destiny Dates and The Damned
As fast twists of fate have governed the destiny of The Damned, I asked Vanian about the first single in Long Way To The Top.
He agreed that the choice of the A side for the first single (New Rose) by the band, against the wishes of Captain Sensible (who wanted I Fall) was another important twist in the tale.
Perhaps in a parallel universe on the flipside somewhere, New Rose was never an A side, never a hit and The Damned never became the massive, ongoing, rolling success they are in 2024. Maybe on the flipside, Vicious became the singer and is still alive today.
It’s from such odd crossroads in the horoscope and in life that the mysteries come.
Libra the Sign of the Scales
Vanian’s fellow Libran, Marc Bolan, reviewed New Rose at Melody Maker and was invited by Caroline Coon (the woman who invented the term punk rock in England) to offer his thoughts.
Bolan simply called it ‘dynamite’.
Libra is the sign of the gentleman and I asked Dave Vanian if he thought Marc Bolan qualified. ‘Oh yes,’ he said, without hesitation. Even on a fragrant 1970’s tour bus, shared by both The Damned and T.Rex.
In fact, it was the tragic passing of Bolan which inspired Captain Sensible to compose the exquisite ‘Part One’ of Smash It Up, guided by a riff from Scabies.
The Damned were invited to Marc’s funeral and went in a Bentley.
Partnerships and Libra Factors
Going back to Vanian’s chart for a moment, you can see the Libra parallels with Bolan. This is the sign of the duet.
Marc had a partnership with Mickey Finn, his percussionist (bongocero or bongo player) and his side man too. Vanian has Sensible for completely different reasons. Vanian is the Goth half of The Damned. Sensible, still the punk.
Heavily Libran people do best with a partner; someone to balance the scales.
Vanian is married to Patricia Morrison, the ravishing and talented bass player, singer and songwriter who has not only played with The Damned but also with Sisters of Mercy and The Gun Club. Yet, he also has a rock’n’roll marriage with Sensible, who clearly still amuses him.
The Damned: A Very Aries Band
Bands really do project their Sun signs.
Aries is the first sign of the zodiac and rules the First House of the natural horoscope. The Damned born in early April, were the first punk band to release a single: New Rose, produced by Nick Lowe. It begins with a bang; a famous Rat Scabies headfirst crash into the new punk rock.
Vanian recalls (in the Barry Hutchison Damned biography) “The whole time was fuelled by cheap speed so everything was a race!” This is quite characteristic of Aries, who pushes and thrusts to be first. The drugs at the time happened to suit an Aries outfit like The Damned.
The band was also dogged by violence. Aries, ruled by Mars the god of war, does have a reputation for that.
In the Hutchison biography, Sensible recalls, “Sometimes we’d just hide in the dressing room under the tables with all the lights switched off and we could hear these people milling around, going “Where are they?” ready for a fight.
Sensible remembers fighting Sid Vicious at The Roxy; “The audience would try to beat the shit out of the bands.”
Taurus and Scorpio and The Damned
Most of all, though, when you look at the chart for The Damned, born when Vanian walked into the Nashville on Saturday night, 3rd April 1976, you see two things.
Taurus is one of them (and that’s Captain Sensible’s own sign, as well as the Sun sign of the late Sid Vicious) and Scorpio is the other. One is about the refusal to sell out. That’s Taurus. The other is about sex, power and money. That’s Scorpio. Put them together and it’s somewhere between Sensible’s happily obscene cult anthem Jet Boy Jet Girl to the seductive Goth passion of Eloise.
*The full Dave Vanian interview is in the cult podcast Long Way to the Top with Shayne Brian. Fellow punks Glen Matlock and Hugh Cornwell are also on podcast episodes.
Buy tickets for The Damned in Australia in March 2024
March 20th Brisbane : The Tivoli
March 21st Sydney: Enmore Theatre
March 22nd Melbourne: Northcote Theatre
March 24th: Adelaide, Hindley St Music Hall
March 26th: Perth, Astor Theatre
All charts: AstroGold Software. Main image; Jorgen Angel/Getty Images
20 Responses
Punks – the antithesis of the peace loving hippie generation of the era before,my era, ( Neptune in Libra). I lived in London in the 70’s and watched the scene change, different clubs springing up and a new generation of snarling, harsher, safety pinned kids on parade! The era of the skinheads as well. When you’re in your early twenties and a new scene springs up you realise that the times they are a changin’ and youth doesn’t last forever!
I am a huge Damned and Gun Club fan…. And I can now see astrologically why! I have lots at 28 and 29 degrees… inc Scorpio and Taurus. A great read, thank you!
Fancy that. Your chart lines up with Dave Vanian and The Damned. I love them too.
Thanks so much for this insight Jessica! Was a huge Damned fan and when I moved to London aged 17 I found Dave lived in our road next to our pub. I stood behind him in the dole queue & went to the same launderette as the Captain. I relayed all this to him after bumping into him at a record signing in Sydney in the mid 80s and we had a good giggle about it. Have seen them so many times and they never waiver. My brother is going to their final Oz tour (went last year too) but sadly I can’t get there (been having a few health problems) but I have lots of lovely Damned memories to sustain me. I find it so funny now how all that outrage and disgust at the shift in the music of the mid to late 70s has gone. The world changed and last week I heard The Clash in Woollies in Bondi. Punk is still a state of mind even for us middle aged. Thanks for all your work Jessica. Always a joy to read your insights.
Jules x
This is good intelligence, Jules. I bet you wish you’d had a camera in the laundrette with Sensible. It’s always nice to meet other Damned fans, even online. Punk is still so important because it proved that you did not need money or a middle-class or upper-class background to be incredibly successful. All you needed was talent, imagination, creativity and courage. Dave Vanian said his mother appreciated that. They were as wild as the Fauves and true punks made great art!
Thank you for this Jessica. The loudest gig I ever went to was one of The Damned’s – my ears rang for days! For those who aren’t familiar with this fantastic band, check out some of the videos of their 40th anniversary gig at the Albert Hall on Youtube. What a night! My tickets are already booked for two of their gigs this year, here in the UK.
I have Jupiter in Cancer at 29 degrees. Thanks again Jessica
Well, I never. You also have a 29 degree chart placement. I am beginning to wonder about bands (and people) with 29 degree patterns. Because it’s the end of one sign and the near-start of the next one, it may show up as transformation, rebirth, reincarnation, ‘born again’ reappearances and revivals. Not just once, but many times. The Damned are obviously a stunning example of that. Vicious, even after his passing, has been reincarnated so many times on film. Perhaps you also have a history of reinventing yourself? I expect you’d get on very well with The Damned if you ever ran into them!
Fascinating synastry case study! I so enjoyed reading about how the astrology plays out within individuals and the dynamics among them. I’m especially curious about the examples of Vanian’s, the band’s, and Sensible’s 29 degree connection. Could you please explain more about the nodes and karma between people/groups when there’s a shared degree? Thanks so much, Jessica!
Thank you. I enjoyed talking to Dave Vanian. A shared degree can mean that ‘minutes decides decades’ which happened to The Damned and Sid Vicious. That night the planets in their courses timed a situation where Rat Scabies and Brian James settled on Dave Vanian as their future singer, having already decided Captain Sensible would play bass. Vicious was the other choice but failed to turn up for the audition. When you have colleagues, friends, partners, family members who share a degree with you, it is usually the case that a twist of fate can put you all on one fork of the road, or the other, for years. I’ve not looked at Marc Bolan, but he has an A-rated chart and was born on 30th September 1947 at 12.30pm in London, giving him (you guessed it) Mars at 29 Cancer and Bacchus at 29 Sagittarius. So he’s pulled into The Damned and their destiny. In your own chart, you have the Sun, Descendant and Bacchus all at 22 degrees, so people who have 22 degree placements will also be part of your fate and fortune. And it can take minutes. To this day, Smash It Up (Part One) is Sensible’s exquisite homage to Bolan.
Thank You, Jessica!
What the stars seys about Kate Middleton and her illness?
The Princess of Wales let the world know she had been admitted to hospital for abdominal surgery. She really is entitled to a private life, but her natal chart and solar chart both suggest there is an important story here about her children, the line of succession and her mother, as well as her late mother-in-law, Diana, the Princess of Wales before her. It takes all year to reconcile.
That brought back happy memories with the clip on YouTube . Wasn’t into punk at first more heavy rock but then Clash & Damned arrived. Marc Bolan was brilliant too. Very interesting to read the astrology background. Thank you Jessica
Thank you!
Thank you for responding Jessica. It’s never occurred to me before but maybe I have, unknowingly, reinvented myself down the years. I’ve had three completely different areas of work during my adult life – all absolutely fulfilling. Maybe that counts as reinvention. Fascinating. Thank you Jessica.
I feel very protective of Catherine and William. What’s happening at the moment with the media is disgraceful. I have to ask though…do the stars say anything about George? I’m no professional but I’ve always had doubts about him being King one day, be it illness or simply not wanting the role. Charlotte, however, has always stood out as being something very special. Thoughts?
There is certainly loyalty and compassion in spades for the Prince and Princess of Wales. These things run deep. And yet the awkward truth is, these people have the power to collaborate in the dismissal of a Prime Minister (Australia, 1975) and are enormously wealthy and influential. Doctoring photographs and in a peculiar fashion (the youngest child’s missing finger) rings alarm bells as does a Mother’s Day portrait where the mother in question takes off her wedding ring, engagement ring and the gift ring, given to her near the time of the birth of the future king. The children are so young that looking at their natal charts is not appropriate. There is a major issue about freedom, autonomy, space and independence for Princess Catherine (Kate) with motherhood, either because she wants to break away from it all, or because it is becoming clear that others do – maybe her husband – maybe the young heirs themselves. You can’t really stop that on this Uranus in Taurus cycle and it’s with her in 2024, 2025, 2026. Something really has to shift.
thank you Jessica! If I may ask you for more insight regarding shared degrees and nodal/karmic ones specifically. My husband (Sun 10 Libra) has his moon at 22 Capricorn as well as Ceres at 22 Pisces. My older daughter – whose birthday is June 22 – has her Mercury at 22 Gemini. My North Node is 23 Aquarius and my younger daughter’s sun is exactly the same, at 23 Aquarius and my older daughter has Lilith at 23 Aquarius too. My husband is not my daughters’ father but he is a loving, stable, supportive, thoroughly decent step-father and partner (unlike their biological father…). Major synastry here among us, entwined fate and fortune…would so appreciate your thoughts on what specifically we karmically owe or are owed each other in this lifetime. Sometimes in fulfilling our “roles” in (a) life, it feels like in doing so much to/with/for another, we lose sight of what we really, really need to be doing, what is most meaningful soul-to-soul, lifetime-to-lifetime….
The line-up at 22/23 is important, though in modern astrology we don’t use Lilith as she’s not part of the Roman/Latin family tree of astrology. Your South Node at 23 Leo is the karmic connection as it falls in your Fifth House of parenthood. Typically you know the baby even at birth – there is recognition on a soul level. The karma is something only you can judge but every time a slow-moving outer planet or one of the nodes, themselves, moves across 22/23 you will find it comes back. Your next call is Jupiter at 22, 23 Gemini over your daughter’s Mercury which will also aspect the other charts too. So that’s May 2025.
So interesting, Jessica – thank you for this piece!
A man I dated just after my divorce let me look into his chart (we were sort of each other’s rebound person – worked together too years ago and are now good friends) – and lo and behold, loads of interesting conjunctions. I try to make sense of it; what especially caught my eye was my nodes (NN 17 Libra, SN 17 Aries) conjunct his Chiron @ 17 Aries, Saturn @ 17 Gemini and Ceres @ 17 Virgo. His nodes are NN 25 Capricorn and SN 25 Cancer – conjunct my Cupido @ 25 Taurus. We both have Psyche @ 22 Virgo, exactly! Both Leo Suns, 9 and 10 degrees respectively. Other stuff going on too – but I think these are the highlights. I wonder what it all means?.. Thank you so much in advance. I am becoming such an astrology nerd and loving it.
Conjunctions are where two lovers, partners or dates meet in the middle. The Vesica Piscis is a shape in sacred geometry which shows where two round horoscopes cross over and create a mutual space. It’s very interesting and I’ve not though about it for years, but essentially the shared ‘room’ between you is bound by the signs of two conjunctions. So you have one at 17 Aries (your South Node, his Chiron) and a second one at Psyche 22 Virgo. There is a mutual and communal meeting of minds and souls, around Aries and Virgo. So, self-promotion, flying the flag for something (or someone), being one’s own brand, using appearances, reputation and title to do the work – and very much with Virgo, jobs, unpaid jobs or academia. Virgo is also associated with health and fitness and Aries is of course the body type and shape, so I don’t know if you met at the pool or gym, but there is obviously a Vesica Piscis space where you cross over, into yoga, Pilates, running, vegetarianism, raw food and anything else that is about the mirror/body.