Cult-favorite ’80s synthpunk group Damage release new (and old) music, play reunion show

This week’s column is a deep, winding dive into Orlando music history. Let’s begin with Damage, a local synth-punk group that wasn’t just notable in the 1980s but also notably progressive. Well, Damage are back in manifold ways.

First, they’re both re-releasing their 1986 debut album and unveiling a brand-new album. Synthology, Damage’s maiden LP, was originally released on Space Fish Records (a label affiliated with Club Space Fish, the fabled Parramore alternative nightclub that lives in glorious infamy for a 1991 show at which the supremely degenerate GG Allin was arrested for doing exactly what he was famous for).

Now, thanks to the care and persistence of Orlando Punk Archive, the obscure 1986 gem is seeing digital release for the first time ever on Bandcamp as a name-your-price download.

Recorded at a promising time when Damage were beginning to tour regionally and play alongside legends like Adrenalin O.D., Dead Kennedys, Battalion of Saints and SNFU, Synthology is a bit of both Orlando music history and ground-breaking punk. Punk rock and synthesizers are so historically divergent as to be almost mutually exclusive, especially in the 1980s.

But Damage dared to break and blur those boundaries with, in the words of founding member Mike Brown, “the audacity — stupidity? — to play hardcore punk rock on keytar synths, and we did that shit in front of skinheads, metalheads and punks.”

With Synthology, Damage achieved punk intensity with fresh dimension and no guitars. Like hardcore’s answer to Suicide, it was a novel sound simultaneously primitive and forward.

Damage aren’t just back retrospectively; they’re also emerging from their 30-year hibernation with an all-new, even more synth-forward album. The Modern World LP releases Saturday, May 10 on both streaming platforms and limited-edition vinyl. That same night, Damage will be doing a special reunion performance and album release celebration in Orlando.

Although core members Mike Brown and Joe Livingston no longer live here, Brown is resolute when he says, “Damage is a Florida band. We all reside in NYC now, but our roots are in the Orlando, Florida, music scene and as they say, ‘You can take the band out of Florida, but you can’t take the Florida out of the band.” So they’re returning to their original roots here as headlining guests of the big Dave Gage tribute night this weekend, an event that’s yet another rabbit hole of Orlando music history itself.

Dave Gage was a key and active figure in the Orlando music scene since the early 1980s in bands like Disco Biscuit, Dope and Bloody Mary. He passed away in 2014 from melanoma (fuck cancer). Damage’s Brown and Livingston were close friends and bandmates of Gage in the original lineup of Disco Biscuit.

Regarding Dave Gage’s work in particular, music from his various bands is currently being compiled and released anew on Bandcamp. Gage will be commemorated this weekend with a big showcase featuring many of his friends, which include Damage, Macaluso Schumann Trio, Deficit of Dreams, Curtains and The Chotchkies. (7 p.m. Saturday, May 10, Will’s Pub, $10)

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This article appears in May 7-13, 2025.