The Misfits

Say what you will about the controversial decision of Misfits bassist (and bankroller) Jerry Only to resurrect the band without its mastermind, New Jersey's self-styled Prince of Darkness, frontman Glenn Danzig. The move saved one of punk's great catalogs from gathering dust on the shelf.

After a decade-long legal battle for the rights to the name and material, Only led a spirited new group through 1997's improbably kick-ass American Psycho LP, 20 years after the Misfits' inception. When the dreadfully mixed results of 1999's Famous Monsters album and tour fragmented the lineup of a band already notoriously subject to personnel fluctuations, Only nearly gave up the ghost. The buff bassist was planning a 25th anniversary of punk tour with Joey Ramone when the punk icon died. Only took the loss as a challenge to see the project through, recruiting recent Rock Hall inductee Marky Ramone on drums and former Black Flag singer-guitarist Dez Cadena on six-string, and assuming vocal duties for last year's M25 tour, a roving punk rock Woodstock that featured 48 songs from the Misfits, Black Flag, and Ramones in a 90-minute blitzkrieg set. That same undead trio will bring the Misfits' classic, full-throttle, '50s-inflected autumn anthems to Cleveland. They walk among us still.