The news that Cramps frontman Lux Interior is dead at the age of 60 (or 62—reports vary) of a pre-existing heart condition, is a serious blow to anyone who has followed the band from its inception in 1976 through recent incarnations. The Cramps were a throwback to the grindhouse days, when the lurid and suggestive were more than enough to entice and hypnotize an audience.

The first time I saw the Cramps was 1979, at Chicago’s Aragon Ballroom. They were first on a triple bill, followed by a power pop new wave band called The A’s and finally headliners Talking Heads, touring behind their Fear of Music album. My friends and I drove into the city for the show, all expectant of an excellent show by David Byrne and company, having eagerly devoured the Brian Eno-produced album that featured the ‘hit’ single ‘War During Lifetime.’ Nothing, but nothing could have prepared us for the arrival onstage of the Cramps. They were far away in the cavernous space of the Aragon, but there was no mistaking the primitive rockabilly crack of Nick Knox’s drums, the oozing primordial garage riffs of guitarist Poison Ivy Rorschach, the screeching feedback of Brian Gregory’s other guitar as something strange and wonderful. But it was all nothing compared to the manic energy of the group’s frontman, one Lux Interior. This crazed vision in tight black pants and a t-shirt leaped and capered around the cage, hiccupping and heavy breathing into the microphone, taunting the audience and the band, clawing at the stage curtains, which he managed to climb to a level several feet off the ground. The audience, including my friends, were completely taken aback, and, to a large extent, completely alienated. Some rolls of toilet paper actually bounced off the stage curtain and around the stage. Needless to say, the Talking Heads audience was, for the most part, not the Cramps audience. The Heads were great that night, but really it barely registered. I was completely smitten by the Cramps, and I would never be the same.

I haunted the local record stores until I turned up a copy of the group’s first recording, an EP entitled Gravest Hits. Consisting of a mere five tracks, it emphasized the group’s rockabilly roots. The leadoff song, “Human Fly” also gave an indication of the late night sci-fi B-movie influence that would be in stronger evidence on the group’s subsequent recordings. “I got 96 tears in 96 eyes” Lux intoned, and those who ‘got it’ thanked God that the Cramps, the band we had always imagined in our wildest trash rock fantasies, actually existed. The classic “The Way I Walk” and the Sam Phillips-penned “Domino” rounded out side one. Side two consisted of the Trashmen classic “Surfin’ Bird” in which Ivy and Brian Gregory whipped up an adrenal frenzy of guitar noise while Lux made every sound, human and not so human, that he could with his mouth, his vocal cords, and the microphone. Lux recognized that as the vocalist, the microphone was truly his instrument, and the way that he wielded it was evidence of his virtuosity. At times he would practically inhale it, while at others he would thrust it down his pants. The side, and the EP, concluded with a haunting rendition of the Thomas Baker-Knight ballad “Lonely Town,” originally recorded by Ricky Nelson. It is perhaps the closest thing to a ‘serious’ Cramps performance you’ll ever hear. “Going down to lonesome town” sobs Lux, “where the broken hearts stay…” Its’s a uniquely desperate and desolate moment in the group’s recorded history.

Gravest Hits was followed, quickly, by the band’s debut album, Songs the Lord Taught Us. Now the full glory of the Cramps’ many influences came much more sharply into focus. The opening song”TV Set” is a rant about cutting off someone’s head and putting in the TV set, or the Frigidaire. “Garbageman” infused the group’s rockabilly leaning s with a more hard edged punk sound,as did “what’s behind the Mask”, “Sunglasses after Dark,” and “Strychnine.” There was the surf rock of Dick Dale and the Ventures, the garage rock of the Standells and the Trashmen, and the emerging punk of the Ramones, the Damned, and the horrorshow rock of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. The list of groups that would not exist without Lux and the Cramps is too long to contemplate, but certainly would include The Birthday Party, the Gun Club, Spacemen 3, and The White Stripes.

With the next album, Psychedelic Jungle, the band replaced freaked out guitarist Brian Gregory with Kid Congo Powers, formerly of the Gun Club, and moved out to L.A. The new album replaced the claustrophobic Alex Chilton production of the EP and first album with a warmer, yet looser, sound that ultimately seemed to define the sound the group had been looking for. Powers took Gregory’s wall of noise approach and executed it with more precision, resulting in an increased lexicon of guitar sound. From here the group moved on to series of albums—Stay Sick, Flame Job, A Date With Elvis—that increasingly emphasized trashy Americana and sexual fetishism, and Lux increasingly (always, really) wore patent leather jumpsuits and high heeled pumps onstage, scaling the amplifier stacks and tottering around to the seeming consternation of Ivy.


The last time I saw the band was in July of 1996, when they played at Metro to celebrate the third anniversary of the fetish boutique House of Whacks, and they naturally emphasized the fetishitic parts of their catalog and Lux and Ivy both put on quite a show. In the words of ‘J. H. Sasfy, Professor of Rockology’ in the liner notes to Gravest Hits:

“ The CRAMPS dove into the deepest recesses of the rock’n’roll psyche for the most primal of all rhythmic impulses — rockabilly — the sound of southern culture falling apart in a blaze of shudders and hiccups. As late night sci-fi reruns colored the room, The CRAMPS also picked and chose amongst the psychotic debris of previous rock eras - instrumental rock, surf, psychedelia, and sixties punk. And then they added the junkiest element of all — themselves… The Cramps don't pummel and you won't pogo. They ooze, you'll throb."

We’re still throbbing.

Visit the Cramps Store

11:01 PM
Categories: garage rock, punk rock, tributes and obits. Author: Marshall

Martin Denny was, of course, one of the prime practitioners of the musical style that became known as exotica (sometimes lounge music). Exotica attempted to create a sense of the wild and exotic through the invocatiomuch imagined by the musicians.

This particular album was recorded for Liberty Records in 1959, just as Hawaii was about to become the fiftieth state in the United States. As a result of listeners' interest in the exotic sounds of the islands, Exotica became a very popular recording and began Denny's lengthy career playing this type of music. In addition, other musicians began to play and record a similar style of music, including two of Denny's vibes players--Arthur Lyman and Julius Wechter.


The album covers for Denny's recordings sought to visually portray the sense of seductive, alluring sensuality that his music suggested. The first dozen or so Denny albums all featured the same model, Sandy Warner, who came to be known as "The Exotic Girl." Ms. Warner was quite fetching, as you can see here, and seemed to possess the right features to convey nearly any visual concept. In Martin Denny's words:
“...we called one album with an African sound Afro-desia and...Sandy dyed her hair blond for the photo session; she's seen against a background of colorful African masks. When we did Hypnotique, which is surrealistic, she had dark hair. For Primitiva she was photographed standing waist-deep in water.”

Sandy actually made a record by the title of Steve Allen Presents Fair and Warner which is pretty rare today. It included tracks with titles like "The Girl With the Long Black Hair", "Sunshine Face", and "Mambo, Tango, Samba, Calypso, Cha Cha Blues", it sank without a trace. It did feature notes by Martin Denny, though he admitted in a 1993 interview that "I can't remember what I wrote". What he wrote (in part) was:

“In the person of Sandy Warner you will find a versatile and unusual combination of beauty and talent. She has graced the covers of all my "LIBERTY" albums as the "EXOTICA" girl. In fact, it was a standing gag among most D-J's that they were unaware there was a record in the album-liner until some time later. Sandra is a lot of woman and to top that has a warm and gracious personality. Her background in show business is most impressive. Not only has she appeared in several top Motion Picture Productions, but she is considered one of our top models and is also a talented dancer. For some time, she toured the nightclub circuit extensively with her twin sister -- Sonia. The girls toured with such notables as Danny Kaye, plus many other famous TV and Picture personalities.”

Believe it or not, Sandy had a twin sister by the name of Sonia, though I've never seen a photograph of Sonia. They reportedly had a nightclub act together for a time. Anyway, Sandy appeared in some B Films and in episodes of Perry Mason and The Fugitive. Truly a groovy chick and a groovy featured album cover.

1:15 AM
Categories: album covers, exotica. Author: Marshall

Ira and Charlie Louvin are links between so many worlds: the sepia-toned individualism of what Greil Marcus refers to as ‘The Old, Weird America,’ the traditional country music background of performers such as Johnny Cash, the bluegrass tradition—Ira and Charlie were considered one of the best bluegrass duos at a time when Bill Monroe was already an established star—and straight into the heart of rock and roll and pop music with the success of the Everly Brothers, who modeled their work on the Louvins’ ‘close harmonies.’ They began, and first gained recognition, as a gospel recording act, and they never completely abandoned that aspect of their work even as their star rose in the mainstream country music world.
The Louvins were Elvis Presley’s favorite gospel vocal group, and they were on tour with him when Ira, who had problems with temper and alcohol, berated Presley for playing black music, calling him a ‘white nigger’ and declaring that rock music was ‘trash.’ Yet the brothers recorded powerful bluegrass-instilled gospel music that served as the blueprint for the Everley Brothers sound and influenced several generations of country music-inspired singers and songwriters. Two of their albums stand out as especially influential: Tragic Songs of Life, recorded in 1956, and Satan is Real, recorded in 1959.

In 1955 the Louvin Brothers had a top ten hit with “When I Stop Dreaming,” the first in a line of secular hits. From ’55 to 1962 they had a dozen hits on the charts, including “Cash on the Barrelhead,” “You’re Running Wild,” “How’s the World Treating You,” and “Knoxville Girl.” Ira Louvin, however, had always wanted to be a preacher, and one suspects that he paid for selling his soul with these hardscrabble religious-themed albums, but the Louvins more than likely straddled this dichotomy without discomfort. Or rather in spite of the discomfort. In the time and place—the 1940s in northeastern Alabama—that the Louvins grew up, sin and religious faith walked hand in hand. The types of sins that the Louvins preach against are those that concerned the families and neighbors with whom they grew up: drinking, not believing, drinking, drinking and driving. But there are indications of a deeper darkness at work as well.

The Louvins begin Tragic Songs of Life with a song about the beauty of Kentucky country framed as the wish of a man that his remains be buried there. It’s indicative of their approach—there is great beauty in life, but never doubt that the judgment of either God or Satan is right around the corner. Nonetheless, it is the rare listener who will remain unaffected by this song. Later the duo covers one of the great mystery songs of all time, “In the Pines. ‘In the Pines” hints at all manner of darkness and even evil, presented by the brothers’ high, harmonious whine mimicking the ‘cold wind’ that blows through the pines. One imagines a place where the boughs of pine close in above the singer and no sunlight at all reaches the forest floor. It is here that the singer comes face to face with some deepest fear or darkest moment, like Luke Skywalker in the cave on Degobah encountering himself dressed in Darth Vader’s armor. The song touches the very heart of life and the very heart of death as well. Like “Mystery Train” “In the Pines” contains the image of a ghostly train that somehow transmigrates the planes of this world and a spiritual world that is out of reach. At times the train appears and carries someone from this plane to the other.

The two albums are really companion pieces. Tragic Songs of Life is about the mean, hard world that was completely real to the Louvins. The kind of world where bitter people cling to guns and, yes, religion. Satan Is Real is about redemption of sorts. It provides the template for perhaps confronting some of the situations found on Tragic Songs of Life. One of the things that is often said regarding John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost is that Satan is more vividly painted, more realistic, and ultimately more likeable than God and his angels. Indeed that is the topic of the song “Satan is Real” based on the true experience that Ira had, of attending a church where an elderly man got up and told the preacher to tell his congregation that Satan was just as real as God. It’s easy to hear a song like this as ironic, until one remembers that this kind of irony, so absurdly common in our time, was rare indeed in 1956. What makes Satan is Real really scary is that fact that Ira and Charlie are neither joking nor poking fun at anything.

Nonetheless, the album cover, a photograph of an actual set the brothers designed themselves, has become famous. The large plywood Satan in the background may appear cheesy, but the pile of kerosene-soaked rocks the brothers set afire for the photo nearly injured them when some of the rocks began to explode. Despite its primitive nature, the cover is truly haunting, and so is the music within.

The brothers split up their musical act in 1964, and the following year Ira was killed in an automobile accident in Williamsburg, Missouri.

12:44 AM
Categories: country, gospel. Author: Marshall