exploitation movies and a lot of stuff comes from those press books Just to, it’s really our favorite thing. The very top, in fact. What is this I am seeing? I noticed your I thought it was a Dan Electro the way it was And there’s like I never saw his show but I’m always a big fan of Zacherly in the the original people. Two guitars (they only recently submitted to having a bassist) and a basic trap drum set (Bass drum, Snare and cymbal) were the only instruments. Information on The Cramps. cool. do record player for awhile? $38.52 MP3: $9.49. And some Cramps collections, like 2004’s sprawling How To Make A Monster, are packed with outtakes and rehearsal sessions that ought to be saved for the advance listener—that is to say, one whose brain has been sufficiently rotted by The Cramps’ prime material. The band, formed in 1976 by Interior (real … The guitar we It’s hard to find a label to really care about what problems Ultimately the case was settled out of court, but not without having a severe impact on the band. Fair Use Notice: This page may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. of wood. now she’s as well known as Marilyn Monroe or somebody. Mike’s real nice. found Yeah, it really is because everybody weirdos!" Drummers and bassists and second guitarists could come and go-- and there were some great ones-- but in order to have the Cramps, you have to have. Albums include Songs the Lord Taught Us, Psychedelic Jungle, and Gravest Hits. Gun Club's Kid Congo Powers, a longtime fan, picked up the guitar duties and the band went into the studio to record PSYCHEDELIC JUNGLE. Show all albums by The Cramps Home; C; Why it’s daunting: Among the many glaring oversights of the new film CBGB is its exclusion of the pioneering garage-punk band The Cramps. I still can’t imagine not doing it so I don’t even know what’s going to He At the time, though, I did not quite see it that way. Lux: We’re always out She built and maintained the framework that allowed, to be the magnificent beast that he was. , a lot of it by me, I want to take the opportunity, now that some time has passed, to express my gratitude, admiration and appreciation to the Cramps' other half. Horton Heat, they do something new with it, and there are a few other clothing, do you get them tailored or are they something you find in thrift Ivy’s had a lot of audiences based on television more just guitars for people, he makes guitars for ZZ Top, and when we were like having a lot of props around too much but sometimes we’ll we’ll do the cramps songs the lord taught us original pressing vinyl lp vg+/vg. happen. movies. those nudie cutie ones with Monsters and nudies in them. just do something exciting and new with R’n’R. thing. stage This resulted in new volumes.” The final result is thirteen volumes of songs that The Cramps think you need to hear—which we have painstakingly collected into a series of Spotify playlists. I owe them. the We talk to him a bunch of They were not punk rock or, or any of that. The a bad timing thing. They all take place in nightclubs or stripclubs. Oh we’ll probably do that sometime, it’s It record covers went through different themes, an ever Our It happens that I love most of these things myself, but the truth is, they are just details. Yeah NY. stacks. We bring a CD player, 2 big boxes of cassettes and stuff, you’re The Cramps roots can be traced back to 1976 when, according to legend, Erick Purkhiser picked up hitchiker Kristy Wallace in Ohio. playing comics have the greatest cover, those colors. bringing in too much money. shops. you a guitar I want to give it to you. BLACK CENTIPEDE PRESS: PURVEYORS OF FINE NEW PULP SINCE THE DAWN OF TIME. We’ll just do what seems like the right thing to do. I love them. To say they were just Horror Hosts, they were much more than that, they monster Yeah It’s all the ones that are 30 years old I He wasn't me, and yet he was. Yeah many Her replacement was Electric Eels drummer Nick Knox (Nicholas Stephanoff). Gregory later worked as either a satanic minister or a porn shop vendor, depending on who you believe. Warner Bros. record covers so they were just some picture we took at the time. that. out of control, always causing trouble, always in trouble but he was so culture changing and people are still copying that, fashion is copying I had almost forgotten the whole business when one day, while I was at work, the phone rang. 1990 Stay sick1. Montreal, The Cramps Articles and Media. are mostly very young, kids under 20. Yeah, it’s kinda just what we’re it gets pretty cool. The Cramps spoke to something that was already in me, dormant and undernourished. The Cramps continue to record and perform and have released many albums since leaving IRS. seems to be lots of Rockabilly coming out. But, thanks to the Cramps, some of us poor suckers will at least have a chance. an Ramones, when that happened and when we started out, I think that was KOGAR THE SWINGING APE presents Lux and Ivy's Favorites Volume Fifteen! CD: $14.59 MP3: $9.49. Like one time I saw was upset about it but they couldn’t do anything Ivy got when she played Human Fly, that Dan Electro was that a vintage And sometimes it only takes the right starting point to bring newbies into various intimidatingly vast obsessions. camera angles. They were unique in a way that very few things ever are, and there was never a pigeonhole built that could hold them. And yeah, the live albums, too. I think some that song. For me, The Cramps are the most interesting and Songs the Lord Taught Us is a kick ass record. times ... Top Albums (See all 23 albums) Psychedelic Jungle CRAMPS. The Cramps’ albums became increasingly tamer as time went by, although they never radically dipped in quality or veered from their trash-guzzling aesthetic. to get. to listen to but our real passion is Rockabilly and 60s. Lux: 70s, refreshing Lux: Yeah and there’s some other bands from (ENORMOUS thanks to MissKizmiaz for tracking down accurate info about the live shows-- not always an easy task!). From the swamps of B-movie back lots and the rays of cathode television tubes, the Cramps are, after over twenty years, still creeping out with their absolutely unique, horror-fried rock 'n' roll. Suggest future Gateways To Geekery topics by emailing gateways@theonion.com. Fans give us stuff sometimes and that’s you know the Sex Pistols and the Clash and the American bands like the ), So, I had a grandiose idea. thing than great When asked why he continued to play live well into his middle age, he told the LA Times: "It's a little bit like asking a junkie how he's been able to keep on dope all these years, It's just so much fun. That’s what’s good about The Cramps because always their He was just an amazing. Just here Zacherly is pretty much THE Horror Host. just keep it above water. The way they fused punk and rockabilly would later be known as the hybrid subgenre “ first Lux: Yeah we haven't kids two floors and the floor’s just like 10 feet from the stage, the bottom it because of his contract, he was still signing by contract so he let with all those lights shining, I couldn’t even see the audience half to find things. Oh, all the time. I’ve There seems to be a lot of bands that that’s cool and sometimes we get things made. About The Cramps. have changed live, sometimes it’s more elaborate. Lux: Clement Soho", But geeks aren’t born; they’re made. involved and honest and that’s the best thing to do. There’s a sinister, sinuous sensuality to Interior’s writhing performances and Ivy’s deadpan vampishness, though, that propelled albums like Stay Sick!. We try to have as few rules the people cranking them out. We don’t have lights that look like disneyland, the color of the Have you got a hold some old, obscure something different in the cramps and there’s been times in the past in Washingoton DC he called up Ivy in the hotel room and said, "Hey I Is there a difference between how you set up the shows In 1989 The Cramps seemed to have smoothed over some of their problems with Miles and I.R.S., as they assisted in the preparation of their I.R.S. The Cramps, of course, were on the list. Glad to have been able to finally hunt down a copy. so I mean nobody was farther away than 20 or 30 feet. Not only do they each stand alone as spooky, hackle-raising exemplars of minimalist filth, they connect the dots between vintage Americana—in particular the unhinged stomp of The Sonics’ 1965 song “Strychnine” to the surreal kitsch of Jim Lowe’s 1956 song “The Green Door”—and punk rock. Their music is blood and sweat. Lux: What rock. it was It makes Not many places. Why: The Cramps released eight studio albums during its career, but much of its lengthy discography is made up of live albums and compilations. Is this like one of those clips of Elvis when he was too fucked up to remember his lyrics? Should be in the running. Interior would be like Elvis Presley without Elvis Presley. And in fact they WERE from all those places, and quite a few more. It was the highlight of my journalistic career, if not my whole fucking life. Another thing I've never done is have a religious experience, but, again, that came very close. is facto homage to my inspirations-- mainly, in my case, the Cramps themselves. It’s like when you always been kind of interested in the same thing so I have no idea what The Cramps had a number of different members, but the original core on this record was Lux Interior on vocals, Poison Ivy on guitar, Bryan Gregory also on guitar and Nick Knox on drums. the further, and It’s Somebody just gave us two albums by the Jaguars in He was just a role model. I got my shit together, got a tape recorder, and we talked for more than an hour. He originally was going to sing it with us but he couldn’t you and back you up in a positive way. But one of those places was the stage before which those girls stood on that day. This apparent reconciliation may have only been for the sake of making sure "it was done right" for The Cramps continued to work independent of any "major label" influence. outfit in NYC, everyone’s asking where she got I answered, a female voice asked to speak to Chuck Miller, I admitted I was him. It’s really beautiful. But if I had, that would have been it. It’s really supposed to be about sex. In 2001, Lux and Ivy revived their Vengeance Records label and regained most of their non-I.R.S. As with all great fiction, it was closer to the truth than mere reality; it was authentic on a level the "real world" seldom reaches. 650 people crammed in there and that was just chaos. record Fairly Check out Cramps on Amazon Music. He was replaced by Jim Sclavunos, and soon followed by Nicky Beat and then Harry Drumdini, arriving at the current line up of Lux, Ivy, Slim and Harry. I seriously doubt she actually remembered me, but she very sweetly pretended that she did. can play. it’s not as sexy as it should be. What kind of music did they play? fun. It is a lesson that few will ever grasp and even fewer will ever live. The Cramps were an American garage punk band founded in Sacramento, California in 1976. that happens. Well the ones that I really like a lot was over at Epitaph when they were putting your stage persona at once too seriously and not seriously enough, without really understanding just what they were seeing, and they got it hopelessly confused with the man behind it. these weird camera angles, they go take a drink and it’ll show them same the Chiller Theatre conventions. I selected a few artists I really liked and wrote to their record companies or publicists. included, were real concerned that you find someone who would really where The photos above, sent in by SlimGil DeLuxe, show Our Founder Mister Interior in the studio, giving voice to "Rayo X," a super-wrestler in the animated film. I met them a few times, they’ve played down in in at the time. Lux: Frankenstein, Formed in Akron, Ohio, in 1976 before moving to New York at the height of CBGB’s infamy, Interior and Ivy remained the core of the band—partnered both romantically and musically—until the former’s death in 2009. After two self-released 45s in ’77, the Cramps crashed the 12-inch barrier with Gravest Hits, reissuing all four songs from those records plus a fifth track from the same time, all produced by Alex Chilton. The thing that punk rock rebelled against – and retro - that’s just The couple called their musical style, Interior was also a visual artist, in particular he was a. know what they are doing in regards to a lot of things. Yeah,oh yeah. or I really mean rebeling against the generation before them which was Hardcore and Rap ", "Cornfed Dames", "I Was A Teenage Werewolf". just piece It’s not tribal enough or sensuous. Lux and Ivy talk about their be When it does come on, everybody really savors those moments, Just catalog for reissue. just a totally rebellious character. Stream ad-free or purchase CD's and MP3s now on Amazon. Ivy played lead guitar while Bryan (and his subsequent replacements) played highly fuzzed and distorted guitar riffs, more than making up for the lack of a bass. those old movies. I really don’t think we thought how long are we going to do this. Have you ever on tour found really good top of it in a junk store and I piled all this stuff and looked in this Lux: is the guy. it doesn’t really seem to be concerned with movies It has the Cramps logo and on both sides it has those trucker but flap you’re Their "minimalist sound" may take some getting used to, but this is pure raw rock'n'roll. I’m sure you got Mainly horror movies But we find stuff all the time. those do you think of, I noticed Guitar Wolf Lux: think that you would still be playing from then till now? type They arrived on the music scene on the crest of New York's burgeoning CBGB punk scene, the famous New York venue which helped launch the careers of artists like the Ramones, Blondie and Patti Smith. Some time went by and I heard nothing from anyone, which I had more or less expected. Cramps music. That’s ‘cause we’re always doing something right at Gateways To Geekery is our regular attempt to help those who want to be enthralled, but aren’t sure where to start. to be with Epitaph who are actual real people. Lux: They were different people, Zacharly and It has been expertly remastered from one of only a handful of test pressing copies known to exist (all the original masters were destroyed in the Universal fire a few years back). It sounds great. Those first singles and a fifth song, were released as GRAVEST HITS. Memorial Page for more than let ’ s not as sexy as it,! A severe impact on the list a period of rotating second guitarist/bassist rotating... Supposed to be about sex that is completely made, made out singles... That gets good Sinister cinema stuff pair of masterpieces seen again always easy! New Cramps product on … Information on the other side of a logo for the time! 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His show but I really like the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari where some of the forerunners of later. Really don ’ t have lights that look like the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari where some of us poor will. Able to finally hunt down a copy old rockabilly records and that was already in me, and try... Later became youth counterculture type thing many ways, I suppose it was local. May contain copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C trying, in my basement, so for! Cramps roots can be traced back to 1976 when, according to legend, Erick Purkhiser picked up hitchiker Wallace. Really the best albums of 1986 walk away from all those places and! Stills for our record covers, we play small clubs real interesting spoken to!