tell me things about The Cramps (RIP Lux Interior)

this is one I hadn't seen, thanks!

full disclosure: link courtesy of Kind Congo Powers' twitterfeed

Lux & Ivy, 1972

http://www.oesquema.com.br/trabalhosujo/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/hippie-cramps-594x588.jpg

YES! Someone posted this photo on facebook a couple months ago, but when I went looking for it I couldn't find it. Thanks for doing the hard work, onimo!

Man, so cool. That clip right above it to. Thanks, I needed that.

lol awesome

kid congo powers is often working at the record store i frequent. he's really nice!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrbTkNwbUz8

In 1979, at Toronto's Edge club, Lux drank water from my shoe. It's true--took a while, but I think that's what eventually killed him.

that lux/ivy pic is very royal trux.

circle of life

The WFMU "Lux & Ivy's Favorites" comps that Kevin John Bozelka linked to upthread have provided a huge chunk of my listening over the past two years. I seriously cannot recommend them highly enough. L&I were always supremely knowledgeable about the obscurities they covered and the riffs they borrowed to create their own songs. This one was a revelation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQQm_LlUV7I

Never watched this show, but I know kids love it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvI64lIaQDc

Was going to post the RS cover here, but I see it's already on the Lorde thread. Anyway, there's a piece that goes with it:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/lordes-cramps-shirt-punkabilly-heroes-are-accidental-rs-cover-stars-20140115

(Can't remember if they were reviewed in RS at the time--my guess would be that Psychedelic Jungle was, but nothing earlier. It was the Creem review of Songs that first got me onto them (Robot A. Hull or J. Kordosh, I think).

I liked Robot A. Hull's writing.

I wonder what Ivy is doing these days. Kid Congo lives in DC and plays in a band and djs around time once in awhile

Kid Congo's actually going to be on Chaki's radio show tomorrow!

http://radiovalencia.fm/illogicalcontraption/

So call in and find out what's up.

awesome

I just heard "You Got Good Taste" in a beer commercial during the Stanley Cup finals. Get that money, Ivy.

right, looks like this was possibly the most recently active Cramps thread.
Sorry to hear from several people on FB that Nick Knox just died.
I thought he had gobe a while back but found out he was still around a few months back.

His style was pretty distinctive with both The Cramps and the Electric Eels, not sure if he kept on at all after he left the Cramps though which is a shame.

yup, just saw that. RIP.

:(

bummer

weirdly I've been on a Cramps kick the last few days

Not seeing this anywhere tbh. I hope not, fucking great drummer.

John from the Eels did post a "Nick needs prayers or whatever" tweet a couple days ago.

I missed Bryan Gregory by literally a few days--he went AWOL just before we saw them in '80--but I did see Nick Knox.

Miriam Linna with a wonderful memory:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10155280445832016&set=a.236094977015.147373.560312015&type=3

Did NIck Knox actually replace Miriam Linna in his most well known band? Wasn't she drummer at one point too?

Yup, that is very much part of the story.

Surprised she didn't mention it and im not fully sure of the chronology as to how immediate the succession was.

I just thought she was on the material that turned up as How To Create a Monster.

I think she didn't mention it because she almost didn't need to? In the sense that it was well known enough.

I was just talking with friends about how the Cramps didn’t get any better after he left. I think he was the secret soul of the band. Bad week for rockabilly drummers.

The Cramps definitely peaked by ‘81, ‘83 at the latest (Smell Of Female is kinda the last gasp of true holy-fuck-what’s-happening-right-now glory). Knox was the perfect drummer for them, and had one of the all-time great stage names.

Smell Of Female is kinda the last gasp of true holy-fuck-what’s-happening-right-now glory

agree 100% and that is exactly how their music hit you back in the day

I know people who were at the '82 show in Indianapolis who still swear it was the best thing they ever saw

Agree, though Date with Elvis and Stay Stick are stuffed full of great material. It gets spotty from there.

By the 1990s, there were enough rockabilly digger compilations on the market that I already knew “Sinners” by the time they covered it. Which was a weird feeling. Before it felt like they were the Lords who taught us, us the unknowing. But they created a whole scene, so it’s inevitable we’d all catch up to them eventually.

well said

They were fantastic live right up until the end imo. Never saw a bad show from them.

True; I didn’t see them live until 1996, but when I did they were amazing.

Amazing live band who I first saw around 1979. Nick sitting in the back effortlessly drumming away with shades on, while Lux prowled the front edge of the stage.

Could do with an official dvd mopping up them at their early 80s peak in best quality reproduction.
THere are a number of near professionally filmed bits and pieces for things like NYC cable TV.

Looks like what is available is about 20 years later with the exception of the Napa State Hospital thing from 78

1979 NYC cable thing is going around, and of course there's the footage from Urgh!

would definitely love a live DVD of that era

Revisiting Stay Sick! (the last album with Nick Knox on drums) today. I remember not liking it much at the time, but now it sounds great.

There was definitely a weird...I don't want to say 'narcissism of small differences,' but I'd argue that a slew of bands (not just the Cramps) who came up from the underground in the mid-late 70s did a lot of work that, when it was released in the late 80s/early 90s just as I was learning about them, got a relentless dumping of 'not as good as the past'/'clear sellouts'/'bad production' comments in rockcritworld at the time. And then you listen to that era's stuff, you know, *now* and it's like 'what the hell, they barely changed at all, or just didn't!'

Our own nabisco with some truths in this thread

You know who you’d think would be treated as an iconic hero and it’s weird that she’s not? Kristy Wallace aka Poison Ivy Rorschach of the Cramps! Fantastic guitar player and songwriter! Produced the Cramps’ records for years! Nobody talked about that! pic.twitter.com/HV1BEImPVE

— Nitsuh Abebe (@ntabebe) August 23, 2018

She’s godlike imo

agreed

Hm, I was going to say that in some circles I move in she is revered, but honestly I think a lot of it is more about her being hot/cool than actually giving her artistry the respect it deserves. So, nabisco otm.

yeah I think that's fair. she's def revered but it's as much for her style/looks as anything. tbh I always loved her guitar playing but I didn't realise she was producing as well

yeah she is the primary architect of the band's sound imo

Yup

Would love to read a deep-dive Mojo/Red Bull Music Academy interview with Ivy, really going through the development of the whole Cramps project/sound/worldview, but I'm not sure there's an outlet out there that would pay what it would take to do it right.

This photo, which I've never seen before, is absolutely amazing (Ivy's pants!):

http://www.bombedoutpunk.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/bombed-out-punk-memoir-peter-alan-lloyd-1970s-1980s-punk-new-wave-erics-club-liverpool-the-cramps-pink-military-support-nightmares-in-wax-support-leeds-fan-club-erics-club-brian-gregory-12.jpg

I know he's wearing something very similar on the Tube performance, can't remember what she's wearing on that.

Wonder if Ugly Things or somebody would be into doing an in depth with her?

I love how you can hear Ivy learning on the job as she moves from the two-note twang of her early riffs to "Cornfed Dames" just a few years later, where she's doing intensely wiggly stuff with tremelo, crazy runs and bombs of controlled feedback.