A World Without Cramps – An Xperience Column

A World Without Cramps – An Xperience Column – by Johnny Mystery.

Sometimes it seems to take forever for something original to catch on. Sometimes it never catches on at all. Are you happy with vanilla every day? Change feels like a pain induced by hemlock. It’s a burning sensation in the pit of your groin—like a cramp. What other band would have the sense of humor or the fortitude to be so upfront about the way you might feel if you’re not into disturbing sounds coming from a group of aliens from another planet?

The Cramps took rock and roll (rockabilly or psychobilly to be exact), mixed it with maximum cosplay, sexuality, and out-and-out horror, and turned it into a joyous uncontrolled noise. Nobody saw it coming and nobody said they were sorry. It was music for madmen and madwomen, and those people came to the psychotic altar one at a time. Change like that takes some doing to catch on, but once it does, it sets the world on fire and thankfully the bucket brigade was nowhere in sight. It was like an ancient radio in the next room was warming up. The tubes inside the Bakelite tomb are still cool to the touch, but you can hear a low hum because the volume knob is set at full blast. You look through the grill as the insides become illuminated. The hum turns to a crackle as a distorted, discordant voice howls something about a bikini girl with a machine gun. The heat becomes more evident as a rattle and shake vibrates the walls. There’s no escape from what’s happening in the next room and it’s getting LOUDER!!!

Erick Lee Purkhiser, aka Lux Interior, took his stage name from a car ad. He would menacingly slither onto the stage like a jungle snake in patent leather pants. Nobody was safe from his gaze as he taunted the audience with songs about Green Fuz and Goo Goo Muck. All the while, he would wrap the microphone cord around his cold sweaty body like a whip. Sometimes he’d place the mic in his mouth and growl for his own and the crowd’s amusement, then spit it back in his hand and blow into an off-key harmonica to the strains of “Psychotic Reaction,” never once kicking off his pink high heels while they blistered his shins. Climbing the speakers and bending over backward to the onlookers’ delight was a favorite move. Soon he would jump off the stage and engage the front row, all the time sneering and screaming, before climbing back to the relative safety of the stage. Really though, nowhere was safe.

Kristy Marlana Wallace, aka Poison Ivy, was the wife and musical soulmate of Lux. If there was ever any doubt that a woman could play rock, she alone probably exploded the entire myth. Of course, we knew better all along. Poison Ivy had the stance of a guitar goddess. She could slash out swampy blues riffs as good or better than her male counterparts. She wore a low-hanging Gretsch Country Gentleman guitar, all the while looking like a punk, non-blonde Jayne Mansfield. Her curly hair would stay in place during the entire show, while mayhem occurred around her. She never cracked a smile as masterful rock blasted from her Fender Twin amp. Her fishnet stockings on her mile-high legs drove everybody crazy as she stomped her feet to one brutal tune after another. Add to all this, Ivy was the manager of this outlandish group. Beauty and brains plus a killer rocker!!

The Cramps had a talent for breathing life into songs that were either long-forgotten or obscure to most of the world. The subject matter of “Goo Goo Muck” by Ronnie Cook was too far out for when it was released in 1962. It was, however, perfect for the time frame of the ‘80s. No problem having a song about a teenage sexual cannibal in the age of video games and yuppie greed. Kind of makes you wonder where society is going but at that point in time, nobody seemed concerned. Rock and wrestling were the rage on Saturday night TV in 1985, so why not revive “The Crusher” by The Novas, a song about a crude cigar-smoking wrestler from the early ’60s.

The same can be said about their original offerings too. Who else would sing a song about a “Human Fly?” … ”I’m a human fly goin’ BUZZ-BUZZ-BUZZ, I don’t know why-Just don’t know why!” Where did they get the idea for “Bikini Girls with Machine Guns?” It seems tailor-made for the video age. Featuring Ivy on a king-size turntable, wearing fishnets (of course), and a gold sparkling bikini while firing a ‘30s-style submachine gun in the air like a mobster’s moll gone wild! Lux sings about being “a drag racer on LSD” while praising the scantily clad object of his affection. “This stuff will kill ya, it’s all loaded with fun!”

Can you name another band that would give a free concert at a mental facility? The Cramps did just that in June 1978 at the Napa State Mental Hospital. This show was preserved for the ages and released on Target Video for all the world to see.

Former Box Tops and Big Star vocalist, Alex Chilton produced two singles for them at Ardent Studios in Memphis before they signed to IRS Records. Clearly some important people in “the biz” saw the potential coming from them, even though their following was minor at best in those early days.

It’s been increasingly difficult to live on a planet without The Cramps. Lux passed in 2009. Ever since, things have not been the same. How would you like to get your rock from a normal place after getting it from a gang of hoodlums from outer space? Something is definitely missing now. Once originality has finally caught on, normality in any shape or form is a poor substitute.

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