official release: ‘Lux Interior, lead singer of The Cramps, passed away this morning due to an existing heart condition at Glendale Memorial Hospital in Glendale, California at 4:30 AM PST today. Lux has been an inspiration and influence to millions of artists and fans around the world. He and wife Poison Ivy’ s contributions with The Cramps have had an immeasurable impact on modern music.
The Cramps emerged from the original New York punk scene of CBGB and Max’ s Kansas City, with a singular sound and iconography. Their distinct take on rockabilly and surf along with their midnight movie imagery reminded us all just how exciting, dangerous, vital and sexy rock and roll should be and has spawned entire subcultures. Lux was a fearless frontman who transformed every stage he stepped on into a place of passion, abandon, and true freedom. He is a rare icon who will be missed dearly.’
In the spring of 1976, The CRAMPS began to fester in a NYC apartment. Without fresh air or natural light, the group developed its uniquely mutant strain of rock’ n’ roll aided only by the sickly blue rays of late night TV. While the jackhammer rhythms of punk were proliferating in NYC, 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. / J. H. Sasfy, Professor of Rockology, from the liner notes of The Cramps 1979 release Gravest Hits
GUITAR/BASS TABS
Cramps, The – All Women Are Bad
Cramps, The – Human Fly
Cramps, The – Lonesome Town
Cramps, The – Most Exalted Potentate of Love
Cramps, The – Sheena’s in a Goth Gang
Cramps, The – Strychnine
Cramps, The – What’s Inside A Girl
thinking in questions…
Q: how major of a cramps fan are you?
A: huge anthropologically
the cramps were real
Q: whatchu mean by anthro?
A: without them music and culture would be so fucked up
they saved so much shit from the garbage
educated a lot of people
like music, fashion, film, art, they saved all this shit
all this crap people like now like ‘retro’ comes from them
no one else was caring or scouting in 1972
ny dolls too out of it
like they saved this whole trashed up american world from disappearing
be back have to get tacos
some final musings on the Cramps…
They sort of paved the way for psychobilly.
They sang songs about monsters and weird stuff.
They liked horror movies.
Detachable Penis.
They once gave a concert at the mental hospital in Napa valley.
…they didn’t like being called psychobilly.
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