Lured By Beauty Destroyed By Sex

I spotted this graffiti on a piece of street furniture in Liverpool last month, the artist starting to sketch a naked woman, legs and torso with  'Oooh la la!' as a title and then stopping, for whatever reason, to write a note of explanation- 'I was drunk when I drew this soz x'. Which is lovely isn't it?

The Cramps came up last week, a clip of them I watched somewhere drew me back into Lux and Ivy's cartoon world of utterly serious rock 'n' roll business. I love The Cramps of the early 80s, garage punk with a genuinely delinquent edge, recording amped up rockabilly/ country punk, covers and originals. On 1981's Psychedelic Jungle they had Kid Congo Powers on guitar, had settled on Nick KNox on drums after a run of short term skin bashers and had moved from New York to Los Angeles where they recorded this deranged cover version of Goo Goo Muck, a 1965 garage rock 7" by Ronnie Cook And The Gaylads. A ton of echo, twangy guitar, cymbals, schlocky horror. 

'When the sun goes down and the moon comes up/ I turn into a teenage goo goo muck/ I cruise through the city and I roam the street/ Looking for something nice to eat...'

Goo Goo Muck

By the mid 80s they'd gained a settled line up with Nick Knox still on drums and Candy Del Mar on bass. 1986's A Date With Elvis and their 1990 album Stay Sick are both blasts of rock solid songwriting, superb, honed performances and a bigger sound with slightly higher production values. Stay Sick! especially is wall- to- wall killers, one great song after another. This one, Mama Oo Pow Pow, is Lux's libido crammed into two and a half minutes with a blistering guitar/ bass/ drums attack that fades in quickly and ends the same way.

'Mama oo pow pow, who's gonna twist and shout/ Mama oo pow pow, who shot that la la out/ Your gamagoochi's got the gagas and your hoochie coochie's hangin' out/ Girl, you could use a good spankin, and baby, so could I/ I love to hear the scream of the butterfly/ Now I don't wanna be your dear sweet friend/I just wanna beat your little pink rear end'

Mama Oo Pow Pow

But I Don't Know Why

The Cramps have reared their heads and music at a couple of blogs recently which sent me back in a Lux and Ivy direction. While looking through my CDs I discovered I have, as well as 'proper' studio albums, four Cramps compilations, all of their early works- Songs The Lord Taught Us, Bad Music For Bad People, Off The Bone and File Under Sacred Music. The tracklistings are pretty identical,  give or take. Why have I bought so many Cramps compilations with such similar tracklistings? In my defence, if there is such a thing, two were bought cheaply at Fopp or somewhere similar when I was in the habit of buying CDs of albums I owned on vinyl for car listening. At some point in the shop I must have realised I didn't own Bad Music For Bad People and I liked the cover (although obviously the cover would work much better on vinyl than CD).

I own two of these compilations on vinyl, purchases that pre- date the CD ones- Off The Bone and Songs The Lord Taught Us (plus several other Cramps albums- Smell Of Female, Rockin' And Reelin' In Auckland, New Zealand, Psychedelic Jungle, A Date With Elvis and Stay Sick!).

In 1978 The Cramps released a 12" called Gravest Hits. I do not have a copy of this record but it's surely only a matter of time. Gravest Hits was a compilation of their two 7" singles that came out on Vengeance Records in '78, four covers and one original (Human Fly, The Way I Walk, Domino, Surfin Bird and Lonesome Town). In many ways The Cramps are a perfect band. Lux and Ivy, a couple, with a deep knowledge of the roots of the music (50s rock 'n' roll and rockabilly, 60s garage, some country and blues) filtered through some sci fi, golden age comics, horror movies and outsider culture. Along with Bryan Gregory and Nick Knox and produced by Alex Chilton this line up made many great songs and none greater than Human Fly.

Human Fly

The reverb heavy guitar line crawling it's way down the fretboard. The splash of cymbals and thud of the drums. Lux's quivering vocal.

'Well I'm a human fly/ I spell it F-L-Y/ I say buzz buzz buzz/ and it's just because/ I'm a human fly/ and I don't know why/ I got 96 tears and 96 eyes'.

Well worth owning across five different compilations in two different formats- and worth every penny.

I Can't Get A Fraction

A short, sharp blast of garage rock for Wednesday (also proto-punk, acid rock and psych rock too I believe), from 1966, the year of maximum garage rock. Count Five were from San Jose and this two minute fifty-six seconds is all you need.

Psychotic Reaction

Wonderful fuzz guitar riff, stomping drum, harmonica, lyric about being rejected by a girl, double speed Yardbirds inspired rave up section. Really, it's got it all.

In 1983 The Cramps had left IRS and were recorded playing live at New York's Peppermint Lounge. Lux and Ivy put the recordings out as a mini album called Smell Of Female. There aren't that many live albums I'd pull out and play very often but Smell Of Female is one of them, six tracks of gloriously unhinged psychobilly, culminating in their cover of Count Five's Psychotic reaction. Over at Julian Cope's Head Heritage website there is a review of Smell Of Female that has Lux and Ivy as Loki and the Goddess and their music as the shamanic and barbarian spirit of rock 'n' roll. You should read it. It's here.

Psychotic Reaction

Nick Knox

Sad news to wake up to this morning- as well as what looks like a catastrophic fire the beautiful Glasgow School of Art building- is that Nick Knox, the longest serving drummer of The Cramps, died yesterday aged 60. Nick started his tenure with Lux and Ivy in 1977 and played on at least 4 classic Cramps albums before leaving in 1991- Songs The Lord Taught Us, Psychedelic Jungle, A Date With Elvis and Stay Sick! plus songs and singles on the essential compilations Off The Bone and Bad Music For Bad People. That's your full Cramps set right there. RIP Nick Knox.

I was asked to dj at a friend's 45th birthday party in Sheffield a few years ago, a party with guaranteed dancers and folk who would enjoy a good shindig. Which was very much true. Except with this song, which cleared the floor. Sometimes you've got to scare them away to bring them back again.

Bikini Girls With Machine Guns

That Stuff Rubbed Off On Me

George requested Carl Perkins following the Perkins-Craig face off on Monday. I haven't posted any rockabilly since my Friday Night Is Rockabilly Night series came to a close in March 2015. It began to feel like homework and a chore, two hundred and ten posts in, so it stopped. So this is a rockabilly reprise for a Thursday in March...

In 1956 Carl Perkins released Her Love Rubbed Off, a song that makes maximum use of Carl's southern gargle, a psyched out guitar part and slap back echo. The lyric celebrates getting it on in a pretty frank style for 1956.

'Well, I was so alone in the city park
I met my baby standing in the dark
Took my lovin' baby by the hand
I let her know that I'm her lovin' man

That love rubbed off on me
That baby wouldn't let me be
That baby took me by the hand
That love, I made her understand
That love, I hollered no, no, no
That baby wouldn't let me go, oh, oh'

Her Love Rubbed Off

In 1990 The Cramps twisted it further around, Lux and Ivy adding volume and distortion to Carl's already pretty hot under the collar song. You just can't beat The Cramps.

Her Love Rubbed Off  Correct link now.

Mystery Plane

The Cramps work like a palette cleanser or paint stripper- no matter what's going on, what you've been listening to or what's going through your head, they strip it all away, reduce it down to the bare bones. That's a good thing.

In 1979 they recorded some demos with Alex Chilton. Many people consider these songs to be superior versions to the ones that came out a year later on Songs The Lord Taught Us. This version of Mystery Plane sounds as good as they look in the picture above, also from 1979.

Mystery Plane (Ohio Demo Version)

I Like To Sit In Back, Watch Out For The Cops

We've not had any action from The Cramps here for a while so let's delve into Lux and Ivy's world today. Stay Sick in 1990 is some kind of high watermark in Crampdom. After that there are fewer great Cramp moments. Look Mom No Head! from 1991 had this song on it, which never fails to raise the spirits.

Bend Over, I'll Drive

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Hallowe'en rockabilly special- yes, it has to be The Cramps and The Creature From The Black leather Lagoon (off 1990's top drawer Cramp-fest Stay Sick). This video is NSFW. In fact, it may not be safe for home either.

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We're going to a wedding tomorrow. It won't be a rockabilly wedding but I hope Dave makes a bit more effort than the groom pictured above. A suit wouldn't have gone amiss.

Mel Robbins recorded Save It in the 1950s, making the short hop from honky tonk to rockabilly- that bandwagon won't be around for long, better get on board. Save It is piano led with a thumping solo and a giggly, hiccuping, heavy breathing vocal.

Save It

The Cramps covered it, slowing it down, ramping up the heavy breathing and adding a distinct air of sexual tension. This fan made video is very good.

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My recent spurt of Cramps enthusiasm has led me back to some of the source material. On Stay Sick! there is a suitably great and sleazy cover version of this song by the great Carl Perkins, from way back in 1956 and recorded for Sun Records. Carl has that pared down sound and and tone and wants to let her know that he's 'a lovin' man'. This is risque, even lewd, stuff for the mid-1950s- he says he'll take off all his clothes for her. His lovin' is so much that she'll follow him to the grave. And I can't believe it was only Lux Interior who took her love rubbing off on him as literally and not just metaphorically.

Her Love Rubbed Off

Saturday Night Live

Saturday night and some of the real stuff for you- while I am preparing to play records for the good folk of Sheffield that happen to know my friend RPM, you can listen to this rather than settle down to watch that shite on the telly. This is last night's heroes The Cramps in a live performance for TV on what seems to be The Late Show around 1990 doing the mighty Bikini Girls With Machine Guns and Muleskinner Blues. Proceed with caution- at one point Lux strips off his shirt to reveal...., well, you'll have to see for yourselves.



What's Inside A Girl? live in Amsterdam- Lux might hog the attention but Ivy and her guitar are the real stars...



And a few years earlier on The Tube, What's Inside A Girl? again and Hot Pearl Snatch.



Can Your Pussy Do The Dog?

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Muleskinner Blues first appears in 1930, performed with some yodelling by country legend Jimmie Rodgers



Being an unemployed muleskinner can't have been much fun during the Depression of the 1930s. Come to think of it, being a muleskinner can't have been much fun at any time. Muleskinning isn't as gruesome as it sounds though- a muleskinner was usually a man who drove mules. In the song the muleskinner approaches a boss looking for work. Asked what skills he has he replies 'I can pop my initials on a mule's behind'. Various versions take the song elsewhere, some directing it as a Black narrator who walks out on the white boss when he doesn't get paid, some not mentioning muleskinning at all, some using the third verse to turn attentions to the man's Mississippi girl. Blind Lemon Jefferson had a blues take on it, country stars Bill Monroe and Roy Acuff recorded it, Woody Guthrie, Odetta, Lonnie Donegan, Ramblin' Jack Elliott...

In the 1960s The Fendermen added some surfy guitars and rockabilly swing, and a fairly unique vocal take, full of hee-hee-hee-heeing. Many muleskinning aficionados rate this as the best version and it's got rockabilly written all over it's grooves.



Bob Dylan, Dolly Parton and Don McLean all had a pop at muleskinning. By the time The Cramps got to it in 1989 the yodelling had vanished more or less, although Lux adds some pretty raw vocals with a bit of guttural hiccuping. Very raw with amped up zinging guitars and some real menace.

Muleskinner Blues

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One from Lux and Ivy's record box tonight and a pointer as to where Lux developed his Cramps vocal style from. In my research for some background details I came across commenters on Youtube, arguing about the relative merits of this record- gold or trash? Both.

Rockin' Out the Blues

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Back to The Cramps for Friday night. Smell Of Female is a live album, recorded at The Peppermint Lounge in 1983 when the band were in contractual dispute with I.R.S records and decided to record a show to plug the gap between their second and third albums. It's a cracking lp in its own right, the band in electric psychobilly form. The original release on vinyl had six songs, later expanded to nine on cd versions. On You Got Good Taste Lux and Ivy prove you could sing songs about cunnilingus before Azealia Banks was even invented.

You Got Good Taste

And as a decidedly non-rockabilly extra, here is Azealia from Glastonbury last weekend, pulling a very large crowd to The Other Stage. The fans down the front have to wait until 42.56 to sing/shout-along to 212. The rest of the crowd get dragged in one-by-one.

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The return of Lonesome Town, the Ricky Nelson song covered by The Cramps that was here last week. This time it's Holly Golightly's version from her excellent Singles Round Up album.

On finishing a long autumn term, on the day we finished for the Christmas holiday, I once passed a much older member of staff out in absolute lashing rain and wind, both of us heading for the car park looking to make our exits. 'In the words of the prophet' he said 'thank fuck that's over'.

Tonight is commonly known as Mad Friday- pub anyone?

Lonesome Town

Dang! Something's gone wrong with the timed post function. Ah well.

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The Cramps come back for Friday night, at least partly because I wanted an excuse to post this gif. Originally a hit for Ricky Nelson, Lonesome Town gained fame in the 90s due to Pulp Fiction. Holly Golightly's done a version too but I think Lux and Ivy nailed it best.

Lonesome Town

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Bagging Area's rockabilly revival continues, 32 years after the NME covered a more widespread one. Tonight Ronnie Cook and The Gaylads with their shlocky, after dark Goo Goo Muck, destined to be covered by The Cramps many years later. Pint anyone?

Goo Goo Muck

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I promised The Cramps' Peel Session cover version of Andy Starr's Give Me A Woman last Friday evening and here it is a week later, all the way from 1986. I'll have several of whatever you're having (within reason).

Give Me A Woman (Peel Session)

Edit; something's gone wrong here- it's still Thursday night in the real world.

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Last week's Friday night rockabilly hero Andy Starr recorded a bucketful of great songs once he got back from the Korean War and as reader Jase suggested this was one of them.

Give Me A Woman

The marker of many a good rockabilly song is whether it was covered by the Cramps. Give Me A Woman was the B-side to 1986's What's Inside A Girl single and there's a rocking Peel Session version too. Give me a little while and I'll find it....

'Give me a woman, any kind of woman'll do'

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The return of The Cramps to Friday evening. I've been playing a compilation of their early stuff, File Under Sacred Music 1978-81, a lot this week - the cd version not the box set of 7" singles, which costs an eye watering £70- and there really is nothing like early Cramps. Rockabilly mating with punk. Love it all (although this song isn't actually on File Under Sacred Music).

Tear It Up

The picture is from a series of photographs taken by a young Ken Russell of Teddy boys and girls in bomb sites in London in the 1950s. Stunning set of pictures. Which leads me onto... London 2012.

In a volte face that's quite surprised me, after months of detached cynicism, I'm looking forward to the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics tonight. The year-long build up has bugged me, the corporateness is revolting (people being warned not to wear branded clothing that will clash with official sponsors), the torch relay (showing the best inspirational people we have to offer; Jedward and Will.I.Am) but over the last few days I've begun to look forward to it. Just hope Danny Boyle's remembered to include a pound shop, an out of town retail park and a tanning salon in this evening's show.