Unbelievable though it might seem, Lux Interior, ghoulish lead singer of sleazy 50s horror-rockabilly band The Cramps, was, indeed, mortal. In what’s shaping up to be a sad year for music (Ron Asheton, John Martyn…), Lux (born Eric Lee Purkheiser) died yesterday, having suffered from a heart condition for some time.
I can’t really go in to what the Cramps meant without sounding like I’m talking about legendary, mythical bands. But that’s what they were, in their own lifetime. Legends. Myths. Filthy rock n roll plus the horror theatrics like Iggy and Rob Zombie got together with Dr Frankenfurter to make their ideal Rocky & Band. They coined the term PSYCHOBILLY for fuck sake.
If I could sum them up in one youtube flick (like we tend to do here at Gurn) I’d say it would be this… The Cramps played at an asylum. None of your prison shit, where the inmates are guarded / behind a barrier. They played an Napa State Mental Hospital in 1978, among the patients. They danced around with the patients, even “duetted” on occasion. At one point, the nurses have to subdue one particularly enthusiastic audience member. With a syringe. The crazyness seems to be stoked by the Cramps’ wild music and performance – whose idea was all this anyway? It’s like a cross between Day Of The Dead, One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest and King Creole.
There’s only about 20 minutes of footage from this show – recently released on DVD for the first time. Here’s the first half, plus a link to the second half.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE-Cyak8SOY]
