By: David de Young
 Lux Interior and Poison Ivy of the Cramps at First Avenue on May 28th. Photo copyright Steve Wolf. (Click for full size version.) |
Members: Lux Interior - Vocals Related links: http://www.irscorner.com/c/cramps.html Interview with Stain Magazine: http://www.stainmagazine.com/cramps.html |
The Cramps took the stage about 35 minutes late to a house packed with a mixture of punks, both old and new, rockabilly fans, and a good assortment of everyone else. The show seemed to have brought out some of the most authentic music fans in town.
A few bars of solo drums by Harry Drumdini started out "Dames, Booze, Chains and Boot" from 1991's "Look Mom, No Head." This strong lead-in song was followed by an hour-plus-long, sweaty, creepy, rock show that featured a few scattered oldies like classics "Garbageman," and "The Crusher," but also a great sampling of material from their fun and respectable 2003 release "Fiends of Dope Island." (See a review of this Vengeance Records release in this weeks City Pages.)
The Cramps new material not only held up, but was some of the most energetic music of the night, from songs like "Fissure of Rolando" to "Papa Satan Sang Louie," to the darkly bouncy "Big Black Witchcraft Rock." When introducing "Fissure", singer Lux Interior called their new release a "crossover album," asserting that "it's where we crossover from 'has beens' to 'legendary.' It's hard to argue with that assessment except to say the Cramps were already legends long before April 15th of this year when the album was released.
Interior was dressed in a tight plastic outfit that was apparently so hot under the lights that sweat could be seen literally pouring out the ends of his sleeves for a good part of the show. When early in the set he removed an outer black plastic coat to reveal a long sleeved black plastic shirt I wondered if you really feel any cooler by removing one layer of vinyl.
From about the 4th song in the set, Interior had accepted the gift of a tiny pair of women's underwear from an audience member and after sniffing the crotch a bit, that pair of panties ended up on his head and around his neck through the rest of the show as some sort of sick thematic device. I wondered for a moment if that was something he'd regret tomorrow, then figured quickly "Nah."
Papa Satan Sang Louie was restarted "because of some dumbass" in the audience according to Interior. "If you want to be a dumbass," he continued, "go outside and shit on the sidewalk."
I can't end this review without mentioning "Poison Ivy's" stoic performance on her
infamous 1958 Gretsch Chet Atkins guitar. "Psychotic Reaction featured her in the spotlight looking bored, but coy as ever. Throughout the show recently added bassist Chopper Franklin added a wonderful fuzzy bass, and drummer Harry Drumdini did justice to the first four letters of his (clearly assumed) last name.
The show closed on a high note with two encores. First was "Wrong Way Ticket" from the new album. Then the show ended with a cover of Minneapolis' own Trashmen's "Surfin Bird," a song that also appears on the Cramps Gravest Hits. "Surfin Bird" saw Interior practically swallowing the microphone, swigging some unknown liquid out of a bottle, climbing onto the stage right speaker stack, putting guitarist Poison Ivy's boot onto his head, and bending a microphone stand in half and tying it to himself. (I asked Steve Wolf if he had any photos of Lux on the speaker stack, but he told me that while Lux was up there he and Dave Wolfe of opening act Reverse Cowgirl were busy helping to hold the speakers in place.) It was somehow fitting that when the song finally ended that Interior followed the band offstage crawling like a dog.
Location Info:
First Avenue
Artist Info: The Cramps
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