RIP teenage tiger
Posted on 02/04/2009 10:31:57 PM PST by lainie
Lux Interior, lead singer of influential garage-punk act the Cramps, died Wednesday morning (February 4) due to an existing heart condition, according to a statement from the band's publicist. He was 62.
Born Erick Lee Purkhiser, Interior started the Cramps in 1972 with guitarist Poison Ivy (born Kristy Wallace, later his wife) — whom, as legend has it, he picked up as a hitchhiker in California. By 1975, they had moved to New York, where they became an integral part of the burgeoning punk scene surrounding CBGBs.
Their music differed from most of the scene's other acts in that it was heavily steeped in camp, with Interior's lyrics frequently drawing from schlocky B-movies, sexual kink and deceptively clever puns. (J.H. Sasfy's liner notes to their debut EP memorably noted: "The Cramps don't pummel and you won't pogo. They ooze; you'll throb.") Sonically, the band drew from blues and rockabilly, and a key element of their sound was the trashy, dueling guitars of Poison Ivy and Bryan Gregory (and later Kid Congo Powers), played with maximal scuzz and minimal drumming.
Because of that — not to mention Interior's deranged, Iggy Pop-inspired onstage antics and deep, sexualized singing voice (which one reviewer described as "the psychosexual werewolf/ Elvis hybrid from hell") — the Cramps are often cited as pioneers of "psychobilly" and "horror rock," and can count bands like the Black Lips, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, the Reverend Horton Heat, the Horrors and even the White Stripes as their musical progeny.
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RIP teenage tiger
end of an era! aw!
Bummah.
I liked Poison Ivy
well she’s still around.
and available.
AW I didn’t say that
how ya been? I don’t think I ever heard’em!
You’re missing out! They were so campy and punny.. they were awesome. They were the smart man’s punk rockers.. if that man was into schlocky time-wasting.
I’ve been good; keeping busy. How are you?
I've heard comparisons between them and southern Culture On The skids(favorites of mine)
one of a kind
Yah I’d make that comparison.. though Cramps were more in-your-face in their time. In a good-natured way.
RIP
what am I gonna do ? Watch stinkin Desperate Housewifes???????
I liked their song, “Human Fly”
It has one of the best punchlines ever written in a song,
“I’ve got 96 tears and 96 eyes”
Hey Cheap good to see you. Sorry to hear about Lux.
Hope your doing Ok.
Comin off a nasty cold that had my scurvy hide up on blocks for a few days.
but I'm alright now
Bikini Girls with Machine Guns! Hugh2b it.
Oh no!!! Seen ‘em a passel of times, from the Bryan Gregory era to just a couple of years ago. I even have a beer can Lux threw from the stage at Irving Plaza many, many moons ago. R.I.P., Lux. We’ll miss ya!
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