Gravest Gravy Unearths Long-Lost Sessions From One of Rock’s Most Brilliantly Deranged Bands: Album Review
The Cramps were one of the greatest and strangest bands to emerge from the punk-rock generation — which is truly saying something. By fusing rockabilly with humor and imagery inspired by vintage horror movies, they helped to pioneer the sound sometimes called psychobilly — a gloriously twisted take on rockabilly’s trademark twang and groove with deranged vocals, in their case arguably best captured in the 1980 video for their song “Garbage Man.” They released a series of steamy albums throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s — arguably peaking with the early “Gravest Hits” EP and “Songs the Lord Taught Us” and “Psychedelic Jungle” albums — and staged some of the most ecstatically unhinged concerts rock fans could ever hope to experience.
Mine was at the Boston Metro on a hot July night many years ago: Suffice it to say that singer Lux Interior started the evening wearing a skin-tight leopard-patterned outfit and women’s pumps, and ended it wearing just a leopard-patterned thong. In addition to his slow strip-tease, over the course of the show, he drank red wine from a female audience member’s shoe and French-kissed a different female audience member while shoving the live microphone into their mouths (archivist’s note: the “Ooooooowwwwwwooofff” sound on Cramps live recordings is usually Lux placing a microphone inside his and/or another person’s mouth). One male audience member, apparently inspired by that performance, jumped onstage and tried to do the same with female bassist Candy del Mar, who shrieked and, losing balance on her spike heels, fell backward into a gong Lux had played earlier in the night, making for a dramatic sound effect while security dragged the would-be Romeo offstage in a headlock. Through it all, the band kept playing its driving, raucous din: Poison Ivy Rorschach’s sandstorm guitars, Nick Knox’s rocking beats and Lux’s inimitable vocals, which were basically an Iggy Pop-inspired combination of Elvis and Dracula. I’d started the evening near the front row and ended up on the stage, kneeling right in front of Lux.
Countless fans had similar experiences — including longtime Black Flag singer Henry Rollins and his lifelong best friend, Minor Threat/Fugazi/Dischord Records co-founder Ian MacKaye — yet the legacy of the Cramps, who were founded by Interior and his life partner Ivy, has faded since his death in 2009, primarily because almost no one was keeping their music in the public eye (apart from a stellar Jenna Ortega dance scene in “Wednesday”).
All that is about to change, as Rollins, MacKaye and others have partnered with the reclusive Ivy, who holds the rights to most of the band’s catalog, to revive the group’s Vengeance Records (which released their earliest and later recordings) and launch a reissue campaign including most of the group’s albums, unreleased material and an official merchandise line.
The first project? This astonishing album, culled from the October 1977 sessions at Memphis’ Ardent Studios, helmed by Big Star/ Box-Tops co-founder Alex Chilton, that produced the group’s first two singles (which were later collected on “Gravest Hits”). Yet Chilton had asked the group to record every song they knew, and this album includes all of the songs that weren’t included on the EP — recordings that most fans had no idea existed. They were originally mixed by Lux and Ivy in the late 1980s and the duo even selected the cover photo, but for unclear reasons the project was never completed until now.
Like the group’s early albums, the songs here are a combination of batshit originals — several of which would turn up on later albums — and obscure but on-brand covers from the ‘50s and ‘60s, including many the group never officially released: Paul Revere and the Raiders’ song “Hungry,” Sam Phillips’ “Problem Child,” Jimmy Lloyd’s “Rocket in My Pocket.” The Cramps’ early lineup featured two guitarists — Ivy and the wraithlike Bryan Gregory — and no bassist, which made their trebly sound even tinnier and trashier. It’s a glorious surprise addition to the group’s golden era, like missing chapters of a favorite book or a pile of long-forgotten family photos found at the back of a cabinet.
Is this the place to start a Cramps collection? Probably not — we’d direct beginners to the recordings mentioned at the top of this article — but it’s a fitting and long-overdue tribute to one of rock’s most brilliantly odd and unhinged bands, and especially the people who created the sound and vision, most of whom (Lux, Knox, Gregory, Chilton and photographer Stephanie Chernikowski) are no longer with us. To quote J.H. Sasfy’s brilliant liner notes from “Gravest Hits”: “The Cramps don’t pummel and you won’t pogo. They ooze, you’ll throb.”
