Lux Interior Of The Cramps: R.I.P.

It was late in 1989 or early in 1990 and for the second time I went to Sam The Record Man, a popular chain of record stores at the time, to exchange what I thought was a defective Love And Rockets cassette, its then-unknown to me lo-finess sounding more like a muddy copy of a muddy copy of a muddy tape than the clean sounds I was more accustomed to, be it the pop crap of MC Hammer of the hard rock of Guns N' Roses or the new gangsta sounds of N.W.A.

My mother had given me a ride there and was waiting in the car as I brought the 'defective' cassette back to exchange it for the final time. I went straight to the rack, grabbed the tape and went straight to the cash where I was fourth or fifth in line, receipt in hand, ready for the exchange. I took a look into the Bargain Bin, in case I would find that elusive Samantha Fox cassette that wasn't a good seller and maybe they had lost patience with and would finally let me leave with at a price I could afford, hopefully 99 cents. It was part of the experience of going to Sam's, searching the Bargain Bin for that rare, obscure find that would forever change your life.

Alas, all I could find as I was nearing the bottom of the bin was the Chess soundtrack with the Murray Head track One Night In Bangkok - for $4.99, about $4.50 more than I would have been willing to pay for an already-old One Hit Wonder. And that's when SHE appeared.


Topless, wearing a thong and high-heel shoes, redheaded and - most important - $1.99, a price I could afford. The Cramps was the name of the band, and I knew absolutely nothing about them, but I didn't need to. She had stolen my heart and was likely to step all over it. ''Stay Sick!'' was the name of the record, and I was sure it would live up to its title, and I was sure she would, too. I took her home and couldn't wait to get there.

Oh, I had gone there for Love And Rockets, but what mattered most now was to find out what The Cramps were all about. I was eleven years old and I didn't dare take the cassette out of the bag and show it to my mom, who even inquired if I wanted to use the car's tape deck to test for sound quality, and the only excuse I could find for not opening my bag was ''no, really, I want to keep it suspenseful all the way home''.

The second the car was parked in front of the house, I ran straight into my room, reached in the bag and pulled the tape out, unwrapped it in record time and stuck it into my dual tape deck - and that's when the shock came. There was a punk-rockabilly band, tight as all heck, with an Elvis impersonator singing, but not the cheesy Elvis my mom liked, a dangerous one who was likely to drive up to elementary schools and offer kids some candy if they get into his car.

And I opened the booklet to find out that these guys were dressed like girls. Not wanna-be girls, not gay-for-eyeliner drag queens like Poison, no: actual hot, highly fuckable young-adult-looking horny secretary girls wearing leather, vinyl and animal patterns, the type that if they didn't take your virginity away would help you get Samantha Fox in your bed 'cause they were that cool.

And that's the way The Cramps were built. Lux Interior once said that when they played CBGB's, they thought it was a one-night thing, they wanted to see what would happen if they went on stage doing what they did, see if they would get beat up, or what.

What happened is they rocked. They could shock you into getting your attention, but once they had it, they were going to keep it with their chops. They did it with mine - and with many others.

Today, we learned the death of the one and only Lux Interior, which very likely means the end of The Cramps. After Ron Asheton of The Stooges, we lose another very important figure in meaningful music. The link above will lead to a bunch of videos and quotes on the man, do yourselves a favour and check some of them out.

I feel lucky to have seen them live in NYC in 2005 at Avalon, which was none other than the rechristened Limelight I had played in 6 years before, a redesigned and recycled church become palace of rock. Even if the outside line-up made it so that we only saw the last few minutes of the show, those minutes were enough to make the night worthwhile.

I have a feeling I'll be listening to a lot of Cramps stuff for the next while and, if history repeats itself, maybe I won't be listening to Love And Rockets at all for the next two or three weeks.