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Although the Cramps always claim in interviews they don't play psychobilly, it would be odd not to mention them on a psychobilly website. The similarities between psychobilly and the Cramps are obvious. Both have their roots in rockabilly and mix it with modern punkrock influences. The difference is probably that psychobilly is a nineties or eighties thing, and the Cramps can be considered more as a retro band.
The importance of the Cramps is that they made young people again enthousiast for a forgotten era in music history: rockabilly. The Cramps formed in 1976 in Ohio in the US. Of course they mingled in very well with the punkrock scene. They played loud (without bass, but with fuzz guitar) and had a great act. The original Cramps line up consist of Lux Interior (vocals), Poison Ivy (guitar), Bryan Gregory (guitar), and Pam Balam (drums). They became famous in the New York punk scene where they had numerous performances at the CBGB's. Their first album was actually recorded in the famous Sun studios! If that ain't rockabilly, what is?
In the spring of 1976, The CRAMPS began to fester in a NYC apartment. Without fresh air or natural light, the group developed its uniquely mutant strain of rock?n?roll aided only by the sickly blue rays of late night TV. While the jackhammer rhythms of punk were proliferating in NYC, The CRAMPS dove into the deepest recesses of the rock?n?roll psyche for the most primal of all rhythmic impulses -- rockabilly -- the sound of southern culture falling apart in a blaze of shudders and hiccups. As late night sci-fi reruns colored the room, The CRAMPS also picked and chose amongst the psychotic debris of previous rock eras - instrumental rock, surf, psychedelia, and sixties punk. And then they added the junkiest element of all -- themselves.
It would be almost impossible to have never heard of The CRAMPS. Their career has been the stuff of legend. Dangerously bizarre but most of all cool, The CRAMPS represent everything that is truly reprehensible about rock?n?roll. Founding members Lux Interior (the psycho-sexual Elvis/Werewolf hybrid from hell) and guitar-slinging soulmate Poison Ivy (the ultimate bad girl vixen) are the architects of a wicked sound that distills a cross of swampwater, moonshine and nitro down to a dangerous and unstable musical substance. Their cultural impact has spawned a legion of devil cults and dance-floor catfights, and created in its wake a cavalcade of cave-stomping imitators. As punk rock pioneers in the late seventies, they cut their teeth on the stages of CBGB and Max?s Kansas City and recorded their first record at Sam Phillips legendary Sun Studios, funded mainly by Ivy?s income as a dominatrix in NYC. They coined the now popular term psychobilly on their 1976 gig posters. Their hair-raising live performances are still a total, no-holds-barred rock?n?roll assault, and after a quarter century of mayhem, they?re too far gone to even consider any other course. The band still includes 10-year veteran mysterion DRUMDINI and one year ago initiated new bassist CHOPPER FRANKLIN (formerly MAU MAUS and MR. BADWRENCH). They?re a cult band in the truest sense of that term and that?s the way they like it. How many bands can you think of that have managed to maintain cult status for such a long period without either fitting in or selling out? Unlike most alternative bands nowadays, who are more a part of the mainstream than the fringe-dwelling CRAMPS will ever be, they don?t bang people over the head with angst. The CRAMPS have truly lived hard, real lives that have made them what they are -- three-dimensional, flesh-and-blood rock?n?roll heroes -- not Addams Family cartoons, as alleged by disbelieving detractors. They rock like nobody else.
FIENDS OF DOPE ISLAND
Now, a year after launching their own label Vengeance Records with six classic re-issues, The CRAMPS are releasing their first new album in over five years. On the self-produced "Fiends of Dope Island", these charm school rejects apply their sinister handiwork to a volatile combination of incantational rock'n'roll hexes like "Big Black Witchcraft Rock" and "Papa Satan Sang Louie", inject weird theremin hijinx on Dr. Fucker M.D. put their hoodlum warp on exotica standard "Taboo", and swerve and careen through crypt-kickin' blues rave-up "Dopefiend Boogie" and the rampaging Wrong Way Ticket", finishing off the album in a musical equivalent of a 13 car pile-up. FIENDS OF DOPE ISLAND is pure animal music - all primal urge and J.D. madness. The CRAMPS once again prove themselves leaders in skull-fracturing rock?n?roll. |
Cramps, The - How far can too far go?
Cramps, The - TV set
Cramps, The - What's Behind The Mask
Cramps, The - All Women Are Bad
Cramps, The - Human Fly
Cramps, The - Lonesome Town
Cramps, The - Most Exalted Potentate of Love
Cramps, The - Sheena's in a Goth Gang
Cramps, The - Strychnine
Cramps, The - What's Inside A Girl
Cramps, The - Like a bad girl should (MP3)
Big Beat From Badsville (CD, Epitaph)
Flame Job (CD, Castle)
Look Mom No Head (CD, Big Beat)
Psychdelic Jungle (CD, zonophone)
All Woman Are Bad (EP, Enigma)
Can Your Pussy Do The Dog (EP, Big Beat)
Creature From The Black Leather Lagoon (EP, Enigma)
Kizmiaz (EP, New Rose)
What's Inside A Girl (EP, Big Beat)
What's Inside A Girl (EP, Big Beat)
Off The Bone (LP, Illegal)
Smell Of Female (LP, Big Beat)
Songs The Lord Taught Us (LP, Illegal)
Songs The Lord Taught Us (LP, Illegal)
Songs The Lord Taught Us (LP, Illegal)
Drug Train (Single, Illegal)
Faster Pussycat (Single, New Rose)
Kizmiazs (Single, New Rose)
How to make a monster (CD, Vengeance records)
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The Cramps - Big Beat From Badsville
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