I was getting ready to go out on a date the other day, and “Garbageman” by The Cramps came on the bathroom boombox. I love The Cramps and I miss them.  They kind of hung it up when their lead singer, Lux Interior traded in his mortal coil for a halo and a new pair of skin-tight, snakeskin pants in February of 2009.  I was lucky enough to see them once at The Ogden on New Year’s  Eve in 2000.  It was a magical show.





Lux spent the entire night slowly stripping off his clothes and channeling the illegitimate swamp demon spawn of  Wanda Jackson and Frank Booth.  Ivy, Lux’s wife and The Cramps’ lead guitarist, serenaded his breakdown behind a giant, gold Gibson (295?).  At this point, both of them were in their middle 50’s and they still looked and sounded amazing. I think they could have gone for another fifteen years, at least.

Lux and Ivy were freaks.  They worshiped at the altar of low-brow, uniquely American kulture and cloaked themselves in B-sci-fi/horror and exploitation flicks, hot rods, two-fisting amphetamines and nitrous, sleazy sex, motorcycle gangs, go-go dancers, fetish magazines, hillbilly records, pulp fiction, switchblades, gender-bending, circus side shows, kinky pinups, and depravity.  In other words, The Cramps were my kind of people.

Lux Interior and Poison Ivy

The world was a far more interesting place with The Cramps in it, and they will be missed.

…yeah it’s just what you need,
when you’re down in the dumps,
one half hillbilly and one half punk,
big long legs and one big mouth,
the hottest thing from the north to come out of the south…

The Cramps-Garbageman

…well my mama had twin babies,
on one sweet summer day,
she beat one in the head,
and I’m the one the got away,
protected by my wighat,
and my Fredrick snakeskin pants
I rode my horse to Hollywood,
and did a wondrous dance…

The Cramps-Call of the Wighat

Rock’n'roll is so great that everyone in the world should think it’s the greatest thing that’s happening. If they don’t, they’re turds.

Lux Interior

Atormentado por la culpa de no haber ido a bailar Thriller al monumento de la revolución, Godínez decide dedicarle la ofrenda de este año al Jack-O. Unas mallas a la Peter Pan y unos muñecos japoneses (de esos con los brazos marcaditos y los genitales bien rasuraditos) acompañan al cigarro y tequila que le procura cada año al abuelo.

Únase a Godínez y póngase a cotorrear con sus muertos favoritos.

Duración: 82 minutos 12 segundos / 33.3 MB

Canciones:

• Jim Carroll / People Who Died
• The Cramps / New kind of kick
• Les Paul / Guitar boogie
• The Ventures / Walk don’t run
• Mercedes Sosa / Alfonsina y el mar
• Manic Street Preachers / Mausoleum
• Nacha Pop / Persiguiendo Sombras
• The Seeds / Can’t Seem To Make You Mine
• Michael Jackson / Workin’ day and night
• Gustavo Pimentel / El Magazo
• Koko Taylor / I’m A Woman
• Oingo Boingo / Weird Science
• The Stooges / I Wanna Be Your Dog
• Chavela Vargas / Que te vaya bonito
• La talentosa Marilyn Chambers.

Arte: Folder para tu Pc / imprime, recorta y arma el empaque.

Descarga: Godínez pone su ofrenda. 14 canciones para comer huesitos de azúcar.

Escucha en línea:

La ciencia española no necesita más recortes: No al recorte en I+D

Una circunstancia que probablemente ustedes desconozcan es que este blog es leído por un nutrido grupo de científicos: biólogos, físicos, expertos en matemáticas, gente becada por el CSIC o por las Politécnicas, investigadores que en breve iniciarán una fuga de celebros en toda regla, empujados por unos presupuestos en investigación que menguan cada legislatura (aunque cada vez se repita de manera más machacona que se ha de cambiar el modelo económico español cuando precisamente la investigación científica y técnica es esencial para cambiar el modelo económico de este santo país, pero bueno…). Gente como Jorge, que se entretiene con este blog mientras acaba la tesis, Pau que le acaban de sacar un contrato, o propiamente mi señora, que está ganándose los reales lejos de casa. O Paula, lectora desde siempre, y que nos invitó a Los Alamos porque trabajaba en el mismo laboratorio donde los americanos hicieron la bomba atómica… algún día colgaré las fotos del “Museo de la Bomba Atómica”, porque aquello fue una gran experiencia museográfica. En fin, a mi los científicos me han parecido desde siempre gente fascinante y no es porque crea que están todos cortados por el mismo patrón, pero hacen cosas que me parecen realmente intrigantes: primero cuando hablan de sus cosas, de sus cosas científicas. Para mí es como asistir a un recital de grandes poetas finlandeses: no entiendo una palabra de lo que dicen pero me parece que existe una extraña poesía debajo de esa cháchara incomprensible. Y segundo, y principal, los científicos tienen que desarrollar la bellísima carrera de investigador. Que suena como a rollo, pero no se engañen, la carrera de científico-investigador es un gran melodrama. Un melodrama en toda la regla, con sus trampas (¿sabían de renombrados científicos que hacen los puntos más gordos para que la línea no se salga en la gráfica?), sus filias, sus fobias, sus encuentros maquiavélicos en la cumbre, y sus congresos de expertos que acaban en agarrones y palabras crudísimas por un quítame de allí esas moléculas. ¡¡Qué espectáculo!!.

El último científico al que he admirado por su carrera consecuente es el ruso Trofim Denísovich Lysenko (en ruso: Трофи́м Дени́сович Лысе́нко), un campesino ucraniano convertido en uno de los grandes expertos en semillas durante la época estalinista, a finales de los 20, y que era lo que se llamó “un científico descalzo”, la representación mítica de un campesino. Su loca loca teoría llamada Lysenkoismo o en bonito “Michurinismo” o “Lysenko-Michurinismo” exponía que cualquier semilla podía germinar en cualquier suelo y en cualquier condición climática, adquirir las condiciones para sobrevivir y después pasar estas condiciones a las generaciones siguientes. Para demostrar tal teoría consiguió, dicen que con éxito, cultivar guisantes con un frío, bueno, con un frío de cojones, allí por Azerbaiyán, “reverdeciendo los yermos campos del Transcaucaso en el invierno de tal manera que el ganado no moriría por falta de comida y que los campesinos turcos vivirían durante el invierno sin temor por el futuro” (como decía el Pravda). A Stalin la teoría le gustó primero porque suponía una solución radical a los problemas agrícolas de la URRS y segundo porque los guisantitos, pobres, se asemejaban a la visión que Stalin tenía del socialismo que se suponía iba a crecer en cualquier sitio y pasarse de padre e hijos. Total que Lysenko adquirió un poder considerable, y hombre de carácter colérico, condenó a las corrientes genetistas como “terriblemente decadentes” (recordemos que Stalin decía que la teoría de la relatividad era una “mistificación burguesa”) y ni corto ni perezoso mandó a cientos de científicos que se oponían a sus ideas al Gulag en “una versión agronómica del Gran Terror”. Fue, por ejemplo, responsable de la muerte del gran biólogo soviético Nikolái Vavílov. Pero aquí no acaba la poesía del incidente, porque sus reflexiones al respecto son música, pura música: “Para obtener ciertos resultados, uno tiene que desear obtener precisamente ese resultado; si quieres obtener un resultado, lo obtendrás… Yo sólo necesito el tipo de gente que va a obtener los resultados que necesito”. Que belleza y nobleza de pensamiento. Ojo, y que humano, porque ¿Cuántos científicos no habrán soñado en mandar a sus adversarios al Gulag?, ¿Cuántos directores de departamentos y jefes de investigaciones no firmarían con los ojos cerrados eso de “yo solo necesito el tipo de gente que va a obtener los resultados que necesito”?.

Por mis santísimos cojones que hago crecer trigo en Siberia

No, a mi quien me dirigió la tesis fue Stalin...

Vamos que a mi los científicos me parecen la polla… claro, que algún “pero” les tenemos que poner. Y es la cosa del marketing. Vamos que no logran transmitir sus avances y la necesidad de sus investigaciones, y enseguida se ponen nerviosos si piensan que están hablando con un zote. Maaal. Pensemos en una rama del conocimiento como es la física. La física mola, quiero decir, una ciencia que, y me repito, estudia conceptos como el “anti-tiempo” o que pudiera conseguir la total aniquilación de la raza humana en manos de los franceses (pensemos en el incidente de el acelerador de partículas) una ciencia así sólo puede tener nuestros apoyo más ferviente. Claro que yo en física sólo me quedé en lo de “un tren sale de Astorga y se dirige a Madrid…”, evidentemente parece un nivel muy básico de esa disciplina, pero oye, no podemos despreciar la educación de los infantes, que el interés en temas científicos se tiene que fomentar desde temprano. Total que los problemas de física son un rollo, por lo que vengo a proponer es una actualización de estos acertijos científicos, como primera medida nada de trenes, mejor montañas rusas. Las montañas rusas permiten hablar de la “aceleración =  (velocidad final – velocidad original) / tiempo”, o permite poner en juego fórmulas como energía gravitatoria o (kinética = ¹⁄₂ m v²⁾ vamos cosas muy vistosas como podemos apreciar en esta página donde se habla de la física elemental de esas atracciones. Pero saben que les digo… que quizás una montaña rusa no sea lo suficientemente atractiva… déjenme pensar… ¿y si ponemos a nuestro modelo favorito Fabio en una montaña rusa?.  Uhmm suena interesante pero sólo podríamos jugar con el peso de Fabio y como ejerce una fuerza centrifuga… rrroooolllo… Fabio tiene que chocar con algo… ¡¡¡con un ganso!!!. Eso moooola. Así es como lo veo:

El niño se ha ganado la medalla

“Fabio es invitado el 30 de marzo de 1999 a inaugurar una montaña rusa, Apollos Chariot, en los Busch Gardens de Virginia y recibe el honor de colocarse al frente de la atracción, en el primer coche. El peso de Fabio es de 102 kilos (es un señor de 1.91 metros) y choca contra un ganso cuyo peso es de 1950 gramos. En el momento del accidente la vagoneta de Fabio circulaba a 121 kilómetros por hora cuando la velocidad media de un ganso volando al este es de 12.5 m/s. ¿Cuál sería la fuerza del choque?”… esto… ¿la fuerza del choque se puede calcular así?…

Aquí los hechos en crudo

Aquí con la versión de uno de los animales implicados:

La reconstrucción de los hechos

En serio, quiero decir, ¿esto ocurrió en realidad?. Vaya, wow, ¿qué probabilidades existen…?. Con razón dicen que la física en sus conclusiones últimas se aproxima al caos o a Dios. Porque sólo el azar más absoluto o el ser más sabio ha podido crear un momento así…

Fabio es una fuente inagotable de situaciones físicas y metafísicas, y su propia existencia plantea muchos problemas de choque. El último choque en el que Fabio se vio envuelto se podría traducir de la siguiente manera en un problema físico:

“Unas admiradoras de Fabio, 103 kilos en canal, ganan un concurso en el que son invitadas a cenar con el modelo en eun exclusivo restaurante donde por casualidad se encuentra cenando también George Clooney, 64.86 kilos (por cierto, ¿qué mierda de medida son las “stones”?). Total, las señoras se ponen a hacer fotos, Clooney se mosquea y las empieza a decir cosas, Fabio que es todo un caballero italiano no permite que en su presencia se ofenda a la Mujer, así en genérico. Fabio se levanta y se dirige a Clooney y la cosa se pone un poco “física”. Supongamos que Fabio es el primero que golpea, si pensamos que la fuerza media de un puñetazo de un peso pesado, a cuya categoría pertenecería por peso Fabio, es de  317.514659 kg por 0.00064516 m2, esto es 700 pounds per square inch… si pensamos todo eso… ¿qué podríamos preguntar?… ¿Cuántos metros se desplazó Clooney?”.

Es que cuando le faltan a la señora de uno...

Otro problema que es muy bonito y que quiero que sirva para inaugurar el fin de semana de homenaje al artistazo que lo protagoniza es éste:

“Lux Interior recibe una invitación para la inauguración de una exposición, antes de salir de casa se echa encima un bote de latex rojo y se pone unos taconazos a juego… todo esta información puede parecer morbosa y fuera de lugar, pero puede influir por motivos de fricción y de superficie, vamos digo yo. En la inauguración hay una perfomance y una de las artistas se cae de la escalera, y  la tía le cae en toda la cara y desnuda. ¿Cuál fue la fuerza del choque?”... que oye, que eso le pasó de verdad y lo canta en “Naked girl falling from the stairs”:

Me encanta el verso: “It was a naked girl right in my face / High class culture all over the place”

Para terminar ésta, mi canción favorita de los Cramps, dedicada a todas las científicas que me ponen cachondo, para que dejen la tesis a un lado, se pongan en bragas y el sujetador de leopardo y suban la voz de ordenador

PSYYYYYYYYCHO BILLYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A ver si llaman los de la FPU...

Con un buen I+D esto se hubiera evitado

Halloween is fast approaching, and there couldn’t be a more appropriate time to indulge in the non-stop, action-packed scream-a-thon of Lucha VaVoom. After wowing New York audiences with its patented brand of “sexo y violencia,” Lucha VaVoom is returning home to the Mayan Theater in Los Angeles for two nights of Halloween-themed, high-octane lucha libre and tantalizing burlesque. Tickets for the shows (October 28 and 29) are on sale now at Ticketweb.com or at Wacko in Los Feliz or in Brat Santa Monica.

Following the LA shows, Lucha VaVoom will hit the Fillmore in San Francisco October 30 for it’s 1st annual Halloween spectacular. This one-night-only extravaganza will feature a special tribute to The Cramps’ legendary run of Halloween performances that began at The Fillmore in 1987, as the burlesque acts will perform to the music of the late Lux Interior and his seminal psychobilly band. Grab your tickets now at LiveNation, and prepare for a Halloween full of body slams and hot bodies.

Nem todo mundo sabe, mas neste ano de 2009 nos despedimos de um dos mais simbólicos vocalistas da história do rock, mas especificamente de um ícone do psychobilly, Erick Lee Purkhiser, ou como ficou notório e invulgar, Lux Interior. Lembrei disso pois só se fala em Michael Jackson, adeus ao rei-do-pop e etc. Pois bem, fica aqui registrada a homenagem ao Rei do Anti-Pop, Mr. Lux Interior, criador e criatura, junto com sua mulher Poison Ivy e sua guitarra sex, do The Cramps. Abaixo um dos mais expressivos hits desta banda, Bikini Girls and Machine Guns.

The Cramps – Thee Most Exalted Potentate Of Love
http://www.thecramps.com/

You’ve got gooood taste.

Growing up in Los Angeles- Hollywood, to be precise- can be a very odd experience. Not that I would know any different, so I suppose that it should all seem perfectly normal to me. However, as someone who is a trained critical thinker, I do consider my evolutionary process quite frequently, moreso when an icon that speaks to me passes on.

On February 4, 2009, Lux Interior died.  For me, this was a heavy loss and spanned multiple areas of my life.  In a way, this man’s death was also one of the final nails in the coffin containing the slowly deteriorating body that was the Los Angeles that I grew up with. See, Los Angeles used to be ALIVE. Vibrant. Pulsating. Now I fully recognize that at 30 years old, I am too young to have fully experienced my city to its capacity, especially in the ways that I am writing about it now. That said, I have always had eyes and I have always paid attention. See, I remember when Melrose was a little bit “dangerous.”  When my mom used  to drive down the street and I used to look at all the people whose hair color matched my crayon box, I sensed that this place was a bit verboten and dangerous; not a location for “nice” people to be seen, necessarily. Of course, the greatest irony is that now I *am* one of those people…but I digress. When I was very young, Melrose was not what it is now. I do remember how it all began, though. My mother used to joke about the stores staying for 5 minutes. In fact, since I live so very close to Melrose these days, I still make that same joke- because it still happens. But Melrose now is not Melrose then. In fact, trying to find pictures for this entry was very difficult. As most people know, you can find pictures for just about ANYTHING online. you want pictures of Lindsay Lohan’s original bellybutton piercing? You got ‘em! But old school Melrose? HARD. The picture above is a store that is no longer there, Vinyl Fetish. Right across the street was Retail Slut. I remember going in there after school when I went to Fairfax, and being gazed upon with incredible disdain by the employees. I felt as big as a peanut. Shell not included. I remember how horrible that felt. It was terrible, because the honest-to-god truth was that I was a really smart, sweet kid who got swooped up by some crazy slightly older punk rockers later that same year and everything ended up being perfectly ok, cuz I got my “boots’n'braces” education eventually, but…

A very very short time later, my baby brother was WORKING there. Working there. At Retail Slut. My little brother. With a nickname and everything. HUH?!?!? Yeah, that’s what I said. But that’s a whole other story, I guess.  At any rate, that’s not what this is about. this is about  My Experience With Lux. It’s not EVERYONE’S.  And it is most certainly not a *striking* one, but it is mine, and I cherish it because it is part of My Los Angeles.

How long have you been a slut?

Images as a teen are strange things. Especially if you exist in some kind of perverse “subculture” or have a desire to do so. I was initially part of the latter variety that (luckily for me) ended up in the former. So many visuals came with the territory, and I remember seeing hoards of them. Many that would end up becoming part of my everyday sartorial choices. The Two-Tone label, Bad Religion, Madness, X…all of these iconic things found homes upon my body somewhere, sometime. The FEAR insignia, the Crass logo, the Christian Death symbol- I learned how to read them. It was all a kind of language- a new symbolism almost. But…I remember that the Bad Music for Bad People image scared me.

I cruise through the city & I roam the streets...

HOW AWESOME IS THAT???? I say that with enthusiasm, because that is every bit of the intent. While I don’t adore every single everything by The Cramps that has ever been done, as a band they are one of the best that has EVER crossed the face of the planet because they hit on all of my favorite things: sexual permissiveness/provocativeness/perversity, horror cinema, b-films/culture, combining aural stimulus with visual stimulus, and, most important of all, breaking boundaries.

I loved being scared, then. I love being scared now. I will probably always love it. If you can find something that can scare me, I’ll kiss ya and buy ya a soda pop! I’m the kinda girl that can go to bed right after watching The Exorcist, and I don’t think that has anything to do with the fact that I’ve been Bat Mitzvah-ed and am not Catholic in the least.

OK. So you wanna know what else I REALLY love about The Cramps? You REALLY wanna know? Sure, my heart is broken and totally devastated that I never got to see them, but here’s the other stuff that makes me all gushy inside when I think about why the Cramps are integral to the world as we know it, musically, socially, and artistically. This band changed the world. Now, I’m gonna get all theoretical on you, so if you hate that stuff, here’s your chance to jet……NOW.

I like The Cramps because they are, to me, a visual-musical representation of Julia Kristeva’s theories of the abject and abjection. And I think abjection is endlessly interesting. Kristeva wrote that “It is not lack of cleanliness or health that causes abjection but what disturbs identity, system, order. What does not respect borders, positions, rules. The in-between, the ambiguous, the composite. The traitor, the liar, the criminal with a good conscience, the shameless rapist, the killer who claims he is a savior…He who denies morality is not abject; there can be grandeur in amorality and even in crime that flaunts its disrespect for the law-rebellious, liberating & suicidal crime.  Abjection, on the other hand, is immoral, sinister, scheming, and shady: a terror that dissembles, a hatred that smiles, a passion that uses the body for barter instead of inflaming it, a debtor who sells you up, a friend who stabs you…” (Powers of Horror, p.13) So what were The Cramps BUT a band about abjection? They were the outside, the other, yet with some very odd traditional sensibilities. In that sense, they bore a significant musical resemblance to Kristeva’s idea of the ambiguous, the composite…. From their very beginnings and their first album, Songs The Lord Taught Us (1980, Illegal Records), they had set up that status. Through singing traditional cover tracks like “Fever”  or “Tear it Up” and marching them up against their self-penned original titles like “The Zombie Dance” or “I Was a Teenage Werewolf,”  The Cramps established themselves as a band that could do exactly what they wanted to do…TO YOU. Especially since they were under the auspices of the Lord, right?

They had a message from God!

Variety Lists the Top 10 Cramps song titles as follows:

10. The Creature from the Black Leather Lagoon

9. I Wanna Get in Your Pants

8. Eyeball in My Martini

7. The Most Exalted Potentate of Love

6. Naked Girl Falling Down the Stairs

5. Fissure of Rolando

4. Journey to the Center of a Girl

3. Don’t Eat Stuff off the Sidewalk

2. Two Headed Sex Change

1. Bikini Girls With Machine Guns

First thing to be noted here: at least half these songs reference significant physiological issues. The Fissure of Rolando is an area deep within the brain, not immediately accessible or visible. A sex change? Let alone one of the 2-headed variety? Yes, I do believe that would border on “outsider” status, don’t you?  With Abject Cramps Logic, this is all just par for the course. And the lyrics do not deviate any more than the titles do. For example, let’s just take “Eyeball in my Martini.”  On a deeper, more psychological level, abjection is about the breakdown between the subject and object or the self and other.

Sooooooo, our illustrious frontman croons, “I went out to eat the other night. Picked up my girl at eight. In my soup I found a fly. But, there beyond my plate. Was an eyeball in my martini. A highball with a twist. One in my linguini, too. I said, “There’s somethin’ wrong with this.” Eyeballs, eyeballs, eyeballs. Eyeballs everywhere. Eyeballs, eyeballs, eyeballs…” OK. Not only are we hitting on Kristeva’s issues with abjection and the uncleanliness factor in this instance, but we definitely have significant issues surrounding the recognition of the abject. Kristeva writes that “A wound with blood or pus, or the sickly, acrid smell of sweat, of decay, does not signify death. In the presence of signified death…I would understand, react or accept. No, as in true theater, without makeup or masks, refuse & corpses show me what I permanently thrust aside in order to live. These body fluids, this defilement, this shit are what life withstands, hardly and with difficulty, on the part of death. There, I am at the border of my condition as a living being…” In this song, it is exactly this. Whether he’s looking at his drink or staring at his dinner, he’s being confronted with the very “condition of his humanity” through the existence of a piece of it. Removed from it. One basically can exist without one’s eyeball, most assuredly, but most would choose not to if it could be helped. However, singing a song such as this, where the eyeball/humanity/abjection/symbol of the body’s breakdown or demise is continually appearing in his linguini, drink and so forth???  Lux is about to eat his own flesh. Drink his own sight. Inhale his own existence. He cannot get away from the fact that he has to face mortality, and existence. The pus, the defilement, the breakdown. THIS IS THE ABJECT….

My body extricates itself, as being alive, from that border...-Kristeva

See, the abject also refers to our reactions to that which is considered “abject” which, according to Kristeva, can be quite a traumatic experience all-around.  Kristeva mentions examples of certain items that illicit these reactions, inclusive of corpses, open wounds, piss, or the skin on the top of warm milk (don’t ask on that milk one- if you want to go further, read her full piece, which I would highly recommend doing anyway).  Because these items remind us of our own mortality, of our own physicality, of the things that we do/are /the “uncleanliness,” (see earlier quote), or other things that rip us away from the general state of “pretty happy shiny” that we tend to live in, the abject causes us to, essentially “flip out,” and experience a very real, significant sense of cognitive dissonance. Yeah, pretty fucked up. So in a sense, we are confronted by our own existence and bodily functions, we don’t like to recognize that we die or bleed or crap, and……OMGWTFBBQ!!!!

We fear. This is exactly why horror films work. This is why Cronenberg has built a cinematic empire upon body horror. This is why the Aliens series works. This is why SO MANY things work. I could go on. Buuuuuuuuuut…..my point here is this is also why The Cramps work!!!

The Cramps played a lot. So did X. So did a great many bands that my friends were able to see and I was never able to bear witness to. However I remember the visual. I remember, as only a child/adolescent does, COMPLETELY mixing up Lux Interior and the cover of Bad Music For Bad People (the main image I always saw around town). I always thought THAT was him. But I enjoyed the fear and the THRILL that he put in me. Years later, when I became a fan, and then a film and pop culture theorist myself, I was able to think about things (obviously) on a different note. However, to this day, I will always think that Bad Music for Bad People is a scary album cover. I will also think that it clearly references theoretical issues of abjection, etc, which only makes me adore it even more.

I am sad for my loss. After all, what is sadness after a death but personal loss, really? I am just sad that I was unable to see them. That is my tragedy. It is an aural & visual loss that I will always regret. However I am proud to have experienced them as a Hollywood girl, having them be such a crucial part of my lifecycle, and and even happier to have them continue to prove to be a brilliant source of education and inspiration for theory and learning. Even if, at the end of the day, I am just a Goo Goo Muck…

“Again, like the Surrealists, anything you run across is actually beautiful; within a single city block, you find miraculous things. It’s a good planet — and good things can happen.”

- Lux Interior

I like this quote, not because it is a well-crafted aphorism, but because of its babbling exuberance – it conveys a rare kind of enthusiasm. For me it conjures an image of Lux Interior and Poison Ivy Rorschach, prime movers of ‘psychobilly’ band the Cramps, wandering the city like harmlessly monstrous goth-burlesque flâneurs, stumbling upon the strange artefacts of trash culture that fuelled the lurching monster of their music.

Revisiting the Cramps’ twisted world has been sad, as Lux Interior died earlier this year. It seems like a blink of an eye since I was reading a review of ‘Gravest Hits’ in the NME (now changed beyond recognition), getting a 26 bus (route now largely that of the 1/1a) into Brighton, buying the record from the Attrix shop (long since closed) managed by Rick from the Parrots (sadly no longer with us).

Everything persists – at least in electric ghost form – I could probably download the Cramps’ entire catalogue in less time than it took to walk to the bus stop. Curiosities such as their performance at the California State Mental Hospital in Napa (lovingly recreated as the movie File Under Sacred Music) are there on YouTube, to be turned on like a tap.

And at the same time nothing remains – my memories of seeing the band live will fade as I do, feedback fading into the background hum of amps on an empty stage.

For a long time, I haven’t had their music as a soundtrack. Perhaps my existence as an amiable suburbanite and vaguely serious professional dude hasn’t needed such a maniacal undertow.

I suppose their celebration of pharmaceuticals falls into the ‘do not try this at home’ category… though saying that, I take drugs very day – the kind that keep my middle-aged life in comfortable stasis. Perhaps I should invoke the Cramps as an accompaniment to my ingestion of chemicals: listen to Drug Train while I spray ‘metered actuations’ of mometasone furoate up my nose to pacify my sinuses (‘Whoo! Whoo!’); Bop Pills while I swallow the Lansoprazole capsules that keep stomach acid from overcoming my oesophagus (‘And man when they hit me, I landed in the middle of the floor’); ‘Strychnine’ while I glug cod liver oil to lubricate my perpetually-aching hip (‘You may think it’s funny, That I like this stuff, But once you’ve tried it, You can’t get enough’.)

I gather that the Cramps struggled with an (understandable) view of them as a comedy band. But they took their trash seriously, pursuing their vision with a relentless intent and utter conviction.

All of this reminds me of  Susan Sontag’s famous essay on Camp sensibility, where she talks of
“the exaggerated, the “off,” of things-being-what-they-are-not…Camp sees everything in quotation marks. It’s not a lamp, but a “lamp”; not a woman, but a “woman.” To perceive Camp in objects and persons is to understand Being-as-Playing-a-Role. It is the farthest extension, in sensibility, of the metaphor of life as theater…The ultimate Camp statement: it’s good because it’s awful . . .”

I think [insert attempt to relate post to main theme of blog] my walk is this kind of camp. Not that I’m mincing my way to Brighton (despite the aforementioned hip problem); rather that I’m paying attention to the “off” stuff along the way (whilst remembering at all times the Cramps safety announcement ‘Don’t Eat Stuff Of the Sidewalk’).  Perhaps way back in the olden days I learned something deadly serious from them – marginal, neglected things can be beautiful: pointless creations can be pursued with single-minded dedication: and most importantly

“Life is short. And filled with stuff.”

- New Kind of Kick

Now life is short and it’s filled with stuff. So let me know baby when you’ve had enough. Oh do the dead, turn blue.
Yeah the surfin’ dead, as dead as you. There’s nothing on the radio when you’re dead. There’s nothing at the movie show when you’re dead.
There’s nowhere left for you to go when you’re dead. Do the dead, yeah do the dead. Do the dead, surfin’ dead.

(Lux Interior 1948 – 2009)

Best recorded instance of a blowjob given to a microphone ever.

By these cats THE WATKINS SCREAMERS. they sound like something mashed up from former CRAMPS frontman LUX INTERIOR (RIP) and bassheavy dudes like CASPA or STARKEY. It’s strange, but I dig this. I bumped into this on the great blog elusively titled GET WEIRD TURN PRO. Good stuff!

GRAB IT:  THE WATKINS SCREAMERS – SHE SAID WHAT

I’ll fully admit that for a few minutes there I was worried about what 2009 would be like for music.

After all, within the first two months of the year, we already lost three legends, in the form of Ron Asheton of the Stooges, Lux Interior of the Cramps, and Randy Bewley of the painfully underrated, yet highly influential Athens, GA band, Pylon.

I’ll cut to the chase. It was looking like dark days were ahead.

But, thankfully the gods of noise intervened, and have blessed us in the form of that which is new, and surprisingly excellent.

I’ll spare you talking about Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion, simply because while it’s great, it’s also going to be one of the most-reviewed albums of the year. And I won’t talk about Wavves’ Wavvves, because, if we’re being honest, the previous Wavves release on Fuckittapes kinda kicks its’ ass, and if we’re being really really honest, none of it is anything that Guided By Voices, in all their shining lo-fi pop mastery, didn’t do way, way better over 15 years ago. There. I said it. Start throwing stones.

Instead, I’ll use part one of this series to talk about one of the most mind-explodingly great albums I’ve heard in a long, long time. Mi Ami’s Watersports.

For those of you interested, Mi Ami are post-Black Eyes tribal noise-punk madness. I got a chance to catch their set at Cake Shop last month, and watching them put me into a danced-out state of both elation and terror (and in case you were wondering, this is meant to be a huge compliment).

A lot of people will listen to a record like this and wonder what the hell the point is. It’s messy and incoherent. Noisy and abrasive. Sometimes the only thing the songs are driving towards is their own imminent and explosive self-destruction.

But to those critics and pseudo-intellectuals ingratiated to the satisfaction of dissecting albums via the authority of a blog for the entire world, who seem to always be looking for some form of deeper meaning, who will probably scratch their heads and reject something like this, I’d just like to say: Get over it.

Because while you were busy searching for meaning, busy comparing every album that passed through your ears to the Stooges and Cramps and Pylons of the world, and inevitably denigrating most of it for not living up to these unfair expectations, a whole lot of people willing to let go of this pretense were having their faces melted listening to Mi Ami break down every bit of meaning into rhythmic, dub-infused, scary-sexy madness.

And it felt really, really good.

Read “2009 has been rocking the new music releases [Part 2]” here.

Un veterano aficionado a la música ‘underground’ me enseñó después del concierto una entrada de una actuación de 1987 con cara de “no ha sido lo mismo, pero no ha estado nada mal”. La llevaba para que se la firmaran. Anoche, entre el público del Four Seasons -lleno hasta los topes- había bastante gente que los había visto en aquella gira (los menos), en la de los primeros 90 y en la de 2003. Había ganas. Ambiente de concierto especial. Los Fuzztones en Castellón; quién lo iba a decir hace diez, quince años.

Era su sexto concierto en siete días. Su líder, Rudi Protrudi, tiene 58 años y su voz estaba algo cascada. El batería, Rob Louwres (presentado en el MySpace como “primitive drums & excessive alcohol consumption”), iba algo pasado de vueltas. Las guitarras, la Phantom y la Gibson, apenas se oían. Por momentos, sólo se escuchaba el órgano, afiladísimo, y el saxo. A pesar de todo eso, el concierto de The Fuzztones en el Four Seasons valió la pena.

Valió la pena escuchar todo ese torrente garagero y siniestro, salvajemente rock, de voz de uno de sus genuinos precursores. Y no solamente por fetichismo. Uno de los grupos que muchos mitificamos en los 80 y los 90 y que, se permiten presentar un disco nuevo, ‘Horny as hell’, algunas de cuyas canciones sonaron tremendas, como “Garden of my Mind“. Por no mencionar algunos de los clásicos que cayeron en la segunda parte del concierto.

Y, por esas conexiones que se dan a veces, el Four Seasons se permitió el lujo de ser escenario de un tributo de The Fuzztones al recientemente desaparecido Lux Interior, con una versión del “Human Fly” de The Cramps (vídeo de abajo) que hizo saltar chispas entre el público. Dos históricos de la escena ‘underground’ de las dos costas norteamericanas de los 80 de alguna forma presentes y unidos, por un momento, en Castellón. A estas alturas, y con el tute de gira que llevan, se le puede pedir poco más a Rudi Protrudi.

Los Suspiros, anunciados como teloneros en el cartel, no comparecieron. The Fuzztones actúan esta noche en Bilbao, mañana sábado en Portonovo, el domingo en Ponferrada, el lunes en Oporto y el martes 10 en Barcelona.

Lo más horrible de las vacaciones (además de que se acaban y la llegada de marzo) es ponerse al día, el hecho de desconectarse del mundo te pasa la cuenta. Después de un día entero de voyeurismo musical dí con la ya añeja noticia de la muerte de Lux Interior (el 4 de febrero, problemas cardíacos, a los 62 años de edad), un desconocido para muchos, el vocalista de The Cramps para nosotros.

Lux junto con Poison Ivy fueron padres, mentores, dueños y los únicos dignos exponentes de esa locura que quisieron llamar Psychobilly. Danzing y los suyos quedan como niños de pecho frente a la odisea horror punk que se asocia a la banda del difunto a quien homenajeamos. Podemos definir a The Cramps de muchas maneras, como un grupo de mal gusto, como la plena decadencia del punk, o como los portavoces de todo aquello nos hace unos inadaptados:

Monumento de y para la cultura biodegradable, remembranza sin resquemores del cafre adolescente que fuiste o quisiste haber sido, motos y carreteras nocturnas bordeando cementerios de Serie Z donde buscar la tumba de Bela Lugosi, o las tetas de Maila Nurmi… Eso son los Cramps.

Rockabilly radicalizado, tupés desmesurados, palurdos aprendiendo a rascar una guitarra o aporrear unos bombos en un garaje cochambroso, y Los Ramones haciendo turno para mirar por el ojo de la cerradura en un burdel de mala muerte, los autos que se transforman en burdeles para las reinas de belleza, el látigo y el fetichismo, la extrapolación de los miedos de Cronemberg … Eso son los Cramps

También Ed Wood encontrándose con Orson Welles en un bar de Los Ángeles a mediados de los cincuenta e intercambiando confidencias sobre cine y problemas de financiación, mientras Russ Meyer lleva su despiadado feminismo a la carretera, la psicodelia alejada de las flores y cercana a los reactores nucleares, la toxicidad traducida en la decadente cultura surf,… Eso son los Cramps.

Nada de romanticismo ni mística, olvidate de Allan Poe y acepta las maldiciones Faulknerianas, a la generación Beat empañada como la  sombra errante de Caín, o ese Caín que llamamos Jerry Lee Lewis pidiendo guerra,  acordemosnos de Elvis Presley, pero el Elvis colgado al techo de las drogas ofreciéndose a Nixon como agente secreto para la salvación del American Way of Life…  Éso son los Cramps…

…. todo eso fueron hasta la muerte de Lux Interior:

]]> http://teachingyul.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/the-death-of-a-legend/ Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:18:53 +0000 Fernando Fanjul http://teachingyul.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/the-death-of-a-legend/

Lux Interior, the frontman for iconic punk band the Cramps died, February 4th, at the Glendale Memorial Hospital in Glendale, California. Interior, born Erick Lee Purkhiser, was 62 and is survived by his wife of 37 years, Cramps guitarist Kristy “Poison Ivy Rorschach” Wallace. In a statement released by the band’s publicist, a preexisting heart condition is named as the cause of death.

The Cramps first made their mark in the mid-1970s, when Interior, Poison Ivy and a revolving door rhythm section frequented the stages at famed New York punk clubs like CBGB and Max’s Kansas City alongside artists like Television, the Ramones, Blondie and Patti Smith. The band eventually recruited drummer Nick Knox in 1977, who remained with the group until 1991. During those years, the Cramps were credited with creating both the term and musical style “psychobilly,” a synthesis of punk rock and rockabilly that was gloriously raw and over the top. Their lyrics examined American culture at its most campy, often citing bad jokes, science fiction films and sexual fetishes.

The Cramps went on to record singles with Big Star’s Alex Chilton and signed to I.R.S. Records in 1977. But it was the stage where the band truly made its name, with Interior grabbing the spotlight with Iggy Pop-esque antics. The band famously played a free show for the patients at the California State Mental Hospital in 1978, which was probably their perfect venue. “Somebody told me you people are crazy, but I’m not so sure about that. You seem to be all right to me,” Interior screamed from the stage (watch footage from the gig above).

In his 1984 review of Cramps comp Bad Music For Bad People, Kurt Loder wrote, “This is rock & roll the way it never really was on the radio, but the way you always dreamed it could be — drooling horrorama lyrics, great cheesoid guitar riffs, postlobotomy drum-bashing and a singer for whom inhibition is the dirtiest ten-letter word of all. Slurp it up, sleaze fans.”

The Cramps released classics like 1979’s Songs the Lord Taught Us and 1981’s Psychedelic Jungle. The group’s last album of new material was 2003’s Fiends of Dope Island. Over the years, the Cramps’ music has been covered by the Jesus & Mary Chain, Queens of the Stone Age and the countless more bands the Cramps inspired.

“Lux was a fearless frontman who transformed every stage he stepped on into a place of passion, abandon, and true freedom. He is a rare icon who will be missed dearly,” the statement reads. “The family requests that you respect their privacy during this difficult time.”

fuente:  rollingstone

Este año ha estado pesado con las bajas en cuanto a lo que a mí me gusta escuchar, se fue Ron Asheton de Iggy and the Stooges, Murió Andy Martinez de los Nekromantix, Bo Didley y recientemente uno de mis 6, ahora 5, más grandes y vivos. Lux Interior de los Cramps.

Pero en vez de hablar de lo triste y deprimente que se hizo mi día cuando me enteré…¡hablemos de fuzz musique!

El género probablemente ni siquiera exista, sólo lo utilizaremos para definir a aquellas bandas, que por el sonido que tienen, podrían encontrarse en un mismo cartél y mantener la coherencia sin importar la escena a la que pertenezcan porque:

a) Usan un pedal de fuzz

b) Fuzz musique suena muy chingón, y si tuviera una banda consistente en este momento, me gustaría que dijeran que toco fuzz musique.

Ok, hablar de todas las cosas, entornos sociales y casualidades que definieron tantos géneros como el garage, el frat rock, el surf, el punk  y el protopunk  etc etc, sería muy tedioso; Sólo es necesario señalar que los Kinks descubrieron un tipo de distorsión al razgar el cono de un amplificador con una navaja, Link Wray encontró otro al agujerar la malla de su amplificador con un lápiz, se pueden hacer guitarras eléctricas y acústicas con las piezas de un teléfono público,  los amplificadores de bulbos son caros, pero valiososos, vale la pena lo que sea que pagues por patear el cabezal de uno y que te dé ese sonido de feedback, como cuando pasas por debajo de una torre de alta tensión. Todo esto tiene en común un zumbido.

Hay muchas temáticas dentro de todos estos géneros, el protopunk dió bases al punk, y el punk bueno, es punk.

El frat rock y el garage son muy parecidos, la diferencia más notoria podría ser que el frat rock tiene un tipo de coro como de pandilla, que se llama anthemic en inglés.

Y el surf, tiene como característica que es instrumental la mayoría de las veces, y existe un plumilleo como médula espinal del género, cosa que suena… si, a un zumbido. Pero estas distinciones  no importan mucho en realidad, porque aquí estamos hablando de Fuzz musique.

Probablemente el tema más socorrido dentro de la fuzz musique sea el horror, hay muchos métodos para apoyarse y darle cierta atmósfera, los theremins y órganos farfisa ayudan mucho, pero definitivamente si a alguien se le debe algo, es a Lux Interior, quien de entrada reinventó el shock rock; cuando Alice Cooper ya no asustaba, Lux se puso tacones y tanga de cuero; Y canciones como Creature from the black leather lagoon, Human fly, y Aloha from hell, tal vez sean los más covereados dentro de toda la fuzz musique.

Otra institución dentro del fuzz serían… los Fuzztones. Un tip: TOOOOODO lo que hacen los Horrors hoy en día, los Fuzztones lo hicieron dentro del revival del garage… hace 30 años. Todo menos tocar en un hospital psiquiatrico, jeje.

Entonces, ya expliqué cómo sonar a fuzz musique, qué temas abordar, qué géneros integran esta inexistente, y nada seria escena.

¡Pues vámos a los ejemplos!

The Ghastly Ones – Ghastly Stomp

The Cramps – Ultra Twist

The Fuzztones – Ward 81

Link Wray & His Ray Men – Rumble

Lechuga!

 I’ve got the cramps. They announced themselves twenty-three years ago and they remain with me to this day; monstering my wife, my neighbours, and my stereo. I recall when they first bonded to my DNA; it was the instant needle kissed vinyl on my copy of The Cramps Gravest Hits EP, all the way back in 1984. That record was warped from the get-go – literally – a dodgy pressing inciting the stylus arm of dad’s ‘3-in-1’ to buck and lurch like some half-cut harlot. Still, no matter (or none, at least, when the old man wasn’t around), that first track, Human Fly, remains, to my mind, proof positive of how compromised surface geometry can, on occasion, serve to accentuate sound etched into vinyl. And, oh, what sound! When I play that song now the fumbling of Poison Ivy’s ‘who-gives-a-pluck’ rhythm guitar, followed by the crunch of the band lurching into life, still sends shudders through my plumbing…all the way down to my pelvic bone.

 The Cramps slid a hand up the skirt of America; an America left dissolving beneath the hiccups of Gene Vincent and the hip-shake of Elvis; a land of B-Grade Sci-Fi Horror, discarded pizza boxes and Detroit steel. If you listen close enough – right there – in that space between the grooves, you can almost taste the lipstick traces on the dashboard, or – if it’s your thing – that damp patch on the upholstery. They throbbed with primal menace – and for a kid growing up on the outer fringe of Melbourne, Australia that menace was a Godsend, sent special delivery, straight from Hell. I loved them to death…still do.

It was then with considerable regret that I learnt of the recent passing of Lux Interior, the band’s enigmatic front-man. Lux provided the connective tissue (albeit a tad gristly) that tethered those seminal American sounds of the 50’s and 60’s – sounds pioneered by the likes of Duane Eddy, Ricky Nelson and Link Wray – to the punk aesthetic of the 70’s. For the less talented, or those averse to paying due respect to what came before, any attempt to fuse such seemingly disparate epochs may have ended in pastiche. Not so with Lux – he dug deep into the rock n’ roll remainder bin; grabbed the gems and the junk, and assembled them into new forms that pulsed and frugged with mutant energy. Listen to the band’s cover of Surfin’ Bird by The Trashmen, the disposable heart of the original is still there, but the drive now comes from Lux’s manic hiccup style – ala Gene Vincent – holding the whole tawdry mess together. Or play Track 2, John Scott’s The Way I Walk; here his vocal swagger hearkens back to a time – well before all that bothersome bra-burning – where a guy just had to tell a chick precisely what he stood for. Once that was out of the way he could then go on to tell her exactly what to do and how to do it (I suspect that Ivy didn’t want for instruction in this area, her work as a dominatrix in New York City would have afforded her plenty of on-the-job training).

 The Cramps were the gluggy muck stuck between the weave of rock n’ roll. Bold, vital, and just plain fun, they were everything that was great about American music. Only ‘a square’ would choose to dismiss them as camp rock n’ roll recidivists, or as just another punk act past their use-by date. And, if you think about it, that was the point anyway – disposability was their virtue: granting permanence to their back-catalogue of mouldy morsels. So vale Lux! You’ll be missed by this middle-aged kid. I’m going to give Gravest Hits another spin – right now – the neighbours are out and there’s still time before the missus gets home – is that a stirring I feel in my loins?

Frida Kahlo jewellery box shrine made by Mary Jane Voodooville www.voodooville.co.uk

I am an  artist and a born again crafster. I sell through my own website www.voodooville.co.uk and have also just started selling on Etsy http://www.voodooville.etsy.com 

My current ‘fads’ are Day of the dead, Frida Kahlo shrines, nichos, tinwork, shrink plastic, handmade jewellery, burlesque, rockabilly and sailor tattoo imagery, The Cramps, (RIP Lux) papier mache and handmade greetings cards.

I am amarried, live in the north of England in Cheshire, not far from Manchester and I love all things vintage, pop art, outsider art, Kustom Kulture, pinups, rock n roll and rockabilly.

After weeks of searching for images to provide me with inspiration, I have finally created two Frida Kahlo Day of the dead shrines made out of embellished jewellery boxes.

I prefer the second one to the first one, but overall I think they worked quite well. I really enjoyed adding the embellishments, especially finding the right size and colour of sequins, beads, trimmings etc.

I ended the day covered in glue but feeling like I had achieved something!

 Tomorrow I will be attempting to make a zombie skull Elvis necklace, using shrink plastic, polymer clay and beads. Check back soon for photos. Below is theh top view of the second shrine (I haven’t quite got the hand of editing images in this blog just yet but bear with me!)