I spotted this graffiti on a piece of street furniture in Liverpool last month, the artist starting to sketch a naked woman, legs and torso with 'Oooh la la!' as a title and then stopping, for whatever reason, to write a note of explanation- 'I was drunk when I drew this soz x'. Which is lovely isn't it?
The Cramps came up last week, a clip of them I watched somewhere drew me back into Lux and Ivy's cartoon world of utterly serious rock 'n' roll business. I love The Cramps of the early 80s, garage punk with a genuinely delinquent edge, recording amped up rockabilly/ country punk, covers and originals. On 1981's Psychedelic Jungle they had Kid Congo Powers on guitar, had settled on Nick KNox on drums after a run of short term skin bashers and had moved from New York to Los Angeles where they recorded this deranged cover version of Goo Goo Muck, a 1965 garage rock 7" by Ronnie Cook And The Gaylads. A ton of echo, twangy guitar, cymbals, schlocky horror.
'When the sun goes down and the moon comes up/ I turn into a teenage goo goo muck/ I cruise through the city and I roam the street/ Looking for something nice to eat...'
By the mid 80s they'd gained a settled line up with Nick Knox still on drums and Candy Del Mar on bass. 1986's A Date With Elvis and their 1990 album Stay Sick are both blasts of rock solid songwriting, superb, honed performances and a bigger sound with slightly higher production values. Stay Sick! especially is wall- to- wall killers, one great song after another. This one, Mama Oo Pow Pow, is Lux's libido crammed into two and a half minutes with a blistering guitar/ bass/ drums attack that fades in quickly and ends the same way.
'Mama oo pow pow, who's gonna twist and shout/ Mama oo pow pow, who shot that la la out/ Your gamagoochi's got the gagas and your hoochie coochie's hangin' out/ Girl, you could use a good spankin, and baby, so could I/ I love to hear the scream of the butterfly/ Now I don't wanna be your dear sweet friend/I just wanna beat your little pink rear end'
Loved The Cramps, they were just as deranged live at that time as you might imagine, even as Poison Ivy stood stock still, casually dispensing brilliant twangy guitar. I still have my transparent yellow vinyl copy of Goo Goo Muck...
ReplyDeleteSmell of Female is a live album that bears repeat plays
ReplyDeleteGo way back with the Cramps that started with Bad Music for Bad People around ‘84. When I think about it, this would be among the oldest records in my collection. Still, I defer to Dirk and yourself as I didn’t stick with them nearly as long as you two.
ReplyDeleteWhat I loved about The Cramps is that they were dead serious in their music. There was no novelty about this band, no matter how much they may have been portrayed that way. Psychedelic Rockabilly was how I described them when I was young, but what they were was a Psychedelic Blues band at heart.
ReplyDeleteI love Goo Goo Muck, but I think I like The Crusher and Under The Wires from Psychedelic Jungle just that much more.
Spot on Echorich- they were deadly serious about what they did. What they did could be schlocky, cartoony, tongue in cheek and whatever else but it was as serious as could be.
ReplyDelete