Long player: Garish trash-rock raw as a skinned knee

For more than 33 fun-filled years, The Cramps did more to keep rock's "devil music" reputation intact than any other band. Steadfastly refusing to grow up and a get a proper job, the inseparable husband-and-wife team of Lux Interior and Poison Ivy kept belting out their garish trash-rock right up until Interior's sudden death at age 62.

Formed in 1973, The Cramps didn't absorb their influences so much as wilfully exaggerate them. Rockabilly from the '50s mixed with New York Dolls-style androgyny, schlock-horror violence and leather-and-lace fetishism to produce a gloriously screwy concoction that kicked off the pychobilly genre.

In performance, vocalist Interior would teeter around like Frankenstein's monster in heels or slide on his belly, humping the stage. Surly, gum-chewing Ivy would churn out surf riffs from her Gretsch, channelling Link Ray and Dick Dale with all the sleazy style of a sequined stripper.

"You ain't no punk, you punk/You wanna talk about the real junk?" barks Interior on Garbageman, from The Cramps' 1980 debut long-player Songs The Lord Taught Us. His barb is aimed at those who think of punk rock as something fresh and dangerous, and he goes on to reference Louie Louie and Surfin' Bird as evidence of rock's ever-present insurgent streak.

The album is as raw as a skinned knee, with Alex Chilton's production capturing live-in-studio performances of such classics as TV Set, I Was A Teenage Werewolf, Sunglasses After Dark and What's Behind The Mask.

A stripped-down drum kit is thumped with psychotic glee as slap-back reverb bounces Interior's howling, huffing vocals around the listener's skull. Guitars grind like washing machines filled with grit as Ivy picks out her lead lines.

By plundering elements of glamour, sex and sick humour from popular culture, the band went on making its mischief until 2009.

This album and others that followed ensured mums and dads everywhere never rested easy while The Cramps were around.

 

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