Rising Cramp

Rip It Up, Issue 107, 1 June 1986, Page 4

Rising Cramp

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. Philosophies fond of circles tend to emphasise the cyclic - nature of things by illustrating . ~ with little parables from the - - Universe. One of the most Popular is human life, wherehy each individual bestes his/her | Span i, coidhood; grows up, S o sot USSR e rhabete, staited, in a second childhood _ halfiay to-his old age, looked: - - up, and got bounced back o~ the grubbypartof =~ - you explain it? Inside a - Girl? indeed. Your Pussy - Do the Dog'indeed. .= . Sleazy sex at home with the ~ phenomenon of course—recall the panty pantingof ‘Under the Wires' — and Lux- - did, after all, declare himself “ Most Exalted Potentate of Love - (anyone who wrote “Well | can show you how to read the - book of life/But you can just -~ look at the pictures if you like” - would've had my vote anyway). - But grubby sex seems to riake . up the very fodder and tone of ' the Cramps’ last album, A Date _ With Elvis. Wherefrom springs

. this newfound passion for ... ¢ passion?, - way, as they sauizeze up to the pub’s - - bar in trieir jackets and haircuts to - - ~ lookimploringly at the decent: - andasassertively dressed as most = Englishyoutn Englishipecple __tromythe black ones are not-won- . Yards from The sHammasori e S R _ Yards from the Hammercw, i - [PABE i the Crampsare oplay: - Aheipfastbut-one English gig.« /Theres,an amusing cross: . poliination between this pub and “the Britannia — which is opposite the Hammersmith Odeon, where, . lawdy, Black Sabbath are playing. /t's a matter of which exit you take. from the tube station and a ~ each pub seem to have taken the Jwomgws 0 . looks like the concerts _ readyhappened. A pile of handbills *has been knocked over and scattered across the carpet, along with - sundry other litter ... like the people. ~ Inside, an unexciting outfit the Guana Batz are playing to the - faithful and the easily won over. Af- — ter imploring the audiencs to give - them an encore, the singer rushes . back on at the first cries for more, and says: “You just knew we couldn’t go without playing another Stray - - Cats song!” Yeah, right. .~ They leave, the house lights _ come up, and the crush for bar and

_ toilet facilities begins. In the toilet _ the mirrors are steamed up from _ the sweaty bodies and the floor is . aboutan inch deep. Holes in shoes - may be austerity chic, but don't be - - surprised if your feet mutate ... . Thehouse lights are still up when - ‘the Cramps shamble onstage. First - “out is the bass piayer for this tour, - ateenage punkette with a pink mo- - “hawk called Fur. That is, Fur's her name, not the mohawk’s. The - Cramps have a history of trouble - With bass players, so it seems this time they ve. decided.not to have _ one. Furs playing is extremelyrudimentary, and thisis atthe end . of atour She seems to enjoyherself, however=plaing BhOUZ7G et in four and Screw: snari, chewing gum the whole time, - - Nick knox, the drummer, com-. " ythmseccon;often providing ot for Fur toplayalong with. Itsuits — hes very, very, cadl, black ha, black shirt, black trousers, black shoes. ing his drums overat the end of the - whole performance - ef guitaristwouldn'tcope, butlvy is « N 0 way a lesser guitarist, She - makes it all lock easy, the and melody, and chews - - gum at the same time. Like Nick - and Fur, she's disdainfully cool. - . Luxis not cool, he's hot. See how - he stores the microphone in his - _ trousers when he's doing nowt else “ with it? See the wild look in his - - eyes? See the things he does with - _ his endlessly tall body? He can sing - too. Just goes to show what every-

one’s always known — the Cramps are Lux 'n’ lvy. -But as well as being hot, Lux is, well, hot ... he wears only a pair of black leather trousers and his torso shines with sweat. Ivy and Fur glisten over an even greater range of body surface; they're both wearing what amount to glitzy, shiny stage bikinis. Being drinking women, they spill slightly over the sides of their garments — by today’s media standards they wouldbg: .fat'todress so. Youtry telling vy e e e BY NOW.its Becoms Clearthat dressing down's de rigeur for the " audience as well, andat least athird. . .of the males in the aréap t 0 20 . Yardsback ffom the stagehavere/moved their shirts, They tooglisten, . andslidedff each other when they makecontact | ( c o 0 __ And boy, do they make contact. ~ Theareainfiontof thestage s rela-. tively safe, the usuatheavingtush, _Tun. Its not 50 muchrslamming as: _ bounding, dancing with.your el- _ bows to preserve your kidneys, but . _ theres something very rockabilly - +_aboutit. The teddy boy s alive and - - comes through clearly in the dance.:. Cramips forsome of their fans. Not only are many people going to both nights at the Palais, but they've seen the other London gigs and perhaps even a couple in the provinces, or taken a trip to the continent. The enthusiasts range in Look from evileyed psychobillies to beefy, boisterous flat-tops. The Cramps have always been far, far more popular in

Europe than at home. The repertoire for the show is drawn mainly from late period Cramps, the last alboum and the live Smell of Female. It and Lux get progressively more frenzied; well, Lux more than the music. It may be a show, but Lux Interior looks genuinely possessed towards the end. Not so much flaunting his sex as having it come out in spots all ~over him ... : & ... actually, Lux has P2 on his ~ botty. This- e was revealing ~wiien he hitched down the back of _his pants before climbing up to lie _on the PA stack to sing ‘You Got Good Taste! He lay up there for a _ while, sucking the mike, banging it on the speakers, making it feed ~ back... while an anxious roadie fed ~ him the lead. .- By the end of the set he was - sprawled on the stage on his own, bashing one of the cymbals Nick had kicked over. After a wee while, . Nick came back and helped Lux off. They came back for an encore, of course, a lolloping country song ...- and then left again. That all? It - seemed a bit of a cheat at the time, . butin hindsight they had been play- . ing along time and it was very hot - and they were possibly completely ~ knackered. Lux certainly looked it. . Still, one did get the feeling the se-_~cond-encore woulda bin the killer. __ So there y'go ... the story goes . thatLux 'n’ lvy once took mescalin “every day for a whole year, so maybe that's where it all comes from; Lux Interior as the next evolutionary - step on from Aldous Huxley, anyone? You could even picture this sex bit as the Dr Cramp method of forestalling middle-age sexual entropy. - Notas young as you used to be? Oppressed by the media portrayal of sex being something that happens

between trim, shiny people with high cheekbones who don't have to take off their Swatches to fuck? You still got it! Lux 'n’ lvy do!

In a world where music sounds “great” (eg: bilge like Go West or Duran) and sex looks “great” (eg: the vicious designer wet-dreams of movie-of-the-moment, the unexciting 9 1/2 Weeks. the-Cramps play rock 'n"roy and talk dirty. And whatever else they may be at any pointin time, ze Crampsiis purty smart.

Russell Brown