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The Cramps

Cramps, The

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The Cramps: A Date With Elvis

Review by Gavin Martin, New Musical Express, 22 February 1986

THE CRAMPS' rampant gurning and soft-focus sleaze has been shaped into an institution of sorts. Transcending and fusing tribal instincts – goth's dumb brooding and ...

Audio interviews

The Cramps (1986)

Interview by Martin Aston, Rock's Backpages audio, March 1986

Lux Interior and Poison Ivy on their obsession with all things Elvis; Ricky Nelson's weirdness; accusations of pastiche, and rockabilly vs. rock'n'roll; on Gravest Hits and producer Alex Chilton; being on stage; life in Los Angeles and their hatred of suntans; life in Glendale chez the Interiors... and owning paintings by serial killers.

File format: mp3; file size: 60.5mb, interview length: 1h 03' 01" sound quality: ***

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The Cramps: Psychobilly and Other Musical Diseases

Interview by Paul Rambali, New Musical Express, 10 June 1978

I SEARCHED HIGH and I searched low. I scuffled around garbage cans, looked under cars and peered in doorways. ...

The Cramps/The Mutants: Napa State Hospital, Napa CA

Live Review by Howie Klein, New York Rocker, July 1978

"LET'S DRIVE UP to the funny farm. The Cramps and Mutants are doin' a concert for the nuts; should be lotsa yuks." I wanna take ...

The Cramps

Profile and Interview by Joe Sasfy, Unicorn Times, 1979

CONFIDENTIAL REPORT BY JOE SASFY ...

Police, Cramps, Bobby Henry: Odeon, Edinburgh

Live Review by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 9 June 1979

VALUE-ADDED. A three band tour. Expenses shared, exposure for the musician, extras for the audience. A good thing. Which is at least one reason why ...

The Cramps: Hoodoo Rhythm

Interview by Penny Kiley, Melody Maker, 9 June 1979

"To see in rock and roll something other than immediate obsolescence demands faith and patience." PENNY KILEY draws a bead on the Cramps, America's rockabilly ...

The Cramps: Rockabilly Retardation

Interview by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 9 June 1979

THE SOUND OF SOUTHERN CULTURE FALLING APART IN A BLAZE OF PICKUPS ...

The Cramps: Marquee, London

Live Review by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 16 June 1979

Look Out! The bogey men are coming… ...

The Cramps: Tales Of American Gothick

Profile and Interview by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 23 June 1979

THE TITLE OF the film escapes me, but the scene itself has remained indelibly stained on my brainplate for all of nine years. A strange ...

The Cramps' Big Break

Report and Interview by Andy Schwartz, New York Rocker, September 1979

"Give Me Memphis, Tennessee..." ...

The Cramps: Palladium, New York

Live Review by Susin Shapiro, The Village Voice, 12 November 1979

PUNK AND PUMPKINS at the Palladium, turned for a night into a seance for Houdini. Garish garb and glorious: the human Quaalude, a walking cassette ...

Get Cramped!!

Interview by Peter Silverton, Sounds, 22 March 1980

NAPA HOSPITAL, Californian mental institution, the half-way ward. Lux Interior is reminiscing. ...

The Cramps: Songs The Lord Taught Us

Review by Robot A. Hull, Creem, July 1980

RECORDED AT SAM PHILLIPS’ Studio in Memphis and produced by Alex Chilton (the Box Tops' former Big Star), Songs The Lord Taught Us fries the ...

The Cramps: Songs the Lord Taught Us (International Record Syndicate, Inc.)

Review by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 24 July 1980

WELCOME TO ART-rockabilly, a merger of the sensibilities and guitar styles of Link Wray and Lou Reed. Actually, this concoction — like fried grasshoppers and ...

The Lord Giveth While The Cramps Taketh Away

Interview by John Mendelsohn, Creem, August 1980

JUST UP FROM the shore of every port city in the English-speaking world, there is a movie house that shows horror films around the clock. ...

The Cramps: Songs The Lord Taught Us (IRS)

Review by Richard Grabel, New York Rocker, September 1980

TO TRASH THE trashiest, that was the Cramps' initial challenge to the burgeoning punk scene. Lux Interior threw down the gauntlet in 'Garbage Man', snarling ...

The Cramps: Psychedelic Jungle (IRS)

Review by David Hepworth, Smash Hits, 14 May 1981

FROM THE DEPTHS of the primeval rain forest they came, bathed in hideous blue light, muttering of voodoo and rotting bones and things that go ...

The Cramps Guide to Teenage Monster Movies

Interview by Paul Rambali, New Musical Express, 25 July 1981

Movies nowadays are all high technology and no brains, no imagination. What do you call it when you do something real good and you didn't ...

The Cramps: Psychedelic Jungle (IRS)

Review by Jim Farber, Creem, September 1981

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO ADJUST YOUR STEREO ...

The Cramps: the Country Club, Los Angeles CA

Live Review by Don Waller, Los Angeles Times, 3 May 1983

STIMULATING BREW FROM THE DREGS ...

The Cramps: Zip Guns In The Junkyard!

Interview by Cynthia Rose, New Musical Express, 13 August 1983

GEEK MAGGOT BINGO IS THE film that trade Bible Variety characterised a "one geek, few maggots and no bingo". A lot they know! ...

Cramps Rocks 'N' Rolls Out Of An Early Grave

Interview by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 16 November 1983

A DISPUTE with their label kept them from releasing a record for more than two years. ...

The Cramps: Heroic Integrity

Profile by Joe Sasfy, Washington City Paper, 6 April 1984

THE "ANYONE can do it" amateurism that underlies the punk moment (circa 1976-1977) resulted in some of rock's most profound and explosive primitives. But an ...

The Cramps: Bubble Trouble

Interview by Fiona Russell Powell, The Face, July 1984

Back from the mystery plane, where they witnessed a host of gore movies and much else besides, THE CRAMPS have come to reclaim their followers from the ...

The Cramps: Pet Cemetery

Interview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 4 January 1986

HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD, Los Angeles, may well be the freakiest street in the Western World. ...

The Cramps: The Curse Of Elvis

Interview by Edwin Pouncey, Sounds, 1 February 1986

It's exploitation-a-go-go as THE CRAMPS surf back from the dead to keep a date with EDWIN POUNCEY in downtown Los Angeles. ...

The Cramps: Hammersmith Odeon, London

Live Review by Frank Owen, Melody Maker, 22 March 1986

The Living Dead ...

The Cramps: Palladium, Hollywood CA

Live Review by Don Waller, Los Angeles Times, 14 July 1986

A DATE WITH CRAMPS ...

The Cramps, Screaming Blue Messiahs: The Ritz, New York NY

Live Review by Jeff Tamarkin, Billboard, 30 August 1986

THAT THE Cramps have managed to thrive for 10 years without a U.S. major label deal is testimony to their devoted cult following. And that ...

The Cramps: Creatures From The Black Leather Lagoon

Interview by Edwin Pouncey, New Musical Express, 20 January 1990

Self-confessed "Norma Desmonds of rockabilly", THE CRAMPS are cheering the demise of a less-than-world-beating '80s and looking forward to a well-rockin' '90s. With their new LP ...

The Cramps: Barrowlands, Glasgow

Live Review by Barbara Ellen, New Musical Express, 3 March 1990

I SHOULD BE SO LUXY ...

The Cramps: Stay Sick! (Enigma)

Review by Bill Holdship, Spin, April 1990

THE CRAMPS have always understood those fundamental building blocks that made early rock'n'roll what it was — scary, lustful, exciting and, above all, funny. ...

The Cramps: From Hell to Eternity

Profile and Interview by Mat Snow, Q, April 1990

Ravaged, cadaverous, generally rather unsavoury, they crawled from rock 'n' roll's crypt to bring their X-rated voodoobilly music to a devoted troupe of ghoulish disciples. ...

The Cramps: Torch Songs

Interview by Cathi Unsworth, Melody Maker, 15 October 1994

The Arch-Uberfuhrers of Satanic Rockabilly Camp aka The Cramps are back! With their best album for eight years! Talkin' 'bout the ejaculatory properties of rock'n'roll! ...

The Cramps: World of the Interiors

Interview by Susan Compo, MOJO, 1995

Parakeets, serial killer art and "flame-jobs" at the local boneyard. Yep, it’s the return of The Cramps. ...

The Cramps: Songs the Lord Taught Us

Review by Barney Hoskyns, unpublished, 1997

THE CRAMPS GOT away with their Z-movie, zombie-rock schtick because they were so intense in their conviction that it had more value than middlebrow humanist ...

Back from Badsville: The Cramps keep on with their psychobilly

Report and Interview by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, November 1997

IF IT AIN'T broke, don't fix it. In a nutshell-of-a-cliché, this is the Cramps' most polite response to skeptics and naysayers who might suggest that ...

The Cramps: Basic Instinct

Retrospective and Interview by Bill Holdship, MOJO, September 2003

For the last 30 years The Cramps have remained the wildest rock'n'roll double act on the planet, a potent cocktail of lewd rockabilly, primeval fuzz ...

The Cramps: Astoria, London

Live Review by Simon Price, Independent on Sunday, 4 October 2003

"NOW, IF YOU work in a record store, or you have a degree in Musicology," spits Lux Interior with an exaggerated sneer, "you might file ...

The Cramps: Fiends Of Dope Island (Vengeance)

Review by Peter Murphy, Hot Press, Spring 2003

HERE WE GO, once more with feeling, down the Hallowe’en Parade. In a time of interminable fluxed-upness and infinite variables, in an era of war, ...

Kid Congo Powers

Profile and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, The Boston Phoenix, 14 September 2006

THE LATE 1970s were a time of ignition. Punk rock set a fuse that burned through every aspect of the arts, and the lives of ...

Lux Interior

Obituary by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 6 February 2009

Co-founder of the Cramps, exponents of trash culture and 'psychobilly' music ...

Lux Interior, 1946-2009

Obituary by David Hepworth, The Word, April 2009

SOMETIME IN THE mid-'70s, Erick Purkhiser of Stow, Ohio, exchanged his given name for words he found in an automobile catalogue. ...

Kid Congo Powers: From Gun Play To Monkey Business

Interview by Julian Marszalek, The Quietus, 17 December 2009

KID CONGO Powers is a talkative man. Almost every song that he plays tonight at the rammed 100 Club with his new band, the Pink ...

see also Kid Congo & the Pink Monkey Birds

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