Lux Interior in the elementThe Human Fly reborn
By John
Lux Interior, the frontman for oozing/throbbing gang, The Cramps, died yesterday in Glendale, California of an apparent heart failure. He was 62.
Born Eric Lee Purkhiser Interior formed The Cramps with his wife, Kristy "Poison Ivy" Wallace, in 1976. Along with the Ramones, Television, Blondie and the Talking Heads, The Cramps were part of the late 1970s music scene, performing at CBGBs Unlike their proficient, or not so proficient, music counterparts, The Cramps made up in musical originality and perseverance what they lacked in music talent.
Creating a funky, gothic, "Monster Mash" of rockabilly, The Cramps stood apart from their New York counterparts who were far less showy, sexy and joyfully morbid. Interior sang about "using your eyeballs for dials on my TV set" while the self-proclaimed slender "Human Fly" humped the air and floor between the band and the audience in his tightwaded black pants. A magnetic combination of articulation and sleaze.
Over three decades, Interior, Ivy (the two remained married) and a plethora of musicians often cranked out many releases, occasionally repeating songs on multiple releases (some saw this as a ripoff). Their output was tremendous and enduring as they were still playing well into the new Millennium. While many saw Interior as the band leader, he, and anyone who knew, insisted it was Ivy was the oozing brains behind those Cramps.
Personally speaking, The Cramps were one of the biggest bands during my adolescent years. I can remember a silence followed by chuckles when it was announced during my high school Homecoming Court procedures that The Cramps were my favorite band. (PIL's "Public Image" was declared my favorite song, although there were others.)
I loved to see The Cramps in concert. I remember my friends and I pulled over on our way to a concert in Reseda because of the way we looked (the cops let us go when they had nothing) or the time in Via Verde when Ivy was so pissed that her music equipment was not working the band quit after 20 minutes of play.
Those were just a few of the low points between and around the thrills of watching interior throb across the stage floor while Ivy and company wailed away. The atmosphere was hedonistic and defiant yet never without care or contemplation. To this day I have seen the Cramps in concert more than any other band, although I rarely listen to them anymore.
A band that always played by its own rules, the loss of the Interior marks the end of an iconoclastic band. Ouch, the Cramps are gone, a pang replaces. Urrgh!
