The Cramps take Fifities rockabilly and turn it into punky kitsch. Lead singer Lux Interior sounds a little like a cross between Iggy Pop and Fred Schneider of the B-52's, guitarist Poison Ivy Rorschach sounds somewhere between surf guitar and thrash. And it’s in the line between that strange dichotomy that The Cramps stagger in like the Bride of Frankenstein.
References abound to Fifties music – the track Garbageman lyrically references both Louis Louis and The Bird Is The Word (originally recorded by The Trashmen, thus the track name is also a reference to the band, I’d guess). In Sunglasses After Dark, Lux Interior mumbles “Uhh... where am I?” in what sounds like an Elvis impersonation.
B-movie horror is also a fond reference. Zombie Dance combines both sources of inspiration, a kind of a riff on The Monster Mash about dancing zombies - “They tap their toes, but they don't get sweaty. They don't give a damn, they're done dead already”. It’s not all jokey camp, however. Mystery Plane is all about alienation, and the problems of having an absentee father, albeit it tied into a flying saucer theme - “My daddy's unidentified. My mom says I just appeared inside. Looks like a case of hit and run, but off the record it's no fun”.
This kind of garage music take on Fifties music has been done before, by The Sonics and The Monks (they even do a cover of Strychnine by The Sonics to hammer home the connection), but it’s fun to hear an updated version. There’s a certain similarity to The B-52's, but if The B-52's are a John Waters film, The Cramps are a David Lynch film. Just that bit darker and weirder.
And, goodness. That’s 1980 finished already.
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