Ever find yourself wondering what the deal is behind single records? What's with those little seven inch, coaster size records? If I'm going to shell out five bucks, I might as well get a whole album on iTunes! It's true, in this day and age, record singles are obsolete. But there is good reason why bands still bother with 45's.
I won't go into the history of vinyl, Alan Cross already covered that shit. Just keep in mind that for a long time the record single was how people checked out new music. For a quarter you could take home a new song by the Stones, Elvis or Chuck Berry. You dig, you buy the LP (long play record). Essentially, record singles were your parents' sample downloads.
Today more than ever, there is a resurgence of original forms of music. For the same reason fashion runways are covered with skinny jeans and scally caps again - they are too rad to forget. Records are most popular among what we will call "vinyl" types of music. You know what I'm talking about, underground bands too cool for modern technology. It's obvious that these bands' styles stem from the original vinyl artists of the blues, country, rock 'n' roll, and especially early garage and punk. Naturally, they follow suit with putting out records.
New vinyl bands keep record collectors salivating most with singles. Finding an LP of a new album is easy, but a limited pressing of single on blue vinyl creates massive demand. However, some of the coolest singles are easy to find as long as you frequent a decent record store. A true rock and roll business has at least four or five fat stacks of old, and a couple new, singles. Once you've found your vinyl mecca, dig in! For a couple bucks you can get a bootleg Cramps live set, pre-Vegas Elvis hits, a radio promo of Nirvana's "Come As You Are,” Fucked Up's latest song only available as a single, and endless more possibilities that won't be found on a regular record, and sometimes even iTunes.
But at the centre of the whole debate, singles are just really cool. Vinyl bands love reproducing vintage art styles, following the look of original record labels. A band knows there shit when their single sleeve remarks in bold lettering how cheap the price is, a true throwback to the sixties single craze. For me, this aesthetic keeps me coming back for more of what Billboard won't cover.
This article appears in Tangible Sounds
Showing posts with label Cramps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cramps. Show all posts
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Monday, February 22, 2010
Remembering Lux Interior: Punk's Unsung Undertaker
On February 4, 2009, the rock and roll world lost one of it’s greatest and most unsung trailblazers. Lux Interior, legend in his own time and lead singer of the Cramps, died due to aortic dissection, he was 62.
The Cramps were founded in 1972 by Lux and the ferocious female guitar player, Lux’s future wife, Poison Ivy. By 1975 the Cramps were a staple in the budding punk rock scene in New York City, turning heads alongside the New York Dolls, Television, and the Ramones.
However, The Cramps were different from the other seminal punk bands. This is highly due to Poison Ivy’s guitar style, which was highly dependent on blues riffs and archetypal rock and roll music. She picked up where the 50s and 60s punks left off (yes, punk was around then too) with guitar driven music that concentrated on the spirit of the garage, rock and roll’s first home.
Many of the songs The Cramps played were covers of old rock and roll classics - like “Surfin’ Bird” by The Trashmen, “Psychotic Reaction” by 60s California garage band The Count Five, or “Shortnin’ Bread” made popular by The Emeralds. But, they also had a telling bluesy influence, through which The Cramps popularized new rock genres that spring-boarded off punk.
Rockabilly, southern rock, prototyped by Gene Vincent and Elvis Presley; infused with hillbilly bass lines and country guitar, became part of the Cramps’ lure. However, they did it with a twist. As if by accident, they bred a new -billy: Psychobilly. Early Cramps flyers advertised “Psychobilly” and “Rockabilly Voodoo” as their style of music. In the coming years after the first wave of punk, Psychobilly would be used to describe many punk bands, like with The Dead Kennedys who mixed hardcore with an old school rock sound, and The Stray Cats who mixed the old rockabilly sound with punk’s speed and fashion.
The Cramps were also masters of keeping the Hallowe’en spirit alive all year ‘round. Lux’s lyrics were obsessed with sci-fi exploration like in “Human Fly” and “How to Make a Monster,” and masochistic sexual themes like in “What’s Inside a Girl?” This ghoulish, creepy sci-fi theme led to another sub-genre of punk: Horror Punk. The Misfits and ensuing copy-bands are considered the horror punks, and a lot of their dark, gothic subject matter was founded by The Cramps’ style.
Above all, The Cramps are arguably the first blues-punk band. For lack of a better term, blues-punk essentially means high energy, distorted blues. When analyzing The Cramps, this is exactly what they are. There was still no bull, keeping them punk - but Poison Ivy could lay out a juke-joint riff like any of the greats. The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion is a recent band that follows in the crashy, trashy style of blues that The Cramps fine-tuned.
In recent years The Cramps were still touring. Lux was still sporting his leather bondage gear and high-heels, and still giving head to the microphone; Poison Ivy still laying down the hippest, funnest riffs in recent rock, and looking damn hot while doing so. Needless to say, I love the Cramps, and I think you should too. I discovered them in my early high school days, on one of the old Punk-O-Rama compilations that Epitaph records used to do so well. The song? Haulass Hyena, off “Big Beat from Badsville” (oh, what an intimidating album name, and cover). After that, I was a Cramps-head, through and through, and always will be.
Look around for an album series called “Songs The Cramps Taught Us” - a collection of Cramps songs that were in fact originally recorded by other, often much older, artists. Hopefully it will lead you to an appreciation for original rock and roll - an act that punk, as a learning tool and reference point in rock history, begs us to do.
R.I.P. Lux Interior.
The Cramps were founded in 1972 by Lux and the ferocious female guitar player, Lux’s future wife, Poison Ivy. By 1975 the Cramps were a staple in the budding punk rock scene in New York City, turning heads alongside the New York Dolls, Television, and the Ramones.
However, The Cramps were different from the other seminal punk bands. This is highly due to Poison Ivy’s guitar style, which was highly dependent on blues riffs and archetypal rock and roll music. She picked up where the 50s and 60s punks left off (yes, punk was around then too) with guitar driven music that concentrated on the spirit of the garage, rock and roll’s first home.
Many of the songs The Cramps played were covers of old rock and roll classics - like “Surfin’ Bird” by The Trashmen, “Psychotic Reaction” by 60s California garage band The Count Five, or “Shortnin’ Bread” made popular by The Emeralds. But, they also had a telling bluesy influence, through which The Cramps popularized new rock genres that spring-boarded off punk.
Rockabilly, southern rock, prototyped by Gene Vincent and Elvis Presley; infused with hillbilly bass lines and country guitar, became part of the Cramps’ lure. However, they did it with a twist. As if by accident, they bred a new -billy: Psychobilly. Early Cramps flyers advertised “Psychobilly” and “Rockabilly Voodoo” as their style of music. In the coming years after the first wave of punk, Psychobilly would be used to describe many punk bands, like with The Dead Kennedys who mixed hardcore with an old school rock sound, and The Stray Cats who mixed the old rockabilly sound with punk’s speed and fashion.
The Cramps were also masters of keeping the Hallowe’en spirit alive all year ‘round. Lux’s lyrics were obsessed with sci-fi exploration like in “Human Fly” and “How to Make a Monster,” and masochistic sexual themes like in “What’s Inside a Girl?” This ghoulish, creepy sci-fi theme led to another sub-genre of punk: Horror Punk. The Misfits and ensuing copy-bands are considered the horror punks, and a lot of their dark, gothic subject matter was founded by The Cramps’ style.
Above all, The Cramps are arguably the first blues-punk band. For lack of a better term, blues-punk essentially means high energy, distorted blues. When analyzing The Cramps, this is exactly what they are. There was still no bull, keeping them punk - but Poison Ivy could lay out a juke-joint riff like any of the greats. The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion is a recent band that follows in the crashy, trashy style of blues that The Cramps fine-tuned.
In recent years The Cramps were still touring. Lux was still sporting his leather bondage gear and high-heels, and still giving head to the microphone; Poison Ivy still laying down the hippest, funnest riffs in recent rock, and looking damn hot while doing so. Needless to say, I love the Cramps, and I think you should too. I discovered them in my early high school days, on one of the old Punk-O-Rama compilations that Epitaph records used to do so well. The song? Haulass Hyena, off “Big Beat from Badsville” (oh, what an intimidating album name, and cover). After that, I was a Cramps-head, through and through, and always will be.
Look around for an album series called “Songs The Cramps Taught Us” - a collection of Cramps songs that were in fact originally recorded by other, often much older, artists. Hopefully it will lead you to an appreciation for original rock and roll - an act that punk, as a learning tool and reference point in rock history, begs us to do.
R.I.P. Lux Interior.
Originally Published at campusintel.com
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