The Cramps :: Gravest Gravy
Photo: Stephaine Chernikowski
This is the season to unlock some of the macabre mysteries and murderous melodies of perhaps one of the most iconic and influential groups of their generation: The Big Apple’s very own The Cramps. While the city struggled with monumental debt, Gerald Ford’s abandonment, crime, urban decay, and the infamous 1977 Blackout, to name a few, the band carefully conjured their brand of vampiric volume and feverish fashion, which still can be felt deep in the marrow where the moon’s light can never reach. Since forming in 1976, the same year our country “celebrated” its 200th anniversary as this abusive atrocity we call democracy, the band quickly released their classic 1978 “Surfin’ Bird/The Way I Walk” single and immediately followed up with their electrifying EP “Gravest Hits.” It was in between these revolutionary releases that its core members Lux Interior (Erick Purkhiser), Poison Ivy (Kristy Wallace), Nick Knox, and Bryan Gregory set out to record a captivating collection of songs 48 years ago this October at Ardent Studios in Memphis, TN, just a few months after the tragic passing of Elvis Presley. With the times quickly shifting with mass murders like Son of Sam, Saturday Night Fever, and the boom of the disco movement, the Cramps were raging romantics hanging onto the darkened dreams of a late-night greaser prowling the town for double trouble, and the occasional fistfight over a local broad; the band captured something quite special in the town of Graceland, and almost half a century later, it has surfaced from the digital dust. As part of the sensational sessions that brought us “Gravest Hits,” the chromed-out contents were found in the feverish fibers of what eventually became “Gravest Gravy,” which had lain dormant on seven ¼ inch tape reels for almost fifty years until later transferred by LA-based multi-instrumentalist, engineer, and producer Brian Kehew.
“This new chapter for the band is a combined effort of people whose lives were changed by the music of the Cramps. As I’ve said many times, I first saw the Cramps on April 20, 1979, in a small bar in Washington, DC, and I’ve never recovered. Ian was standing next to me. We still talk about that show. The opportunity to bring this music to fellow Cramps fans is beyond a thrill. It is an absolute honor that we feel so fortunate to be a part of.”
While attempting to scratch that intense itch that’s always hard to reach on your back with the traditional tip of a Valor Corporation butterfly knife (balisong), listeners can finally find some relief in the fact that this collection contains the mind-bending numbers that could, at the time, only be found on the band’s second LP, “Psychedelic Jungle,” as well as their third album, “The Smell Of Female.” With each track selected for intimate conclusion by none other than Henry Rollins, the record was later engineered by Ian Mackaye and Don Zientara at Inner Ear Studio in Arlington, Virginia, and mastered by Pete Lyman at Infrasonic Sound; this lost-and-found relic is a punker’s ultimate fantasy, but also a historical high with no comedown in sight. Featuring never-before-heard covers and vibrational versions of such classics as Jimmy Lloyd’s “Rocket In My Pocket,” Paul Revere and the Raiders’ “Problem Child,” which was originally written by the Tennessee talisman Roy Orbison, and, of course, one of the group’s most infamous classics by Charlie Feathers, “I Can’t Hardly Stand It,” as well as early originals like “Can’t Find My Mind” and “TV Set,” these iconic incantations are as explosive as they are detailed dynamite.
