Singer Lux looked very fucked up. He dyed his hair blond, for some reason, which only made him look older. And apparently he had smashed all of his teeth out, or something. They were all metal, and looked like the sort of shiny grille you'd find in a hip hop singer's mouth. He had a bottle of wine on stage and slurred a lot of his speech. In interviews he and Poison Ivy (who, by contrast, looked fiercely amazing in '04 and now, I'm sure) both openly claimed to use drugs, and were unapologetic about it.
I am surprised he is gone -- but also I am not.
My .02: The Cramps and The Misfits ('77 - '83) pioneered the b-movie, creature feature aspect of punk that has also become synonymous with much of the genre (psychobilly, et. al.), horror punk. Also, Lux and Poison's influence in getting Bettie Page back into the public eye cannot be overestimated. They appeared on an old TV show from 1992 or so called Thurston's Alley (Thurston of Sonic Youth) singing Bettie's praises. Lux Interior had an encyclopedic knowledge of obscure 60s garage, swampabilly, you know it. Many songs that fans believed to be Cramps songs were just covers of 60s garage fare ("Psychotic Reaction," among others.)
If anyone is interested, get _Bad Music for Bad People_. That is far away their single best LP
-B.
Doug Henwood wrote:
> ["Passed away"...how vulgar! I was never the biggest Cramps fan, but it's sad to see the old icons shuffle off.]