I always thought that if John Waters and Ed Wood had started a band, it might be like The Cramps.
Hence why I mentioned The Cramps' paeans to Bettie Page in the 1992 "Thurston's Alley" show, where Thurston Moore interviewed The Cramps and went on about Bettie Page, pre-Internet. Only 8 years later, post-Internet explosion, would Bettie Page imagery become almost as ubiquitous as Betty Boop, etc. The Rocketeer comic also helped; it featured Bettie Page as a character. Page could have faded into obscurity, but The Cramps, Rocketeer, and underground black and white fetish/fanboy comic books carried her through 'til the age of the Internet but her back on top.
ALSO: People say Tina Turner can dance in high heels. Have you seen Lux Interior dance in fetish high heels!?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBo4wZmH0UQ <-- Lux in fetish high heels. He's in his 40s here...!
The Cramps were unfortunately perceived as a fixture, a constant, in the music scene, and thus taken for granted. A first-wave, mid-70s punk band, they did not break up in 1980 and then do a cash-in reunion tour 2 decades later, as many did. They just kept chugging along for 3 decades, through the grunge/Nirvana 90s & into our lame Strokes/Bele Sebastian era -- so everyone took them for granted. "The Cramps? Oh, I'll catch them when they come through town next year."
Now that they are gone, it is kind of like, "Holy shit, this is actually kind of a huge American music loss."
-B.
andie nachgeborenen wrote:
"The loss of Bettie Page is a national tragedy. I am quite serious about that."