LUX

Lux Interior of the wonderful and seminal garage punk psychobilly band The Cramps died yesterday. He was 62. This makes me very sad, but I celebrate his long, strange, and very unique career.

I sort of got to see The Cramps once when they played in Milwaukee. It is such a blur in my mind now but what I do recall are just a few details. I had never been to the venue they were playing that night, the punkiest dive in Milwaukee at the time, and in a rather rough spot downtown. It was winter, a girlfriend and I started out late to begin with, got incredibly lost, then could not find a place to park that didn't look like RAPE SPACE, then when we finally got there, I had to argue and argue to be let in on my very very very crappy Fake ID THEN argued about having to pay the full cover charge since the show was almost done. Stupid me. I got in, and got in free, but saw a grand total of 10 minutes before the band ended, the house lights whipped on, and all the sweaty gross Milwaukee mosh pit crowd was pushed out the door, and me in whatever punk outfit I deemed cool. DAMN.

It's funny. I thought of them out of the blue the other day, wondering if they were still out there, still playing. I kind of thought that yeah, they would be, and I was right. It looks like The Cramps played what will now be their last gig at the Marquee Theater in Tempe, Arizona last November.

What I particularly liked about The Cramps was their sense of humor and obvious love of all kinds of bare roots rock n' roll. They made filthy nasty silly rough wicked music, and had that core rock spirit to them. Not many do, not like that, and not for so long. I think about Lux's wife and bandmate for all this time, the delectable Poison Ivy, a real rock chick who makes Chrissie Hynde look like Betsy Wetsy. She and Lux made quite a team, what a wild life.

Lux and Ivy were married for 37 years. Pretty damn punk.

Thank you Lux. I bought all your records, and you made me smile and dance. I will miss you.

The Cramps, live at the Napa State Mental Hospital -- "The Way I Walk"