Listen to The Cramps’ rare BBC radio set from 1984
New York’s punk pioneers The Cramps seemed to gravitate to strange performances and posts like moths toward lava lamps. Their intrinsic rock ‘n’ roll ideals led them to produce some of the most intriguing and provocative music of the 1970s and ‘80s, often conveying themes and imagery of horror, insanity and excess. With their Addams Family meets Elvis Presley style, Lux Interior and the group knew how to keep their fans guessing.
In keeping with their visage, The Cramps famously found themselves giving an infamous free concert for patients in the courtyard of the California State Mental Hospital, Napa, in 1978. During the set, Interior could be heard yelling: “We’re The Cramps, and we drove 3,000 miles from New York City to play for you.” Someone then yelled back: “Fuck you!”
Interior later added: “Somebody told me you people are crazy… but you seem alright to me.”
The controversial set was filmed by Jill Hoffman-Kowal for Target Video, who later insisted that the show had a positive impact on the patients. “It was a beautiful, beautiful thing,” she said. “What we did for those people, it was liberating. They had so much fun. They pretended they were singing, they were jumping on stage. It was a couple hours of total freedom. They didn’t judge the band, and the band didn’t judge them.”
Six years later, The Cramps once again found themselves hijacking the airwaves, this time, they cropped up on the other side of the Atlantic. On June 6th, 1984, core band members Lux Interior and Poison Ivy Rorschach were invited for a guest appearance on BBC Radio 1 for a DJ session. Alongside host Kid Jensen, The Cramps picked out some of their favourite tracks and put the world to rights.
In the thick of conversation, Interior discusses his feelings toward Link Wray, describing him as the “first progressive rock guitarist,” while Rorschach explains why the names of some East Los Angeles bands start with “Thee”.
In the broadcast’s most intense moment, Interior argues the case for simplistic classic rock and roll in favour of modern over-produced and complicated prog-rock. Read the full dialogue below.
Lux: “I hope that somehow people will forget about this ‘No Elvis, Beatles or The Rolling Stones’ and get back into the history of rock ‘n’ roll, and get back into the simplicity of it, and the stripped-down, rock ‘n’ roll, nuclear warfare, over-the-topness of what it was when it first started because there’s just something missing today. Everybody’s either out for their career, or something, making pop music, or making really involved musical things, you know, and rock ‘n’ roll is just so simple and so direct, it doesn’t seem like there are very many people who have a handle on understanding what that is.”
Kid Jensen: “Many people who would agree with you would regard rock ‘n’ roll as disposable, though. They would say it’s there to be listened to, two-minute records, that’s it. Throw it away.”
Lux: “Well, but they’re disposable people, though, so it doesn’t matter.”
Kid Jensen: “‘Cause you obviously cherish these old records.”
Lux: “Oh, yeah. These are magic items, these records.”
See the tracklist from The Cramps’ BBC Radio set and give it a listen below.
The Cramps at the BBC setlist:
- Cannibal & the Headhunters – ‘Zulu King’ (3:10)
- Thee Midniters – ‘Jump, Jive, and Harmonize’ (9:24)
- Andre Williams – ‘Pass the Biscuits Please’ (14:23)
- Marvin Rainwater – ‘Hot and Cold’ (21:37)
- Starlites – ‘Valarie’ (26:59)
