Lux and Ivy’s Favourites: the songs that inspired The Cramps
Even within the context of punk rock’s fearless originality, there has never been another band quite like The Cramps. Pioneering a mind-bending sound of punk rock sleaziness combined with the style of old-school 1950s rockabilly, the group remained one of the most stunningly individualistic voices within the punk rock scene over the entirety of their reign.
Noted for tracks like ‘Human Fly’ and ‘I Was a Teenage Werewolf’, the outfit led by punk rock power couple Poison Ivy and Lux Interior were heavily influenced by horror B-movies, video nasties and comic book spookiness. These influences gave the band an endearing quality among fans, often seen as less abrasive or performative than the horror punk of groups like Misfits. Aside from their record music, The Cramps grew a reputation for their unparalleled live experience, which led to an incomprehensible amount of bootleg recordings hitting the market, to be coveted by punk vinyl record nerds.
Another Cramps-themed bootleg series that does not centre around their live shows is the Lux and Ivy’s Favourites series. An 18-volume series tirelessly compiled by Kogar the Swinging Ape, Lux and Ivy’s Favourites chronicles the obscure garage rock, rockabilly and surf tracks that inspired The Cramps’ signature sound.
Across their career, Ivy and Lux covered a variety of old-school tracks from the 1950s, notable examples including The Trashmen’s ‘Surfin’ Bird’ and Kip Tyler’s ‘Jungle Hop’. This clear adoration for the older generation of rock music was something of a rarity among The Cramps’ contemporaries. The punk rock scene generally had an attitude of ‘rip it up and start again’, where everything pre-1976 should be forgotten – with a few notable exceptions in the form of The Stooges, The MC5 and Patti Smith.
Alas, The Cramps were never in the game to conform to the popular attitudes of the scene. They marched to the beat of their own drum. More so than taking inspiration from artists from times past, The Cramps often repopularised older rockabilly and surf artists after dedicated fans of the group sought out the original songs that The Cramps covered.
Kogar is one such dedicated fan who devoted himself to tracking down the pieces which inspired The Cramps. Due to the nature of the lo-fi garage rock and surf scenes, a lot of which were released on obscure independent labels, many songs that evoked the sound The Cramps later adopted had been lost to the ether. Nowadays, with the popularity of the internet, it seems as though every track ever recorded is available immediately at your fingertips, but do not be fooled: there is a lot more music hiding in the bargain bins of rural record stores.
The work of these compilation albums in finding and preserving the sounds of obscure garage music is nothing short of heroic. While a few other compilations have popped up, all claiming to do the same thing, Lux and Ivy’s Favourites remains the most exhaustive. Check out the first 17 volumes of the series below, and discover the sounds that made The Cramps.
