CRAMPS - Gravest Gravy

I got a rocket in my pocket and a roll in my jeans

It's hard to believe, if you lived through the 80s and 90s, that you never once came across the Cramps logo. It really was everywhere: on badges pinned to backpacks, printed on T-shirts, drawn on leather jackets, on stickers plastered on walls, on trains and even in public bathrooms. Their liquid, wavering graphic had become a fetish object capable of conjuring up a whole world of wild punk, rockabilly quiffs, B-movies and horror comics, teenage rebellion and a burning need to survive the flatness of the surrounding world. Just as unforgettable were the band's live shows, with Lux Interior possessed by the three chords obsessively repeated by the two guitarists, the mephistophelian Bryan Gregory and the impassive, gorgeous Poison Ivy Rorschach, over Nick Knox's minimal beat. A bass player was later added to the lineup, giving the sound greater depth, while Bryan Gregory was replaced by Kid Congo Powers of the Gun Club. But that's another story: let's focus on the Cramps' beginnings.

"Gravest Gravy", the band's first posthumous collection if you exclude the various live releases, arrives after the band's split, brought on by the death of Lux Interior, and gathers a series of recordings left unused for their debut EP "Gravest Hits". Production wasn't entrusted to just anyone: at the controls is Alex Chilton, who brought the band, then based in New York, to Ardent Studios in Memphis. Once there, he created an overexcited, feral atmosphere to push the Cramps, and Lux Interior above all, into unleashing their full primordial fury.
The band's original compositions lead the way, with a primitive version of the pounding "TV Set" and the spaced-out boogie of "Weekend on Mars". But "Gravest Gravy" is really a journey through Lux and Ivy's record collection, the two having become husband and wife in the meantime. So we go from Roy Orbison ("Domino" and "Problem Child") to Charlie Feathers ("I Can't Hardly Stand It"), from the Isley Brothers ("Twist & Shout") to Kip Tyler ("Jungle Hop"), Ronnie Dawson ("Rockin' Bones"), Paul Revere & the Raiders ("Hungry") and Jimmy Lloyd ("Rocket in My Pocket").

The defining trait of the early Cramps was precisely this: dusting off old rock'n'roll standards, running them through the meat grinder of their raw, minimal sound, and reinterpreting them through Lux's near-parodic vocals. Some of these songs would later be dug up, rearranged and stripped down even further on "Psychedelic Jungle" - in the case of "The Natives Are Restless", even with altered lyrics - others would end up on their first LP, "Songs The Lord Taught Us", while still others would surface across the band's numerous EPs.
The three previously unreleased tracks are "Hungry", which satisfies the band's psychedelic appetite, complete with Farfisa organ played by Alex Chilton himself; the raucous rockabilly of "Problem Child"; and "Rocket in My Pocket", a regular feature of their incendiary live shows, here closed out by a snippet of dialogue captured amid the frenzy of the recording sessions.

This research and remastering project also stems from the friendship and admiration that bound the Cramps to two leading figures of American hardcore punk: Henry Rollins and Ian MacKaye. The value of the operation is significant, as it captures the first steps of a band that helped revolutionize the musical language of the time, fusing punk's expressive urgency with a passion for reviving the past, and refracting through their own distorted lens the very records that had fed their imagination.
The Cramps would later gain greater technical command, become more prolific songwriters and expand their repertoire with numerous tracks penned by the diabolical duo of Lux and Ivy, all without ever betraying their original approach. And, as a line from "Rockin' Bones" puts it, they would remain faithful to their mission right to the end: a lifetime spent thrashing about on stage like the gears of a dancing machine.

This is the bloody gears of a boppin’ machine

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30/08/2026