The Genius Of The Cramps

I think it would be a catastrophic mistake for me not to briefly pay tribute the spirit and genius of The Cramps.  My life has been a journey of obsessively hunting down rare & obscure sleazy instrumentals, rockabilly, garage and surf 45's from the 1960's and 50's.  What happened?  Why did I start this collecting frenzy?  The Cramps.  The Cramps are a self described "psychobilly" band who coveres obscure artists like Warren Smith, Charlie Feathers & Ronnie Cook & The Gaylads.  But this wasn't just music they played & recorded but music they listened to and collected in their spare time.  The gateway into my obsession was the Born Bad (a.k.a. "Songs The Cramps Taught Us) compilations that came out back in the 1980's.






The Born Bad series evolved into eight volumes of songs that The Cramps covered during their three decade history.  Without these indispensable volumes I never would have heard the original version of insane classics like The Sparkplugs "Chicken" or "The Goo Goo Muck" by Ronnie Cook & The Gaylads.  These and many other songs were culled from Lux Interior and Poison Ivy's own collection they had obsessively scoured the country for many years raiding thrift stores to accumulate.




My musical landscape had changed forever.  I was no longer content to embrace homogenized, market researched safe-for-MTV crap.  Music became a journey of discovery for me that was no longer guided by suits in corporate offices.  It was determined by my own desire to crack open the world of 1950's sleazy instrumentals, R&B rockabilly and surf and B-movie culture.  By now I had exhausted the Born Bad comps and I didn't know where else to look for this kind of music.  Then my world was rocked one more time...


Through a friend of a friend I came into possession of copies of some 20 year old cassette tapes that my friend claimed were mix tapes made by Lux Interior for friends.  I listened in stunned silence to over 60 minutes of amazing, stupid rare, crazy instrumentals, R&B and rockabilly songs threaded together with B movie trailers in between each song.  These tapes have since become known as the Forbidden City Dogfood Tape, The Vip Vop Tapes and The Hollywood Strangler Meets The Crippled Masters Of Kung Fu.  My obsession was finally galvanized and I finally understood what The Cramps were about.

 A my friend Darren recently released the first part of the Vip Vop Tapes & The Hollywood Strangler The Crippled Masters Of Kung on sickly yellow vinyl.



Meet The Hollywood Strangler Meets The Crippled Masters Of Kung-Fu Sides 1:


 

Meet The Hollywood Strangler Meets The Crippled Masters Of Kung-Fu Sides 2:

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