by JOHNSON CUMMINS

Now that everybody has finally recovered from New Year’s Eve, there are a bunch of great shows heating things up as the temperatures plummet. Tonight, Jan. 19, is a good night to make it down to the Friendship Cove. It’s the first installment in their new, monthly video-bootleg series, and this one is a doozy. Curated by Hot Springs singer Giselle Webber, the night’s fare is a lost classic that has just recently been released on DVD, The Cramps Live at Napa State Mental Institution. If you haven’t seen this grainy document of punk-rock dementia (literally), you have to make it down for this.

Filmed in 1978 in ghoulish black and white on a hand-held camera, this freak-fest is as crazy as it gets. Fresh off recording the classic Gravest Hits EP, the original Cramps line-up, including the late Brian Gregory, find themselves booked at a mental institution just outside of San Francisco. Although the quality is lacking and the band only deliver a 20-minute set, this rarity still packs in quite a punch. The in-patients get into the punk-rock spirit of things, telling the band to fuck off and wresting the mic from Lux Interior for some howling along with “Human Fly” while a couple of lovebirds (one in a rather fetching suit) slow-dance to “The Way I Walk.” Watching Lux sing “I’ll use your eyeballs for knobs on my TV set” to clapping, gleeful and occasionally catatonic mental patients is simply one of rock ’n’ roll’s greatest gifts.

If that isn’t enough, the Cove crew will also be playing artists Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard’s File Under Sacred Music, a tribute to this legendary show. With the same gritty quality, Forsyth and Pollard re-enact the entire Napa concert frame by frame. Keep an eye peeled for a cameo by Holly Golightly. Both films will be screened over the stage area, natch, while the audience is encouraged to play the part of the mental patients. To really seal the deal, the best rock ’n’ roll DJ in town, Crawdaddy Simon, will be spinning after the film, so expect more Cramps, psychobilly, garage, early punk rock and rockabilly.

Petit Campus hosts some of Montreal’s greasiest rawk on Saturday night with la Descente du Coude, Nitrosonique and le Volume Était au Maximum. Also on Saturday night, Monday Morning Erection, noisemeisters Dead Bush and Lesbian Fight Club, making their debut, are at Casa del Popolo. MME describe themselves as “introspectivefolksoundcollages” (gadzooks!), and I would love to tell you more about Lesbian Fight Club, but the first rule of Lesbian Fight Club is…

DO THE HAMMERLOCK, YOU TURKEY-NECKS! jonathan.cummins@gmail.com

>> Music Listings