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Silver anniversary sleaze >> The Cramps' Lux and Ivy celebrate 25 years of trashiness by RUPERT BOTTENBERG
In the wake of that film, Screwed and Larry Flynt, it seems only appropriate that The Cramps' twisted twosome, Poison Ivy and singer Lux Interior, should have their own biographical epic fouling up cinema screens. After all, it's a full quarter-century since Lux picked up a hitchiking Ivy on a desolate stretch of highway in '72. That chance encounter spawned a relationship that would give life to a shambling rock 'n' roll monstrosity that lives to this day (chewing up rhythm sections as it goes). Of course, the perverted perpetrator of Polyester, John Waters, would have to direct the film. He'd have a field day with the band's early years, grafting fetid chunks of rockabilly, surf, psychedelia and punk together in a New York City basement in 1976. Throw in some superstitious hoodoo and a whole lotta bumpin', grindin' inuendo and you've about got a fix on The Cramps. In those poverty stricken days, Lux and Ivy turned to unsavoury and even outright criminal conduct to make ends meet. "We didn't hurt anybody, unless they wanted it," protests onetime professional dominatrix Ivy. Fast-forward to the dawn of the '90s (memo to Wardrobe Dept.: stock up on plaid flannel!) and we find our heroes facing censorship by MTV. The clips in question were the tunes "Creature From the Black Leather Lagoon" and "Bikini Girls With Machine Guns." "Well, 'Bikini Girls,' I didn't understand," says Ivy, "I thought it was such a quaint thing. There's a scene where I'm shooting the machine gun, and the vibration makes my panties fall down." The camera showed nothing but the panties around her ankles, but that was enough to make MTV's top brass spit their Perrier out on their Gucci loafers. Doing the only honourable thing, The Cramps proceeded to make an even more offensive video. "For some reason, our boss at Enigma Records just said put in everything they wouldn't want. We thought, 'Well, he's paying for it, okay.'" Inspired by the teen riot that opens shlockmeister H. G. Lewis' film Just for the Hell of It, the band found an empty house, filled it with thrift-shop junk and then promptly trashed it. "There's stuff in there, like Lux huffing glue from a paper bag, or me sitting on his face. But I think what got them was smashing the TV with a sledgehammer." Here we are in 1997 and Ivy and Lux show no sign of slowing down. In fact, signing on to Epitaph, as of this new album, should be fresh wind in their sails. Which means the movie will have to wait... at least, until they have a Jayne Mansfield-style double-(be)header car crash. Or a church falls on them. Or some such thing. I guess in the meantime I'll stick to pitching my Seka biopic. I wonder if Drew Barrymore is available? With Demolition Doll Rods and Guitar Wolf at Foufs, Monday, Nov. 17, 6:30pm, $17.5020 + taxes & service
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A moment of silence for Ghoulardi, please. Known as the Cool Ghoul, he was the Baltimore-based beatnik fiend host of endless late-night TV monster movie marathons in the '60s. The Cramps' latest album, Big Beat From Badsville, carries a solemn dedication to the recently departed weirdo. But, as I inform the band's guitar goddess Poison Ivy on the horn from Texas, his spirit carries on. You see, Ghoulardi's son is none other than Paul Thomas Anderson, the lad responsible for the cockumentary Boogie Nights.