Lux Interior R.I.P

“Well I don’t know about art but I know what I like
I’ll be a-surfin’ in the swamp on a Saturday Night
I’ve been to the mountain but it’s just a big hill
I go crazier and crazier ‘til I get my fill
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust
Easy come easy go ain’t no big bust”

Like this morning’s grey sleet and drizzle, wiping out what’s left of London’s beautiful snow, news of Lux Interior’s untimely death robs the world of yet more precious magic.
Lux Interior, gone at sixty, from a ‘pre-existing hearth condition’ – whatever that means. To me – at least, his age does not seem relevant, because he always seemed ageless – like something from Edgar Allan Poe.
For those of you not familiar with Lux Interior – can there be anybody? he was the singer, writer and high priest of The Cramps – a popular musical combo from America who specialized in trashy rock’n’roll music, but did it with such style, wit and panache that they elevated it to a whole new art form. Along with his partner and high priestess, Poison Ivy, they formed rock’n’roll’s greatest couple. Anybody who witnessed a Cramps show – she, unimpeachably, gum chewingly cool, looking nonchalantly on while her husband exposed himself, thrust his genitalia at the audience while swallowing the microphone and imitating an ape, cannot have failed to be moved by this object lesson in marital harmony. It might have seemed a tad rude I suppose -had the music not been so bloody wonderful.
Well I’m a Human Fly – I spell F.L.Y
I say buzz buzz buzz and it’s just because
I’m an unzipped fly and I don’t know why
I’ve got 96 tears in 96 eyes
Is there a better lyric than this? Try this:
When the sun goes down and the moon comes up
I turn into a teenage – Goo-Goo Muck
I could go on – and will all day. Next up is The Cramps DVD – Live at The Napa State Mental Hospital – note to young people attracted to a career in music – Watch this and weep.
I was fortunate enough to witness The Cramps many times – memory blurs on exact numbers, but Hammersmith Palais seems to crop up quite a bit on my corrupted data disk. I last saw them at the Astoria in 2006 and they were still superb. Recently I came back to them in a big way, playing them to my child in an attempt to cleanse her X-Factor poisoned brain, and it worked a treat – especially The Cramps version of Hazil Adkins She Said – a back woodsman’s tale of getting loaded on moonshine and waking up with a monster in the bed – the chorus goes ‘ Oo ee aa aa’ -Faced with Lux Interior and Poison Ivy, Cheryl Cole was toast – a perfect argument as to why the Cramps should be taught in schools
But, enough maudlin early morning mourning…Let’s send our sympathy and love to Poison Ivy and celebrate the life and times of Erick Lee Purkisher – Lux Interior, as he flies off through the mist aboard the twin engine Cessna with that’s come for him, with Buddy, Richie and The Big Bopper. Lux Interior RIP – I spell R.I. P