THE CRAMPS
A Short History of Rock'n'Roll Psychosis

by Dick Porter

Featuring exclusive new interviews with the band's legendary leaders, Lux Interior and Poison Ivy.

The Cramps are more than a band.  They're an enduring rock'n'roll phenomenon.  Formed in Arkon, Ohio around the nucleus of Lux Interior (Erick Purkhiser) and Poison Ivy Rorschach (Kristy Wallace), the band have spent the last thirty years bringing their unique brand of fuzz-soaked punkabilly to the masses.

Subsequent to releasing a pair of self-published singles, the band signed to IRS in 1979, who immediately issued a compilation of their earliest material, Gravest Hits.  This was followed by the release of three studio albums, Songs The Lord Taught Us, Psychedelic Jungle, and A Date With Elvis, that are regarded as classics of the punk and post-punk milieu.  Throughout the late 1970s and much of the '80s, the Cramps headlined major shows worldwide and acquired a committed fanbase that endures to this day.

As well as a unique sound, the Cramps' live performances have resulted in the band attaining genuine cult status.  They are one of the most visually exciting bands ever to have oozed onto a stage.  At 6' 4" tall (7' in heels), Lux Interior is Frankenstein's Monster remade using the corpses of Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran.  His malefic vocal style led Bram Stoker's Dracula director Francis Ford Coppola to seek him out in order to provide suitably blood-curdling screams.  Now in her fifties, Poison Ivy remains easily the sexiest woman in rock.

The Cramps: A Short History of Rock'n'Roll Psychosis is a detailed examination of the Cramps' strange and terrible journey from backroom progenitors of their own mutant fusion of punk, garage rock, and rock'n'roll, to geniuine cult icons with devoted fans in the United States, Europe, and Asia.

Plexus Publishing; UK trade paperback,  First printing, 2007.  Book in near mint condition. No reserve price. Buyers in California must pay state sales tax. Buyer pays shipping and handling. (International buyer pays appropriate S&H costs.)