Marking
40 years on the shelves this month is the sophomore album from The
Cramps, Psychedelic Jungle, originally released in May of 1981.
The
Cramps made their name on the New York punk scene starting in 1976,
playing clubs like CBGB’s and Max’s Kansas City along with the likes of
the Ramones, Suicide, Blondie & Talking Heads. Their first full
length LP, however, had their producer, Alex Chilton, co-founder of the
band Big Star, hauling them off to Memphis to record in the legendary
Sun Studios. As a result, their first album sizzled with the raw heat
of zombified 1950’s rockabilly. It was them staking out their claim to
the “psycho-billy” variant of that genetic strain, characterized by
their obsession with midnight horror movies and fringe sub-cultures. It
set them well apart from their contemporaries with only Suicide
tangentially drawing from a similar hiccuping spastic greaser shudder.
By
1981, however, they had gone through some changes. In 1980, ghoulish
fuzz guitarist, Brian Gregory, suddenly quit the band and they relocated
from NYC to LA. I’m not sure if those two things are related, but it
may very well have been that Brian simply didn’t want to make that move.
Whatever the case, they ended up with Kid Congo Powers filling in the
2nd guitar slot behind Poison Ivy’s lead, while Nick Knox remained on
the skins and Lux held fast to the front-man position. For their second
album, the group decided to handle the production duties themselves and
this move set them onto the task of upping their game and taking their
sound in a slightly different direction.
For Psychedelic
Jungle, the group opted to leave the 1950s behind and shift into the LSD
fueled 1960s, though certainly not in order to embrace any “summer of
love” pleasantries. Their trip on this production was strictly BAD -
like “don’t take the brown acid” level freakout shit. These songs
shimmered with the distorted nightmares of going way-out on the wrong
side of town. The album was a fairly even mix between original
compositions and forgotten garage & psyche rock gems unearthed with
the aid of Lux & Ivy’s encyclopedic knowledge of obscure classics.
They knew all the dirtiest little corners of rock ’n’ roll’s gutters and
pulled out some of the nastiest boogers of songs they could pick. Their
original works were equally unnerving and unsettling, though eating off
the sidewalk suddenly took on a kind of “forbidden fruit” appeal. I’m
just saying, I wouldn’t do it, but I thought about it… just a little.
The
album re-positioned the band with a big step forward which was
tragically tripped-up thanks to some nasty legal battles which meant
they weren’t able to build on their momentum. Thanks to these binding
constraints, they could not set foot into a studio to record a follow up
LP until 5 years later with their Date With Elvis album. They were
only able to tide fans over with the 1983 live album, Smell of Female,
and a compilation of previously released songs, Bad Music for Bad
People, in 1984. Though these troubles would prove challenging, the
group continued to tour and perform throughout this time and they were
eventually able to get back into their groove and resume their career,
full steam, until the tragic death of Lux Interior in 2009.
I had
the great fortune of seeing them play live twice in Vancouver. The
first was on April 12, 1990 at the Commodore Ballroom and then again on
October 24th, 1997 at Graceland. Both shows were amazing and rank as
some of the most memorable live gigs I ever attended. As far as their
studio recordings, Psychedelic Jungle ranks as the peak for me when it
comes to The Cramps. It was the album that took the most chances and
pushed their sound to its outer limits. Their shift into the more
surreal side of their sound had the most appeal for me and it proved to
be a huge influence on future projects of my own. Listening to it now,
it still occupies its own space and time and shows no signs of age or
being dated behind any trend. It creates its own universe where it can
reside indefinitely.
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