RIP: Lux Interior
In the Spring of 1990, my 13 year old self was hanging out with a friend in a sketchy lean-to of a garage in New Hampshire, cleaning up from tinkering with another friends car, and listening to cassettes on the ghettobox. We'd been listening to headbanger standards for most of that day- Iron Maiden, Metallica and the like.
I was pawing through the cooler for another can of piss-water beer when I saw this bright yellow cassette case with a freaked-out zombie dude on it. I tossed it in the player, twiddled some thumb while it damn thing rewound, and pressed play.
A hollow, 'verbed out jangler of an intro riff.
Dead simple drums, all backbeat.
And then, this tweaked out caterwaul that could only have come out of some Frank-n-furter's monster made from parts of the Big Bopper and Patsy Cline"
"you ain't no punk, you punk..."
I wanted to turn it off, but I was afraid to get close enough to the player to do so- as if increased proximity would have been enough to contaminate me.
That's the first memory I have of the Cramps, and Lux Interior. I should have turned it off! If only I had been stronger! Things could have turned out so differently. I could be a happy middle class sarariman, drifting into the ennui and oblivion of middle age, awash in the pleasant haze of mediocrity. Instead, I went another way, and the sweet crooning of Lux Interior has been a part of the soundtrack.
And so it is, that I'd like to take this moment to thank Lux for whatever it was that he did to my brain chemistry that day.
I was pawing through the cooler for another can of piss-water beer when I saw this bright yellow cassette case with a freaked-out zombie dude on it. I tossed it in the player, twiddled some thumb while it damn thing rewound, and pressed play.
A hollow, 'verbed out jangler of an intro riff.
Dead simple drums, all backbeat.
And then, this tweaked out caterwaul that could only have come out of some Frank-n-furter's monster made from parts of the Big Bopper and Patsy Cline"
"you ain't no punk, you punk..."
I wanted to turn it off, but I was afraid to get close enough to the player to do so- as if increased proximity would have been enough to contaminate me.
That's the first memory I have of the Cramps, and Lux Interior. I should have turned it off! If only I had been stronger! Things could have turned out so differently. I could be a happy middle class sarariman, drifting into the ennui and oblivion of middle age, awash in the pleasant haze of mediocrity. Instead, I went another way, and the sweet crooning of Lux Interior has been a part of the soundtrack.
And so it is, that I'd like to take this moment to thank Lux for whatever it was that he did to my brain chemistry that day.