The Cramps - A Halloween Rock Treat

Here is another example of the sort of poorly-written but pretentious review that plagued the Cramps to no end down through the years. No cliche is left unturned. One gets the impression that the writer might have heard OF the Cramps at some point, but relied mostly on something his sister's boyfriend once told him as source material for the article.

The Cramps - A Halloween Rock Treat
POSTED BY CSQUEEZE IN COLLEGE MUSIC
From Campus Squeeze
http://www.campussqueeze.com/post/The-Cramps---A-Halloween-Rock-Treat.aspx

The Cramps have graced the pages of underground Punk magazines for years, but have gained no respect from accredited musical enthusiasts like pitchfork media and Rolling Stone. Why? Their bloody massacre of everything known as rock may be too much to swallow.

Notoriously labeled a punk rock band, The cramps were influenced early on by the muddied sounds filtering through ham mics in the rockabilly scene. They incorporated their own extravagance for costume and terror to progree from rockabilly and become the founders of a genre now affectionately known as pshychobilly. (sic) They were unique in the 70’s, for their lack of a bass guitarist and instead used dual fuzz guitars as leads. The Cramps doomed and gloomed the stage with a visceral presence of punk and goth, clammering on about trashy Americana, sexual fetichism and horror B-movie lines. Sounds of swamp land, voodoo, devil cults and dance floor chants boiled from each venue that they played. Their music was crude at best, but perfectly tailored for loyal followers.

“In the spring of 1976, The CRAMPS began to fester in a NYC apartment. Without fresh air or natural light, the group developed its uniquely mutant strain of rock’n’roll aided only by the sickly blue rays of late night TV. While the jackhammer rhythms of punk were proliferating in NYC, The CRAMPS dove into the deepest recesses of the rock’n’roll psyche for the most primal of all rhythmic impulses — rockabilly — the sound of southern culture falling apart in a blaze of shudders and hiccups. As late night sci-fi reruns colored the room, The CRAMPS also picked and chose amongst the psychotic debris of previous rock eras - instrumental rock, surf, psychedelia, and sixties punk. And then they added the junkiest element of all — themselves.”
— J. H. Sasfy, Professor of Rockology, from the liner notes of The Cramps 1979 release Gravest Hits
As Halloween commences, it is hard to imagine another band replacing them as thematic gurus for such an eerie night, these perverse drama queens take the cake.