Happy Howl-O-Ween!

KOGAR THE SWINGING APE presents Lux and Ivy's Favorites Volume Fifteen!

Posted by Kogar the Swinging Ape
at WFMU's Rock -n- Soul Ichiban
http://wfmuichiban.blogspot.com/2010/10/lux-and-ivys-favorites-volume-fifteen.html

Here is Lux and Ivy's Favorites Volume Fifteen!

This volume is a mix of left over songs from that magical tape that came into my possession earlier this year and some other hold over songs that I've been waiting to throw on the series.

A HUGE thank you goes out to Haunted George for doing the cover for this volume. For those unfamiliar with his work, I highly recommend checking out his Myspace or Facebook pages (the URL's are part of the artwork when you download the volume). Be sure to check out his stuff. It's some of the more interesting/different music being produced today in a landscape filled with the usual garbagegarage (tm).

CLICK HERE FOR DOWNLOAD LINK

A few notes on the songs.

The intro/instrumental was reassembled from the original tape using the best sources I could find. You can read the whole story about "instrumental" on my blog. It shouldn't be too hard to find the track title if you really want to know. I kept it a mystery for the hell of it. The actual intro will be familiar with most everyone (i hope!). It was on the tape I was given and I had to laugh when I heard it. You could tell it was recorded using a cheap microphone that was more than likely held up to a television so it could be put on the tape.

Ruth Wallis - Ubangi. Wow, here is a song that i've looked for for years! In an old interview with the Cramps, Lux had attributed this song to someone named Ruth Fallen, and described the song in pretty good detail. I could never find this song anywhere. He called it YOU BANGI ME, I BANGI YOU (or something like that).

Then, as a result of that interview I gave to Dig It magazine, someone contacted me (thanks Colin!) suggesting that it was Ruth WALLIS! I tracked down the song, listened to it, and decided it HAD to be the song Lux was referring to. My guess is that the interviewer mis-heard Lux when he said the name of the artist. FALL-IN, WALL-IS, it could have been careless notes, or a bad transcription of a tape the interviewer had made.

Finding a good copy of the song was nearly impossible. It originally appeared on 78. I found a CD compilation of Wallis's songs with Ubangi on it. Great, right? A version taken from CD has to be good quality, right? Wouldn't you know it? The CD has a glitch on that particular song! Any mp3 rips of it sounded like shit. Besides the glitch it had an amazing amount of background noise.

After a while I found that it had been issued on a LP as well and through some further searching found a sealed copy for sale on ebay. This is the version on this compilation. And even then, it doesn't sound that great. I think it was mastered from the original 78 and not a master tape. The song even gets louder and softer, so I guess no one cared because it was for stag parties anyway!

Then I found a few more holdover songs from the original INCREDIBLY STRANGE MUSIC interview.

Red Hewitt and the Buccaneers - D.J. Blues; Lux never mentioned the artist, just talked about the song, and the lyric "music right out of the swirling all!" The first few seconds of this track remind me of a cramps song. So happy to have found this track. Red Hewitt was from New Zealand and released a few 45's on the Audion label (see scan on tracklisting).

Sheri Lee Douglas - Chime Bells; Never thought I'd find this one. Lux and Ivy swear this is KAY MARTIN singing, and I have to agree with them. It sounds exactly like her. The b-side of this 45 will be on the next LAIF volume.

Let's see, what else? There are a few more tracks from Forbidden City Dog Food as well as a bit from the Purple Knif Show. After listening to it again recently I heard a few seconds of something that never registered with me before. As the show ends, there is a few seconds of the deadly ones song, the mad drummer! It is such a great song, it HAD to be included on this volume.

Enjoy this volume, it might be awhile before the next one, but you never know!

My plans for remastered versions of the earlier volumes are still going according to plan. Volume 6 will be next, then volume's one, two, three and five.

Huge thanks go out to: Debbie D for doing a little sound voodoo on a bunch of the mp3's to make them sound better, Howie Pyro for the secret track, Bruce Milne, Colin Duff, Olaf Jens for helping me with a few songs, Steve Pallow, and Adam Fitch for his amazing graphics.

BLACK CENTIPEDE CREEPING DAWN
The first Black Centipede novel, Creeping Dawn, will be creeping your way in ...

COMING FROM BLACK CENTIPEDE PRESS black centipede creeping dawn

http://theblackcentipede.blogspot.com/

You can take your "Twilight" and stick it where the sun don't shine. THIS is my all-time, hands-down favorite cinematic vampire ever.

Spanish Drac

(Chuck Note: In the Tod Browning version, Mina is played by Helen Chandler, who is very cute. In the Spanish version, the female lead is played by Lupita Tovar, who is fucking hot as fuck. I give her two thumbs-- and one other appendage-- up!)

Dracula (1931-- Spanish language version) **½

From 1000 Misspent Hours

http://www.1000misspenthours.com/reviews/reviewsa-d/dracula1931spanish.htm

  A very strange thing happened on Universal Studios’ famous back lot over the course of 22 nights late in 1930. On each of those nights, after Tod Browning and his cast and crew went home from a hard day at work making Dracula, two other directors-- George Melford and Enrique Tova Avalos were their names-- would arrive on the set with a cast of Mexican actors to set about piecing together their own Dracula for the Spanish-speaking market. Melford and Avalos didn’t just use the same sets as Browning. They also employed the same basic script (right down to the terrible, out-of-place sight gag involving the big fat bug and the miniature coffin), along with the same props, the same matte paintings, and alternate takes of the same special effects sequences-- hell, even the same widow’s-peak hairpiece that Bela Lugosi wore during the daytime shooting! But in spite of all the elements it has in common with Browning’s more famous version, the Dracula made by Melford and Avalos is a strikingly different and altogether superior film.

  The screenplay, as I said, was a fairly straight translation of that used by Browning. Renfield (Pablo Alvarez Rubio, who also appeared in a Spanish-language version of The Cat Creeps called La Voluntad del Muerto) travels to Transylvania to discuss with Count Dracula (El Diablo del Mar’s Carlos Villarias) his intentions to lease an abandoned abbey in London, and gets himself turned into an insane demi-vampire for his troubles. After sailing to England aboard a chartered ship (whose sailors all end up on the vampire’s menu before the journey’s end), Dracula takes an interest in two young women, Eva Seward (East of Borneo’s Lupita Tovar, playing the character called Mina in Browning’s version) and Lucia Weston (Carmen Guerrero). The undead count first kills Lucia, transforming her into a vampire like himself, and then turns his attention to Eva. However, in so doing, he attracts the notice of Eva’s psychiatrist father (Jose Soriano Viosca, from Cheri-Bibi, the Spanish-speaking counterpart to The Phantom of Paris) and her fiance, Juan Harker (Barry Norton, who played in both El Diablo del Mar and its English-language sister film, Devil Monster), the former of whom summons a colleague of his-- a Dutch scientist named Van Helsing (Eduardo Arozamena)-- to help him get to the bottom of the curious change that has come over the girl since she met the Transylvanian lord. Van Helsing, as always, is a self-made expert on the arcane lore of vampirism, and in short order, he figures out exactly what’s going on, and what must be done to stop it. With a little help from Renfield-- some of it intended, some not-- Van Helsing tracks first Lucia and then Dracula himself to their daytime hiding places and dispatches them with a stake through the heart, saving Eva from the eternal undeath to which the count had very nearly condemned her.

  A quick comparison between the above synopsis (sketchy as it is) and my earlier one for Browning’s Dracula will reveal an intriguing point of divergence. In the familiar, English-language version of the movie, Lucy is scarcely heard from again after she is turned into a vampire; not only do her supposed friends barely seem to notice her death, nobody even bothers to stake her after she briefly returns as a child-killing vampire! Here, on the other hand, the filmmakers understood what an important plot point Lucia’s vampiric resurrection was, and understood equally well what dire consequences there would be for the film’s continuity if the subject were left hanging. This isn’t the only difference between the two versions of the script, but it’s by far the most obvious and the most important. It’s also the one that makes Tod Browning and company look like the biggest fools.

  Of course, by the time it comes up, Melford and Avalos have been directing rings around the man for more than a hour. Browning’s technique in Dracula seems creaky under the best of circumstances. In comparison to the fluid camera-work of Melford and Avalos, it looks positively arthritic. While Browning seems to have thought he was filming a stage play, the men in charge of this production really understood the possibilities the camera offered, and had the good sense to take full advantage of them. It’s also clear that Melford saw-- and paid attention to-- Murnau’s Nosferatu. A couple of this movie’s classier shots were cribbed directly from the earlier film-- check out the scene where Renfield sees Dracula packing his “bags” for the trip to England. The most outstanding difference in style, though, is the one that best reflects the presumed taste of the special audience at which this version of Dracula was aimed. The one thing about Stoker’s original novel that no commentator ever neglects to mention is its “erotic charge.” (I’ve never noticed any such thing in the book, myself, but maybe I’m just not repressed enough...) The viewer who looks for any hint of sex in Browning’s Dracula looks in vain, however. Not so here. Even the Hammer Dracula films of the 50’s and 60’s-- flicks in which the actresses’ cleavage was a large part of the point-- have nothing on this movie. Lupita Tovar’s nightgowns wouldn’t seem out of place in an Italian giallo from the 70’s. When Mina Seward gets out of bed in the middle of the night to meet Dracula in the asylum garden in Browning’s version, the outfit she’s wearing makes her look like an enormous humanoid ruffle. In the corresponding scene from the Spanish-language version, not only does Tovar’s gown cling to her fantastic figure, her nipples are faintly visible through the translucent fabric of her bodice in the close-ups! (It never ceases to amaze me what people used to get away with in the days before the Hays Code…) Note also that when Renfield is brought under the sway of the vampires in the English-speaking version, it is Dracula himself who drinks his blood, whereas Melford and Avalos have the vampire’s brides do the honors, as the scene was originally written (though, of course, in the novel, Harker is the lucky recipient of their attentions). All told, the “hot-blooded Latin” approach does wonders for the film’s overall watchability.

  The superiority of the direction in this version is matched, for the most part, by the superiority of the acting. Lupita Tovar has a screen presence that puts her counterpart, Helen Chandler, to shame. Not only that, Tovar has real chemistry with Barry Norton, making the relationship between Eva and Juan far more believable than the one between Mina and John. As Renfield, Pablo Alvarez Rubio has some problems with his vocal delivery, but his physical acting is top-notch. Early in the film, when Renfield confronts the strange goings-on in Dracula’s castle, the man really does look scared. But the biggest improvement over the English-speaking version in the acting department is Eduardo Arozamena as Dr. Van Helsing. In Browning’s version, even Bela Lugosi looks good next to Edward Van Sloan (the sap who plays Van Helsing there). Arozamena’s Van Helsing is nearly as good as Anthony Hopkins’s interpretation from 1992’s mostly risible Bram Stoker’s Dracula (though it doesn’t quite bear comparison to Peter Cushing’s take on the role).

  The only thing that stops this Dracula from really shining is Carlos Villarias. Lugosi was a terrible actor (in English, at least), but the man undeniably had charisma. Villarias does not, and he compounds the problem by aping Lugosi’s dreadful performance. His walk, his gestures, his posture, his vocal cadence-- all are lifted from Lugosi. As ridiculous as the model for Villarias’s performance is, just imagine how much sillier the total effect is without the force of Lugosi’s personality to back it all up. And nothing shows how much Lugosi’s natural accent covered up his inadequacies like watching someone try exactly the same shtick without it. In the absence of a viable Count Dracula, the movie runs into serious trouble when it ought to be at its most effective-- in those scenes when the vampire is onscreen. As it is, the only moments Villarias really pulls off are those in which he keeps his mouth shut and lurks in the shadows.

  Still, the Melford-Avalos Dracula is a big step up from the Browning version. Its substantially longer running time (more than 20 minutes in excess of the English version’s) allows for more and better character development, and provides the opportunity to plug up plot holes left gaping in its better-known counterpart. The directors’ firmer grasp of their medium shines through in every scene, resulting in a film that is livelier despite its greater length. The more competent cast rises to the occasion throughout, putting in performances with far greater depth of feeling than the English-speakers who played their roles on the same sets by day. With a more forceful actor in the all-important title role, this Dracula could really have been the classic Browning’s version is generally regarded to be.

Clipping File: Feb. 4, 2009

Lux Interior of the Cramps Passes Away at the Glendale Memorial Hospital

Randall Roberts

L.A. Weekly

http://blogs.laweekly.com/westcoastsound/news/lux-interior-of-the-cramps-pas/

For some of us, he was the embodiment of cool. The way he crawled, the way he climbed the speaker cabinets like a panther, the way that Poison Ivy, his wife and collaborator in the Cramps, looked at him with equal parts love and indifference. Lux Interior, born Erick Lee Purkhiser in 1948, was an icon, and his influence on American culture will only rise with his passing.

In 2004, LA Weekly's Jonny Whiteside wrote a great profile of his friends Poison and Lux, and captured the band's essence:

That exhilarating manifestation of deviant intent and skull-denting impact remains Lux and Ivy's exclusive domain. Where punk rock was a barrage of refutation that fomented rabid exultation, the Cramps reclaimed the hillbilly power long since flushed down the Mersey. Through a self-stated "disdain for the myth of musical progress," they melded their mutant propensities to emerge as a guiding voice in the wilderness, a commanding force that redefined the rock n roll spectrum while outgunning almost everyfuckingbody in the game.

The Cramps' New York publicist, Girlie Action, released the following statement:

For Immediate Release:
February 4, 2009

Lux Interior, lead singer of The Cramps, passed away this morning due to an existing heart condition at Glendale Memorial Hospital in Glendale, California at 4:30 AM PST today. Lux has been an inspiration and influence to millions of artists and fans around the world. He and wife Poison Ivy's contributions with The Cramps have had an immeasurable impact on modern music.

The Cramps emerged from the original New York punk scene of CBGB and Max's Kansas City, with a singular sound and iconography. Their distinct take on rockabilly and surf along with their midnight movie imagery reminded us all just how exciting, dangerous, vital and sexy rock and roll should be and has spawned entire subcultures. Lux was a fearless frontman who transformed every stage he stepped on into a place of passion, abandon, and true freedom. He is a rare icon who will be missed dearly.
(via The Daily Swarm)

CHUX LUX PIX

Here are a few of my artistic (?) tributes to the greater than late Lux Interior and the immortal CRAMPS!

Belated Photo Credit

I have a name to attach to this nifty photo of Ivy and Lux that I've used on here a couple of times. It was taken by Howard Thompson of North Fork Sound. He has a really cool blog which is WELL WORTH checking out:

http://northforksound.blogspot.com/

You Need Hands

The Talented Mister Criswell sez:
"Dude, this is some fucked up shit right here. Check it out!"

Lux Imitates Art Imitating Lux Imitating Other Art

(Above) "Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2" (1912) by Marcel Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp was a French/American artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art. He advised modern art collectors, such as Peggy Guggenheim and other prominent figures, thereby helping to shape the tastes of Western art during this period.[1] A playful man, Duchamp challenged conventional thought about artistic processes and art marketing, not so much by writing, but through subversive actions such as dubbing a urinal art and naming it Fountain. He produced relatively few artworks, while moving quickly through the avant-garde circles of his time.

Duchamp once said, "The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act."
(Wikipedia)

(Above) "(Almost) Nude Lux Descending an Ivy"

"Lux is really into Duchamp. He has read every biography and autobiography written. I think if Duchamp hadn’t died in Lux’s lifetime, I’d think that Lux was reincarnated as Duchamp."
--Poison Ivy, 1995



"Naked Girl Falling Down the Stairs"
The Cramps

Back

For reasons which must remain lame and unprovable, I haven't posted anything on here in quite a while. The rumors of my death were not exaggerated in the least, but I couldn't let that hold me back forever. A few pressing matters did come up. There was a death in my family, for one thing. In fact, since I subscribe to the philosophy of the universal brotherhood of all mankind, there were several million of them. Also, a bunch of dogs ate all my homework, and I was sick with bird flu, mad cow disease, chicken pox and toads in my stool.

Anyway, here are some swell Cramps pics for you to look at, plus one fucked-up old comic book story from about a zillion years ago.

SUPER BONUS LINK
click HERE
to visit the
ABSOLUTE ALL-TIME GREATEST CRAMPS SITE that has EVER existed, or EVER WILL.

More Goddamn Death

MESSAGE TO DEATH: Motherfucker, you need to quit gobbling up all our best people. Why don't you go after somebody we could do without? I mean, Dick Cheney has been sitting on your doorstep for years now. Look, I can understand why you'd be reluctant to let him in-- I wouldn't want him in my place either. But you know better than anyone how inevitable you are. You're gonna have to man up and do it one of these days. Dude, you knew the risks when you put on the uniform. And what about all those goddamn Baldwin Brothers? Or Doctor Phil? You really must start doing some fair and balanced reaping.
I would tell you to drop dead, but I confess I can't see how that would work.

--Chuck

Influential guitarist, singer Alex Chilton dies

(AP) NEW ORLEANS — Singer and guitarist Alex Chilton, known for his influential work with bands the Box Tops and Big Star, has died. He was 59.

Chilton's longtime friend John Fry says that Chilton died Wednesday at a hospital in New Orleans after experiencing what appeared to be heart problems.

Fry, the owner of Memphis-based Ardent Studios, says he has spoken to Chilton's wife and that she's very distressed. Fry said: "It was just a sudden and unexpected event."

Chilton had been scheduled to perform with Big Star on Saturday at the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas.

The festival's creative director, Brent Grulke, says Chilton's gift for melody was second to none.

Gulke says: "Alex Chilton always messed with your head, charming and amazing you while doing so."

As the teenage singer for the pop-soul outfit the Box Tops, Chilton topped the charts with The Letter in 1967. The band's other hits were Soul Deep and Cry Like A Baby.

His work with Big Star had less mainstream success but made him a cult hero to other musicians, as evidenced by the title of the 1987 Replacements song, Alex Chilton. Big Star's three 1970s LPs all earned spots on Rolling Stone magazine's list of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Chilton said in a 1987 interview that did not mind flying under the radar.

"What would be ideal would be to make a ton of money and have nobody know about you," he said. "Fame has a lot of baggage to carry around. I wouldn't want to be like Bruce Springsteen. I don't need that much money and wouldn't want to have 20 bodyguards following me.

"If I did become really popular, the critics probably wouldn't like me all that much," he said. "They like to root for the underdog."

Copyright © 2010 The Press Association. All rights reserved.

In 1977, the Cramps demoed several tracks and headlined at CBGB's in July but things really began to gel when Nick Knox (Nick Stephanoff) joined on drums the following month. The Cramps met Alex Chilton, formerly of the Boxtops and Big Star, who pronounced them "the greatest rock'n'roll group in the world".

In October, they were down at Ardent Studios in Memphis with Chilton, producing deranged covers of Jack Scott's "The Way I Walk", Roy Orbison's "Domino" and the Trashmen's "Surfin' Bird" alongside their own composition "Human Fly". Ork Records, which had released singles by Television and Richard Hell, couldn't quite get the financing right and the Cramps eventually issued these four tracks on two separate singles on their own label, Vengeance, in 1978. The Cramps' logo, inspired by the Tales from the Crypt comic, helped them gain further attention.

Touring as far afield as Canada and the West Coast of America, the group's live show created quite a buzz and the Police manager Miles Copeland snapped up the rights to the singles for European release as the EP Gravest Hits on his Illegal label in July 1979. He also brought the band over to Europe to support the Police on tour.

After an unsuccessful attempt at recording an album in New York, with the British guitarist Chris Spedding producing, the Cramps went back to Memphis and Alex Chilton, this time also using Sam Phillips Recording Studio (formerly Sun) as well as Ardent. The resulting sessions became Songs the Lord Taught Us, one of the best damn albums of all time. (Pierre Perrone)

Kid Congo Powers in OKC

Kid Congo Powers and the Pink Monkey Birds played in Oklahoma City on March 15, and I was there. I had heard from a number of people that Kid is a really nice guy and a joy to meet in person, and it's true. If I had done everything he's done, I would be a total superior elitist asshole about it. Hell, I'm an asshole now, with the pitiful few things I have managed to do...
So I guess let's thank God that I am not Kid Congo and he is.

Kid Congo, Oklahoma City, 3-15-2010
(Photos by Susan Wallace)

Anyhow, the club was small and seedy, and it smelled like small, seedy clubs everywhere, and that's the way I like 'em. The turnout was not very good, which probably had a lot to do with the fact that it was both Monday night and Oklahoma, neither of which have a reputation for excitement. But the ambiance struck a chord in me. It reminded me more of the gigs we used to play back when I was in a band than a big deal rock and roll show, and that made it special. We played more than one gig where my band outnumbered the audience-- and we were a trio. It wasn't quite that bad for the Pink Monkey Birds Monday night. In fact, it wasn't bad at all. It was intimate and friendly and I could have danced all night, if I could dance. And if they had played all night. Which I wouldn't have minded. Kid and his cohorts gave it their all and a massive good time was had by all.

On a more serious note, if you get a chance to see the Pink Monkey Birds in or near your town, or anywhere at all, take it. If you knew what you were missing, you'd never forgive yourself for it. And if you didn't know what you were missing, you wouldn't forgive yourself for that, either.

Your Humble Blogger has a brush with greatness.

Former Cramps, Gun Club, and Bad Seeds guitarist Kid Congo Powers and his band The Pink Monkeybirds play a song from their most recent album 'Dracula Boots' (available on LP and CD from Inthered Records) at Oklahoma City club The Conservatory March 15, 2010. Go see this band live. (Vidiocy by Perry Amberson)

Ivy and Lux, 2004- The Eric Blair Show

Everything That Rises Must Converge

Lux Interior's Astral Ascension: Jonny Whiteside's Report from the Ceremony

By Jonny Whiteside in news
LA Weekly

Thursday, Mar. 12 2009 @ 1:59PM
http://blogs.laweekly.com/westcoastsound/news/lux-interiors-astral-ascension/

"Lux seemed like a creature from another world, with one foot already out of this dimension. As much as we might wonder 'Where are you now?' we can also wonder 'Where on Earth did you come from?' Now that's a mystery!"-- Poison Ivy

The death on February 4 of Erick Lee Purkhiser, BKA Cramps singer Lux Interior -- singer, writer, artist, 3D photographer, daredevil, shape shifter. Mojo Man from Mars, Ding Dong Daddy from Diddy Wah Diddy (as his surviving longtime partner in crime Poison Ivy described him) was as numbing and unacceptable a trauma as can be imagined, a black hole of tragedy that pulled the hearts of innumerable fans and friends down to the bitter deep end, but there had to be a formal farewell.

A public observance was unthinkable. Just picture the teeming, tearful confederacy of scum who'd show up. But Ivy hit on the perfect spot. Tucked off Sunset Boulevard in Pacific Palisades, the Self Realization Fellowship - Lake Shrine, a fave Elvis hang when he was in town during his mid-60's extracurricular spiritual quest, is an unspeakably beautiful setting and was ideal for Lux Interior's send-off, administered via an appropriately offbeat ceremony, the Astral Ascension.

Held on February 21 inside a reproduction of a 18th century windmill, the trans-denominational service was performed before an ornate sandalwood altar with a backdrop of six portraits -- Jesus, Krishna and the Fellowships own assorted founding gurus; the mood was muted, bleak, and Ivy's entrance brought a flood of tears; clad in form fitting leopard print, she placed a Hurrell-style glamour portrait of Lux beside the rostrum where speakers would address the crowd of 50 or 60 people.

Minister Brahmachari Dale explained their hope-filled transitional view of death, read from the Bhagavad-Gita, recited the 23rd Psalm, and exhorted attendees to concentrate on sending messages of love to Lux's spirit -- and damn, kiddies, it felt like he was right there in the room (when Ivy was arranging the service, she mentioned a similar predisposition, and the coordinator replied, "Oh, he will be there").

Next, a musical interlude, Mary Mayo 's "For All We Know," an evocative, psychedelic R&B ballad with simmering bubble sound effects and eerie theremin runs; musician and longtime Lux and Ivy chum Dave Stuckey spoke first, and his recollections brought booms of laughter: "We had gone to see [R&B star] Young Jesse at a very fancy French restaurant, and when Lux sat down at the table, he immediately picked up the elaborately folded napkin and put it on his head. It made a very nice hat." At a Swap Meet, Lux came across a huge table of bootleg rock videos, one of them a Cramps tape. As Stuckey described it, he said "Watch this," approached the seller, who was busy organizing his wares, held up the video "and asked him -- in that voice -- 'How much for this one?' The guys eyes bugged out and he stammered "It's . . it's . . free."

Self-Realization Center - Lake Shrine, scene of Lux Interior's Ascension Ceremony.

Former Mumps keyboardist Kirstian Hoffman, who had first allied himself with the couple at CBGB's almost 35 years ago, spoke next and began by pointing first at Lux's photo and then the portrait of Jesus, saying "I want to put this picture over there." He also drew gales of additional yucks by talking about what a great visual artist Lux was, a fact emphasized when he produced a long player album by NYC rockabilly revivalist Robert Gordon, whose head shot cover art had been magnificently vandalized, a la Mad Magazine, with blacked teeth, a van dyke beard and a Rat Fink style swarm of flies (Lux's ire was raised by Gordon's choice to cover Cramps staple "The Way I Walk"). Hoffman also read a message from guitarist Kid Congo Powers (on tour in Europe), an affectionate, slightly skewed homage that reinforced just what a profound affect Lux had made on the lives of anyone who saw him perform or was fortunate enough to know him.

Dale proceeded; a flower ceremony, a fire ceremony, the Astral Ascension Prayer, a closing benediction and a final song, the Charades' version of 1939 Duke Ellington hit "Flamingo." A severely cramped doo-woppy arrangement fraught with trashy guitar that, taken with the song's surrealist lyrics, provided a perfect coda. The stunned crowd, including Russ Meyer biographer Jimmy McDonough, comic-Sponge Bob voice Tom Kenny, In the Red Records' Larry Hardy, Johnny Legend, Charmin' Allan Larman, a slew of local underworld rock types and 3D camera buffs (an abiding passion of Lux's), wandered outside.

A reception followed at Silver Lake's Edendale Grill, much grimly carouse, a looping slide show of Lux baby and childhood shots, candid snaps (i.e. Lux wearing panties on his head -- they made a very nice hat) and assorted live combat action photography. Muted chatter ensued and in an unexpected twist, I met the guy who was driving the day he and Lux famously pulled over to pick up a hitchhiker, who turned out to be Poison Ivy. "I only knew Lux for about three years, but I knew Erick very well," he said. "Back then, I was his psychedelic partner, you might say, and a few years ago I got an e-mail from him saying "you don't know who this is" -- of course I did -- "but do you remember when we picked up that really pretty girl hitchhiker and your dog Wheezer jumped all over her? Well I've been jumping all over her for the past 35 years and we have a band called the Cramps."

A first hand account of that fabled meeting was a knock out, but the finality of the day's tone overrode all else. As Poison Ivy herself wrote in the service-accompanying program, "Lux seemed like a creature from another world, with one foot already out of this dimension. As much as we might wonder 'Where are you now?' we can also wonder 'Where on Earth did you come from?' Now that's a mystery!"