THE CRAMPS
A SAMPLE OF THE COVER FEATURE OF OUR CURRENT ISSUE (NO. 13, JULY/AUGUST 2013), OUT NOW!
Live, the Cramps seemed unstoppable – their summer UK tour climaxed with a show at the Hammersmith Palais that saw Lux indulge on an Iggy Pop style walk out into the crowd, before charging across the dancefloor and rounding out an unforgettable performance by ripping a hole in the Palais stage and dropping through. “There was this huge crowd and I was standing at the back and Lux came off the stage he ran through the audience,” recalls Ace Records supremo Roger Armstrong. “As he was running he was gathering these guys, who were hanging onto guys, who were hanging on to guys and I remember Lux coming around and the crowd parted in front of him and he just looked at me and went, ‘Hi Rog!’ It was so cool.”
The subsequent show at Brighton’s Top Rank was no less frenzied – after the encore, Lux remained on stage, stark naked, creating a wall of feedback by rubbing the microphone against a speaker with a psychotic look on his face. This continued for a full five minutes until Nick emerged from the wings to wrap him in a towel and lead him away. The bulk of the audience were completely stunned by such a wild finale, which delighted Lux to the extent that he repeated the performance several times over the next few nights. Twenty five years later, on what turned out to be the Cramps’ final European tour, Lux remained uninhibited about his nudity. “I almost got in trouble in Stockholm; The cops came up afterward to Bob [Woodrum] our tour manager and they said, ‘Incidentally, the exposure of the testicles – this was unintentional, isn’t that correct?’ And Bob says, “Oh, absolutely – He’s never done that before’.”
Read the rest of Dick Porter's Cramps cover feature now by picking up a copy of the new issue.
ORDER YOUR COPY FROM ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD HERE!
