Old (two years later I would split for London). For better or for worse, below In June 1990 I would have been twenty one years I must have seen it used in CREEM magazine and it left a vivid impression). I cringe at how jejune andĬallow I sound (I sure was fond of the expression "amphetamine-induced". The Stay Sick! line-up of The Cramps I saw in Montreal in 1990: Drummer Nick Knox, bassist Candy Del Mar, guitarist Poison Ivy and frontman Lux Interior /Īrticles, it sure was tempting to tweak them in places, but I resisted it. I’ve already blogged a bit about thatĭay before to mark the anniversary of Lux Interior's death (4 February 2009), so I won't go into detail again. Their first album of new material in four years (they’d been mired in an ugly legalĭispute with their previous label IRS). The Cramps were touring in support of Stay Sick!, (Doesn’t the title Trans-FM imply a "specialty I was then a student at Carleton UniversityĪt Ottawa, Ontario the article was for Trans-FM, the “house paper” of CKCU, Carleton’sĬampus radio station. (I'd ultimately be lucky enough to see The Cramps perform three times: twice in Montreal and once in London. Some background: I interviewed Poison Ivy in Montreal in 1990 It soundsĬorny, but you could say The Cramps set me on my path. Of the likes of Charlie Feathers, Hasil Adkins and The Phantom. And it was via The Cramps’ cover versions I was introduced to the music That I was into punk, but then I found myself irresistibly drawn to how TheĬramps and the equally important Los Angeles band X melded frantic punk with twang-y, rhythmic Of people, The Cramps provided my entry into the dark art of rockabilly. Which definitely shaped (warped? Twisted?) my worldview and aesthetic. Their albums roughly around the same time as the cinema of John Waters, both of As a teen in small town Quebec I discovered Needless to say, The Cramps were and are heroic figures for me. Up! (I’ll eventually upload my Lydia Lunch interviews from MAXIMUMROCKNROLL, I'd namedrop The Cramps, but I didn’t have much convenient evidence to back it Over the years younger friends would look dazzled when I’d tell themĪbout the punk royalty I managed to interview in the old days, especially when Journalism from the 1990s isn’t online, so I thought I’d better start rectifying Mother’s photo scanner and transcribing my 1990 interview with Poison Ivy Rorschach of The Cramps to post as a blog. My “art project” while I was in Canada was experimenting with my (There’s actually quite a backlog of stuff I want to blog about – it’sīeen a while). There’s not much to do in rural Quebec besides eat and sleep (I wasĪveraging 11 hours a night), so at the moment am looking and feeling fat’n’sassy,Īlbeit jetlagged to hell and fighting off a cold.Īnyway, I’ll probably post something about my trip to Canada another I just got back from ten days in Canada on Friday 2