as many of you know from watching the Five, i've played the Cramps dozens of times in my intro's and outro's. I firmly believe they might be the truest incarnation of real rock and roll since Jerry Lee Lewis.

This review of their debut album, "Songs the Lord Taught Us" nails it completely. Produced by Alex Chilton, it was a brilliant fiery alien mess. I bought it 40 years ago, and I still play it almost every week. I even learned the song "TV Set" when i started playing guitar again (If you ever want to hear a great remake of this song, check out what Spoon did with it).

one of my great regrets: I spent an evening at Lux and Poison's house in southern california, getting drunk. I brought them a lamp as a gift. I took notes and recorded the evening. Less than a week later I was fired from my job as editor in chief for Stuff Magazine, so the article which was going to be called "My Dinner with the Cramps" never ran (and was never written). I have no idea where that micro-cassette went. I moved to LA for a bit, then to London. Somewhere that cassette is in a cardboard box, buried forever among other boxes. It crushes me.

So here's the article. It might get you to investigate a legendary band. if you're not used to "psychobilly," you might hate it. But any flippant dismissals, or any deviation from the topic to angry political rants, on this happy post, will earn you a flippant dismissal from me!

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/the-cramps-songs-the-lord-taught-us/