Long Live Lux Interior

I'm quite guilty of not playing enough of The Cramps in my shows.  Probably because most of it that I have is on vinyl and not digitized.  Well, to make amends let me pay homage to Lux Interior and his touchstones. 

Lux Interior passed away this week.  It brought to mind some of my experiences with the band. 

My favorite show was this odd free one sponsored by Camel cigarettes in the late 90's. It was not so much the band being that memorable, they were merely great as usual. Lux had stopped his self flagellation for the most part. It was the old creepy venue, the bizarre crowd, the slew of scantily clad go go dancers in cages throughout the venue. Crazy night.

My old girlfriend from college happened to see them in Rochester, NY one summer evening. She ended up backstage and was talked into driving Lux, Poison Ivy and Nick Knox to NYC. She said they had a blast. They were pretty normal. A little coke and some pot were shared on the journey. She did say they smelled pretty bad.

Here's a story from the front page of the Arts section in today's Plain Dealer. It's written by PD writer, John Petkovic who moonlights as lead singer of Cobra Verde. He also sang with 80's - 90's band Death Of Samantha. That band also did a short stint as Guided By Voices. Doug Guillard being the only one to stay in GBV.

A couple of local icons are mentioned in the above article. Here's some more about them.

Ernie Anderson, Ghoulardi, hosted a local horror movie TV show. Many cities had such oddball hosts. The genre was even parodied on Second City Television. Here's a sample of Ghoulardi from 1963.




He moved to Los Angeles and became the announcer on ABC. You oldsters will recognize the voice. His son is director Paul Thomas Anderson. "Mad Daddy" Pete Myers came to WJW, 850AM, Cleveland in 1956, shortly after Alan Freed moved to NYC. The same WJW, where Freed played race records and decided to call the genre "rock and roll". His on air antics were actually what Anderson was imitating on his TV show. Myers moved to NYC radio eventually as well. When his type of radio banter lost its popularity he went into depression, eventually committing suicide. Here's a perfect 52 minute example of his radio show from WJW in 1958. The records he plays are still in that "race" genre. Very little in the way of top 40 of the day. This is really worth a listen.