Six posts in...

...and the first musician related death I would bother to write about has occurred. Lux Interior of The Cramps died yesterday. He was slightly younger than my parents..which makes him too young to be dying.

The Cramps were one of the first punk bands i had ever heard, from a tape that I borrowed and copied that belonged to the lady that cut my hair - her name was Chrissy (can't remember her last name) and she was married to the brother of one of the Dead Boys. Side a of the tape had The Cramps record "The Smell Of Female" and side b had The Dammed "Dammed Dammed Dammed" LP. A pretty good tape to borrow, I'd say. As a tip once, I went to a record exchange and bought her a Dictators LP and when I gave it to her she laughed because she knew the songs from "back in the day - seeing them play before they had a record out" She was a pretty cool lady.

To this day I think "The Smell Of Female" is one of the Cramps best records, mostly because it is short and a rare instance of a live recording being better than studio tracks. (very rare in my opinion) I do like the Cramps but their studio output doesn't hold my attention over a whole LP. I like the Cramps in short (preferably LOUD) bursts, they are great for that!



Here is my favorite Cramps song, the first track off "The Smell Of Female" Called "Thee Most Exalted Potentate Of Love"
I used to sign my notes to my girlfriend (now wife) with this title while we were in High School. What a dork.

Post five: "Only because they once were punk..."

All bands change their sound over the years. If a band is lucky enough to stay a unit for more than a decade their sound matures and gains complexity, for better or for worse, to a point where fans of the recent stuff don't like old stuff and vice versa. (example - Bad Brains, Black Flag, Husker Du, The Clash although its hard to find anyone who likes their last albums over their first couple)

Sometimes bands sound nothing like they did when they started and you may have their new music in your library only because they once were _________, (whatever sub genre of Rock and Roll you would like to insert here) Examples? for me...Lemonheads, Dismemberment Plan, Fugazi, Replacements, Genesis) It would be a stretch to say that you might ignore a new band putting out the same record as one of your old favorites reforming or putting out their tenth LP.

Shudder To Think are a band like this for me. This would include the singer Craig Wedren's solo material and new band Baby. There is really no way I would listen to a song like the one later in this post if it was anyone else.

Shudder To Think started off as a punky rock and roll band on Dischord records and evolved into an Indie Pop Almost Was. Wedren's post Shudder music flips between introspective pseudo folky - to slightly techno-y dance music.

This song, if I remember correctly, was given away on Wedren's website as an in progress demo. It is called "One Man's Heart"



I may do another post on singers who's voices polarize listeners - You either love it or you hate it - I think Wedren's voice falls into this category. I've always thought it was pretty cool.

This post is dedicated to my sister Faith, who has had the biggest influence on my musical taste, especially early in my life - I would always take her tapes when I was a kid and listen to anything that came into the house. Shudder to Think maybe one of the few bands that I knew about first and she also ended up liking (Nomenasno being another, much more about them later).

FOUR!!!!

Staying in Australia one last time (for now)...

The Aussie punk band X put out an album entitled "Aspirations" in 1979 after a couple years playing around Sydney. It took me about two decades to hear this record, probably due in no small part to existence of the band X that most people know from Los Angeles. Don't get me wrong here, but X (L.A.) are a fantastic band that may get their own post here someday but the album from the aussie X is much more compelling to me than anything their L.A. counterparts ever did. The album is spastic, anthemic, catchy and it rocks with a raw energy that X (L.A.) only achieved live.



I had a hard time picking which song to put up here, so many of them are worthy. So decided to put up "I Don't Wanna Go Out" because it was the first song i ever heard by them.




The album has been reissued but still hard to locate try here.

You will not be disappointed.