The Cramps: Rockabilly At Its Raunchiest
----------------------------------------------------------------- Concert preview
The Cramps and Doo Rag, 7 tonight, DV8; $15.50, 628-0888. -----------------------------------------------------------------
It seems the Cramps were a little tense just before their last appearance here.
They had the closing slot at KNDD's "Deck the Hall Ball" this past December, following Sheryl Crow. Word from the deep recesses of the Exhibition Hall basement was that the Cramps were concerned the audience would leave before they got on stage.
They needn't have concerned themselves. Sure, some of the Crow crowd flew away. No matter. There remained a myriad of true believers, including those who felt they had to endure the other acts just to revel in the band they'd really come for.
And if the band members were feeling any timidity it didn't show when they hit the stage. Lead singer Lux Interior and guitar-playing mate Poison Ivy have been doing this - the execution of high-energy, throat-ripping, Sodom and Gomorrah, surf 'n' screaming, psycho-babbling rockabilly - for almost 20 years, give or take a few vacations. They are consummate professionals.
Interior, wearing shiny black skin-tight vinyl and his customary high-heeled pumps, screamed like a man on the rack, all the while wielding the microphone stand like a stainless-steel extension of himself. Ivy and Interior's bassist, Slim Chance, and drummer Harry Drumdini - the newest members of the band - gave brick-hard backup. And Interior's manic persona was as always nicely balanced by Ivy's "when's-it-gonna-end" attitude.
From the beginning, the Cramp's main meat has been rockabilly, the bone-breaking, electric jungle music the band feels sexually liberated the otherwise conservative and restrictive 1950s. They feel there's an unhealthy parallel with those times and the 1990s, and they might have something there. That in mind, they're willing to keep breaking the sociosexual taboos with their performances and recordings.
The latest Cramps CD is "FlameJob," and it's as ribald, raunchy and rocking as any of the band's earlier work. With titles such as "Ultra Twist," "Mean Machine," "I'm Customized," "Inside Out And Upside Down (With You)" and "Swing With The Big Eyed Rabbit" (among others), "FlameJob" is 15 two- and three-minute love bites. If not love bites, than at least hickeys. Around these parts it's whatever works, but what works best is that this record, like the band's live show, rocks throughout.
The Cramps have nothing to fear.