Lawrence.com

Posted by Rob Gillaspie February 6, 2009 at 12:46 a.m.

Lux Interior is Dead, ALAS...

I touched this man's naked ass once. I really did.I just read an entry from early on in this journal, and I thought it would be fun to share:"I bought a pair of X-RAY GOGS today because I've always thought they looked stylin. I tore into the package as soon as I left the toy store and put them on, confident in my cool new look... Three steps later, I walked face first into a tree. Curvacia and I are getting desperate in our quest for a rock-n-roll drummer. Two weeks ago, I plastered every flyering hot spot with handbills, complete with pull-off tags featuring our contact info... Ms. Malady and I figured an email address was best, since neither of us bother to answer the phone, and when we do, our lack of communication skills are usually enough to sink any conversation like the Lusitania. Anyway, if YOU were an aspiring rock drummer, and YOU saw this flier hanging outside the record store, wouldn't YOU immediately drop everything and rush home to respond?Yeah, me too. But apparently, all the young skin-bangers in this town have better things to do. It looks like quite a few people are interested, because several tags have been torn away, but our email inbox remains dreadfully bare.So, in an attempt to boost our response rate, I concocted THIS flier, opting for a more "cut-n-paste" design... I figured, what the fuck, maybe all the young rockers will be drawn in by the whole "black death" aesthetic:This time, in addition to hitting the usual spots, I made sure to hit laundromats, liquor stores, and most importantly, the KU campus. I tried to double up with the old fliers as much as possible, just my way of trying to say "See? We're still looking! There's still a chance to get in on the most famous fucking rock band in town!"I did a quick check downtown today, and sure enough, there were a few bites. But the inbox remains empty. What else can I do but wait? It seems like no one in this town wants to be in a band that doesn't stare at it's feet anymore. Are we really going to have to move away before we can fulfill our dreams of superstardom? Four letters, my friends: L-A-M-E. BUt, as you know by know, we never give up hope. Right now, I'm burning a candle next to my Cramps shrine and praying to the Holy Twosome for some divine intervention... If anyone can offer us spiritual guidance in our times of need, it's Lux and Ivy, that's for sure."Times change, of course... What a difference four years makes. The Spook Lights are bopping more fiercely than ever, and a lot of that comes from the original inspiration Curvacia and I drew from Ivy and Lux... not just as musicians, but as persistent outsiders, as archivists of seedy, throwaway culture. Knowing that two such people could share an interpersonal mythology and somehow focus it into an external force was a flashing green light to us. The Cramps were more than mere idols to us-- they were full blown DEITIES.This excerpt from their RE/SEARCH interview sums it up best for me:"IVY: We fight hard against being like robots. We think, "How did other people live? What are other ways of being?" We don't just look back to the 50's, we look to any period of history, back to the dawn of man. And we're interested in physics or ANYTHING that could answer our questions. We have vivid imaginations for the future... You have to be aware of LANGUAGE making you into a robot; language confines your thinking. There's different thoughts in different languages, and some of them are untranslatable-- so you can think more thoughts if you know more languages!LUX: The great thing about songs like SURFIN' BIRD is that they're beyond art-- beyond good or bad. And rock'n'roll is much bigger than just records; it's a way of life-- you don't even need MUSIC to have rock'n'roll! So criticizing it like you would criticize music seems to completely miss the point. Like judging folk music for being played really well, when it's actually someone singing about their lover being HANGED... the fingerpicking or technique have nothing to do with what's happening... Criticism of all art forms has gotten out of control: critics usually say "This stinks!" without saying WHY. It's the point where the critic is the star and the artists are the furniture. In any magazine you can see reviews of the latest albums with "A-minus" or "C-plus"... but music isn't about mathematics, it's about emotions. A lot of these records we've been playing: how could you give them a grade? There's something special going on-- that's all there is. And the criticism should be honest and heartfelt, too... A lot of "unsophisticated" people have something going for them (just like blind people can hear better than people who have sight). They've got an extra sense that comes from not thinking they know everything because they went to college. It's a sense of what's actually real. I don't have anything against critics who actually do research, but some of them know nothing about the history of music-- you can mention something so common that they MUST have heard of it-- but they haven't."I can't think of any two people who have had more of a direct influence on my way of life. I must have gotten an infection that night when his bare ass met my open palm. Thankfully I let the disease spread to my brain and never sprung for treatment. Lux Interior, you were my fucking hero, and I'll miss you forever.One amazing interview sandwiched between two of ther greatest songs:My favorite live clip that's floating around right now-- "Goo Goo Muck" in 1981:And, of course, the always classic "Bikini Girls" video:the cramps - bikini girls with machine guns
--Scary Manilow