Overlooked Albums #18: The Cramps - Stay Sick!

The Cramps' core members were the husband and wife team of singer Lux Interior (Erick Purkhiser) and guitarist Poison Ivy Rorschach (Kristy Wallace): art-school bohemians who met in Sacramento, California. After a stint in Ohio, they found kindred souls in the nascent New York CBGB’s punk scene. Their blend of rockabilly and punk thrash set them apart, and their wild shows gained them rabid followers. On one side you had Interior dressed in a gender-bending costume, commanding the stage like a shrewd carny, his singing peppered with howls, growls, and pants. On the other you had Poison Ivy looking like a Burlesque queen, shaking a blaze of red curls over her vintage Gretsch guitar. Self-taught, she had developed her unique picking style listening to Fifties greats like Link Wray and Cliff Gallup.  

 

Stay Sick! was the group’s fourth studio album and their first with a bass player. 1986's A Date With Elvis, their previous album, marked a turning point when Poison Ivy added bass to the patterned Cramps sound. Bass duties for Stay Sick! were handled by Candy Del Mar, and the guitar and bass interaction with Poison Ivy is one of the album’s joys. 

 

Like previous Cramps records, Stay Sick! is a celebration of trash culture. The band’s aesthetic finds nourishment in sci-fi and horror movies, low-brow art, thrift-store junk, and girlie mags, summed up in this line: “G-strings ‘n’ gin ‘n’ nylon hose/ Chicken pot pie… everything goes!” All nine originals here are about cheap thrills and lurid sex, and The Cramps were masters of the tongue in cheek. In a song like God Damn Rock ‘N’ Roll, no redemption is sought in the music, which “don’t save souls and I’m just horny enough to throw a flying screw thru' some halo”. This suggestive edge is played to maximum effect in songs like Daisys Up Your Butterfly, Saddle Up A Buzz Buzz, and Bikini Girls With Machine Gun, the latter becoming the group’s highest charting hit in the UK.

 

One could always depend on the group to give a new spin to non-originals. Bop Pills and old chestnut, Shortnin’ Bread, get the red-lightning treatment, and Muleskinner Blues will make you laugh. 

 

The most valuable player here is Poison Ivy, whose crisp production makes this one of the best sounding Cramps records. An under-rated guitarist, her showcase here is Journey To The Center Of A Girl, where she lays down a dizzying combination of reverb, tremolo, and feedback. By the way, that’s her in fishnets on the album’s cover, the liner notes identifying her as “Ukhan Kizmiaz”.

 

Stay Sick! is loaded with fun, a great party record for people who like hard and fast rock ‘n’ roll. Sadly, Lux Interior is no longer with us, but his memory will linger on for old and new fans in albums like this. Considering the great legacy of music he left behind, The Cramps will pass into legend.