bramble posted this.
This album cover saved my life.
I was in the 9th grade. I had a mullet. I wore an acid-washed jean jacket. My favorite things in life were: Rush’s “Moving Pictures,” Camel cigarettes and and girls with Chicana hairdos. Needless to say, I was a very confused young man.
The ghoul with a pompadour was painted on the back of a leather jacket. The jacket belonged to a guy who sat in front of me in Driver’s Ed class. He was an upper-classman and never spoke to anyone. He wore his pants pegged and a new concert T-shirt every day. Minor Threat. The Exploited. New Model Army. Some of the T-shirts he’d obviously printed himself. His obsession with these arcane bands fascinated me. I stared at the ghoul for weeks.
Then one day, I told a friend in another class that my new favorite band was The Cramps. He’d never heard them, nor had I. I was just trying out being somebody else. I liked the idea of being aware of music that was not in wide currency. It gave me a thrill that felt something like power.
When I eventually did get around to listening to them — I got my hands on a scratched up cassette tape with songs by U2, Team Urinals, 7 Seconds, The Cramps and Violent Femmes — I was disappointed. I didn’t understand why they sounded like surf music. The irony in their songs went way over my head. They were too upbeat, too much like party music. I wanted them to sound more like the Femmes: dark angsty and soulful.
It was many years after high school before I had acquired the requisite knowledge to understand what the Cramps were about, but it was their cover art, the wrapping, that drew me into a new world. This kind of thing probably happens to a lot of people.
RIP Lux, and thanks. blog comments powered by Disqus
