I know everyone in rock and roll seems to be dying these days and it can only be expected when folk get to a certain age and are prone to certain...habits. But it was a surprise to hear of the sad passing of one Lux Interior.

It was kind of a shock to hear that the guy was aged between 60 and 62 years - for some reason Lux always seemed utterly timeless and was probably a frontman second only to Iggy Pop. He may have been born Erick Lee Purkhiser but he'll always be Lux Interior to me...

For anyone who didn't have the pleasure, Lux, with his wife Poison Ivy and a vast array of supporting characters, were The Cramps - a band who seem hugely significant now...as well as being the epitome of rock & fucking roll !!! The Cramps output between initial e.p. Gravest Hits and 1986's A Date with Elvis appear to be their peak, with much debate over their subsequent output and where it became a case of those diminishing returns. I'm not sure there's really a bad Cramps' album, just some that are less great than others...there will be no more.

Having been spewed out at CBGB's, The Cramps journeyed south to the legendary Ardent studios to record their debut with Big Star's Alex Chilton as producer. The result was Songs the Lord Taught Us, still one of the greatest debut albums released to date and an instant classic I'd file alongside Psychocandy and The Stooges.

If making comparisons, perhaps The Cramps were the Quentin Tarantino of their age...perhaps this may be taken as an insult, but it's not as reductive as it sounds. While The Cramps recorded many a classic original penned by Rorschach/Interior, they also offered a batch of superb cover versions - their debut as the preceding singles balanced their own classics ('Drug Train', 'Garbageman', 'Human Fly', 'I Was a Teenage Werewolf') with mind blowing interpretations such as The Trashmen's 'Surfin' Bird', The Sonics' 'Strychnine,' and even 'Green Door' - a song known to most people in the UK as a ditty by satanic Welsh Elvis impersonator Shakin' Stevens. Quality-wise it's hard to notice the difference between cover and original in that peak era - which can only be a great thing. Lux & Ivy were connoisseurs of the fantastic and dug deep from the well of trash culture, like Tarantino they had an encyclopaedic knowledge of b-movies and obscure singles.

By reviving these songs after punk rock they were actually referencing and rediscovering this material and predicting the affection for pre-Beatles rock and roll, rockabilly, surf, psych and garage rock celebrated in endless Nuggets reissues and the Box of Trash. There were even compilations entitled Songs the Cramps Taught Us which collected the originals of many songs covered by them - this seems more important to mention than their association with the psychobilly genre, pointing out that 'gothic' is not a dirty word, and denouncing the notion The Cramps were comic (and therefore to be dismissed).

Their legendary guitarist Bryan Gregory left after the debut, though Lux and Ivy with long-time drummer Nick Knox got even better with the arrival of Kid Congo Powers, who had co-written 'For the Love of Ivy' with Jeffrey Lee Pierce for The Gun Club's debut Fire of Love, a record that like The Cramps' few albums seemed different to everything else going on at the time. Where Pierce tapped into a punk version of the blues, Lux & Ivy tapped into that primal rock and roll...making them always as exciting as a burning Marlboro and burning rubber...as the first wave of teenagers and the first wave of monster movies...as comics and pulp fiction...as Betty Page and Ed Wood...The reference points were too wild, despite the presence of the B-52's - though I guess The Birthday Party and The Fall circa-Slates hit on similar reference points.

Their second album Psychedelic Jungle is the masterpiece that followed the perfect debut and is notable for the brilliant sleeve photography by Anton Corbijn where the band appears on the back as ghosts. The original songs were mind blowing - 'Beautiful Gardens', 'Don't Eat Stuff Off the Sidewalk' , and 'Can't Find My Mind' - as were perfect covers of The Greenfuz's 'Greenfuz', Ronnie Cook's 'Goo Goo Muck', and The Groupies' 'Primitive'. Bizarrely, The Cramps found themselves on Miles Copeland's I.R.S. Records alongside The Go Go's and REM and less celebrated acts like The Fleshtones and Wall of Voodoo. Their great early singles and related material like 'New Kind of Kick' (a classic thrown away on the b-side of 'The Crusher') and 'Drug Train' were milked for several I.R.S. compilations, most notably the very fine ...Off the Bone.

The peak was probably their last release with Congo-Powers before he regrouped with The Gun Club & the Bad Seeds, the Smell of Female EP (expanded to LP in 1990). Recorded at the Peppermint Lounge, the twin-guitar assault of Ivy & Kid Congo with the amphetamine minimalism of Knox topped off by a whole lotta Lux is surely one of the great live albums. One that ranks alongside Kick Out the Jams and Metallic K.O in fact. from storming opener 'Most Exalted Potentate of Love' to 'Surfin' Dead.' Their original 'I Ain't Nothin' But a Gorehound' remains a wonder and their cover of The Count Five's 'Psychotic Reaction' reminds us of their garage rock credentials before such thangs became hip. A few years passed on and A Date with Elvis was released, dedicated to Ricky Nelson it was a set of mostly original material that featured several Cramps' classics including 'Can Your Pussy Do the Dog?', 'The Hot Pearl Snatch', and 'What's Inside a Girl' - the latter featuring the timeless line, “The President's Callin' an emergency meetin'/ The King of Siam sent a telegram sayin': “Wop bop a loop bop boom bam!!”

I guess later records by The Cramps couldn't be accused of breaking new ground, though it's very hard not to find something great that the closest thing to a hit in the UK was a single titled 'Bikini Girls with Machine Guns.' Heck, they even headlined the Reading Festival in 1990! It could also be argued that Flamejob, released on a pre-Oasis Creation, was a fine album and as they sounded like the band they always were and had an image deemed comic, the record was kind of forgotten. A shame as any record with a song as great as 'Sado County Auto Show' should not be dismissed, while their version of 'Route 66' was as fine as any of their early cover versions.

A few more albums followed, as well as a DVD release of their infamous performance at the Napa State Mental Hospital in 1978 and a rarities compilation How to Make a Monster. I had been hoping that The Cramps would have found their way back to these shores in some ATP-related action and feel they would have found an audience the same way The Stooges did upon their return. Sadly this will never happen now...

Despite becoming a bit lost in the 1990's, the influence of The Cramps would remain huge with bands like Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, The Make Up, and Royal Trux advancing on their territory. More recently, the primal blues/garage rock collision of The Cramps has been evident in bands like The Black Keys, Heavy Trash, The Horrors, and The White Stripes. Bobby Gillespie and Jason Pierce both cited the influence of The Cramps and The Gun Club, both members of Spacemen 3 often referencing Psychedelic Jungle as the model for their early sound. Meanwhile, the Jesus and Mary Chain covered 'New Kind of Kick' on their Rollercoaster tour, while Echo & the Bunnymen used to insert 'Garbageman' into their epic 'Do It Clean'-medley. Heck, even Morrissey was a fan...

And so passes Lux Interior who nailed the whole business of existence as good as anyone: “life is short and filled with stuff.” RIP.