Brian Horrorwitz (left) and rock-n-roll record guru Gary Mitchell (right) spinning it raw and wild!
As was threatened, here is the complete 1 hour webcast from a few days ago, April 15th, 2009, of "Sing Along With Mitch"! (see previous blog entry) Yes, it was only appropriate that coming upon Zero Hour of the tax deadline was the time this 60 minutes of aural decadence was foisted upon the unsuspecting audience. Why? Because, if you listen to this entire thing, you WILL pay for it, baby! Muaaaah-ha-haaaa! Well, Gary said I could supply the oldies records and play whatever I wanted to and he weren't lyin'! We filled up the 1 hour with some choice 50s and 60s RAWk-n-roll and some wiiiild r&b! Gary grilled me on my shady past, Russ Meyer and The Cramps. The 1 hour just seemed to fly by way too fast. Maybe they'll have me back again some day! (hint-hint!) The show was a real blast for me personally and Gary was the host with the most! Thanx Gary!! And a big thanx also to studio tech wizard Lee Michael Demsey, an excellent dj in his own rite, who did a top notch job! Also wanna send a super-squeezy extra-trashy hug to everyone who listened and chimed in with their 2 cents worth on the live chatroom thingy! Was it my imagination or did the music seem to heat things up a bit in there? By the end it seemed like all hell was breaking loose! Topshelfoldies.com, YOU ROCK!
Horrorwitz stands in awe at the dazzling handiwork of wax flipper extraordinaire Lee Michael Demsey!
You can listen to the entire show here (Don't forget to pause the jukebox at the bottom of this page first if there is music already playing.):
If you prefer to play the show from your Media Player click here.
Or you can download the program by right clicking here and saving the file to your hard drive.
This Wednesday night, April 15th, from 9pm to 10pm (East Coast time) I will be a guest on the online oldies music program "Spin Along With Mitch"! Hosted by obscure oldies wizard Gary Mitchell, "Spin..." is one of many amazing rock-n-roll music show broadcasts heard every night on the web station Top Shelf Oldies, a great place to hear some obscure rock, doowop, r&b, etc.. Gary had asked me to be a guest for 1 hour and said I could provide all the music! Nyaaa ha-haaa! I've dug deep into the Trash Palace 45 and LP archives to bring you a smattering of wicked wax that'll knock you on your keester, baby! So if you're into wild rock-n-roll and r&b please check it out. After the show is broadcast (or whatever they call these online things... "webcast"?) I will be posting the entire program here on this blog for your listening seizure. Er... pleasure! In addition to the rare rockin' records we'll be throwin' at ya Gary will also be throwing a few questions at me about bands I've played in and who knows what the hell else. One music set will be a tribute to Lux and the Cramps, plus a few surprises! And who the hell doesn't like surprises, eh? And, if you are so inclined, you can also take part in the live chat room that's happenin' during the show to voice compliments / complaints / death threats / marriage proposals / etc. Check out their website at http://www.topshelfoldies.com/ , click on one of the "Listen Here" links using your choice of program and the streamin' steamin' sounds of "Spin Along With Mitch" (and Horrorwitz) will fill the room! Or, check back at this spot at a later date and listen to the show after the webcast. Either way it'll rock your day!
My close friend Dr. Penis has recently posted a blog about the 1996 "3 Films By Jess Franco" CD release, it's original 1969 source LPs and the subsequent re-releases under the "VampyrosLesbos" title. Unfortunately the complete version of the CD featuring all of the music has been out of circulation for many years now. But if you check out the article over at his Purple Zombie DJ blog you can download it there for free! This psyche-pop music composed and released on 2 LPs in Germany circa 1969 by Manfred Hübler and Siegfried Schwab was a surprise indie hit when re-released on LP and CD in 1996 and pretty much then jump-started the entire Euro-trash soundtrack / pop / lounge music craze! I myself remember being given a cassette of this back then by my buddy Joe Johnson (creator of the ahead-of-it's-time way-cool fanzine "3:AM"). At first listen I didn't really know how to take it. It had rock elements but wasn't really rock. There was a psychedelic / experimental side to it but then it had a pop sound as well. After 2 or 3 listenings I was hooked! It became one of my fave soundtracks ever and I never get tired of listening to it. I remember tracking down fuzzy looking VHS bootlegs of the 3 Jess Franco German movies that the music was used for ("She Killed in Ecstasy", "VampyrosLesbos" and "The Devil Came From Akasava"). None of these movies were subtitled and despite my lack of understanding most of the German dialogue I probably watched those tapes 10 times each! A big part of the appeal was finally seeing / hearing how the music was used in each film. Franco was always pretty progressive when it came to sometimes mixing in modern music with his movie scores. Somehow using these prog-ish and at the time modern sounds worked for those movies and set a whole new flavor to the way Euro-exploitation movies sounded. Franco had already used music by Manfred Mann in his "Venus In Furs" (aka "Paroxismus", 1970) and would go on to direct "Killer Barbys" (1996), a gothic horror flick featuring music by and starring the titular Spanish garage punkers of the same name, as well as "Tender Flesh" (1997) which featured music by the heavily under rated Spanish rock band Sexy Sadie. Not to mention "Vampire Blues" which was scored by my band The Ubangis. "Vampire Blues", like "VampyrosLesbos", was another lesbian re-telling of the Dracula story. Only Jess Franco could have come up with the idea of telling these kinds of stories using rock music as a sonic backdrop!
If you have any interest in movie soundtracks, psychedelia, strange pop music, Jess Franco or Euro-trash films then the original complete "3 Films by Jess Franco" CD is required listening folks! GO GET IT NOW while you can!
This past month I have been trying to sort things out, trying to find the words to say, trying to figure it out. Lux's sudden death threw me into a saddened daze that I haven't quite completely recovered from yet. I had just been emailing with Lux and having him gone all of the sudden was hard to grasp. I talked to friends and surfed the web looking for answers, seeing what other people had to say. And I ended up on the official Cramps website where a statement is posted about Lux's passing along with a link to Lux's favorite charity the Best Friends Animal Society. And, in the middle of the page, a link to a guestbook, "Lux's Guestbook" as it's called, where already over 4,600 people have left their messages of praise and condolence. So many people have written so many incredible, beautiful things on there. And while reading some of these I noticed something; besides the fan adulation that many of us have for The Cramps, I couldn't help but also notice the large number of people that had expressed how influential the band was in pointing them towards other older bands and artists, in changing their very lives. Here is a quote from a guy in Germany: "Back in '87...the Cramps, the Goo Goo Muck and the Human Fly unexpectedly blasted my mind and changed my view on music itself." A man in the USA wrote "You changed my life and made me realize it was okay to be different and follow your heart." And so you get the idea. And as I was reading through "Lux's Guestbook" I realized that of all the bands in contemporary music history, the Cramps are probably the single most influential group I know of when it comes to turning people on to other's music! And I believe, in looking back to my younger years, that I am one of those people that got infected by Lux & Ivy's rock-n-roll disease as well. Allow me to 'splain...
PAINTING BY GAYTHAWATLEY
I myself first heard the Cramps in 1978 whilst turning the radio dial passing through different stations at random and happen to accidentally stumble upon the song "Human Fly" on station WGTB. I didn't know quite what to make of it! I was already fairly familiar with Elvis and some other classic "oldies" artists that you'd usually hear on the radio and I could hear a kind of influence. But this... this was a new kind of beast altogether! It sounded old AND new. I mean, it had an Elvis-ish feel to it but a kind of twisted subverted freaked-out messed-up Elvis-gone-off-his-meds version of Elvis' music. Jerry Lee Lewis played at the wrong speed whilst going off his nut... something very new to my ears and yet with that sense of "oldies" familiarity as well. Then in 1980 my buddy Mike loaned me his "Songs the Lord Taught Us" LP and, for me, that was all she wrote. And as I started buying Cramps records little did I initially realize I was also listening to songs written by The Sonics, Hasil Adkins, Ronnie Dawson, Roy Orbison, The Trashmen and on and on. Listening to a Cramps album was like experiencing a kind of subliminal history lesson of cool fucked-up music even though you didn't realize it at the time. For many of us this was the first time we'd hear songs by these artists. I mean it wasn't like there were many other (if any other) bands running around performing obscure covers of tunes like "Primitive" by The Groupies, songs often only ever released on records that were way obscure and out-of-print. It wasn't like you'd hear a song such as "Strychnine" by The Sonics on any of the FM stations in between whatever bullshit top 40 crap they were spinning at the time. The Cramps, by forming their group out of their love for obscure, raw rock-n-roll music, inadvertently ended up exposing thousands of fans world wide to songs, artists, styles, groups and even movies that were Lux and Ivy's original inspiration for wanting to perform in the first place. I'll bet quite a few people had never seen "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" when The Cramps first performed and recorded the theme song live but by now probably many that heard it first from them have seen the flick. Would we know "Goo Goo Muck" by Ronnie Cook & Gaylads, "Love Me" by The Phantom or "She Said" by Hasil Adkins if it weren't for them? (Adkins who, ironically, would have his career resurrected via ex-Cramps drummer Miriam Linna's record label Norton, co-owned and managed with her husband Billy Miller, both founders of the amazing band The A-Bones.) Quite probably we would not know those slabs of wax were not it for The Cramps covers. And who can say how many people went and formed new bands after being exposed to The Cramps' music? Yes, the Cramps tied it all together... the obscure rockabilly, the rare garage, the blues, the b-movie themes... the trashy horror, the sexual innuendos... tied it all together in one big garbage bag, swallowed it whole, and barfed it back in our faces! I don't know if they were consciously trying to hip people to this stuff necessarily, but hipped they did and, as far as I can tell, they have done so more than any other band ever. Besides creating their own new sound and lyric style, besides releasing classic records and the many wild live shows they've performed, the Cramps have also given us their "disease"; they've passed along their love for the raw, early rock-n-roll sounds that, like The Cramps own music, continue to inspire today. Their love for the raw, the primitive,... that shit's the real deal motherfuckers! "Human Fly" and all the other great Cramps records ever since sound as fresh to me as the first day I heard them. To me their music will never get old and those sounds will keep Lux, Ivy and all of the other Cramps alive forever!
In closing I wanna say a few final things without getting too mushy. I am as big a Cramps fan as anybody. We all know Lux the wildman as we've seen onstage. The stripping, slithering, stage-humping amp climber,... the groaning, gurgling mic fellator... But I want to tell you about another side. Folks, this is not just some bullshit "we love you because you're dead" spiel. I've known Lux & Ivy for many years, but never really knew him well until these past several. I am not trying to name drop nor am I trying to sweeten things up as far as what I feel about him because he has passed away. I am telling you, straight up, Lux was a very sweet, smart, encouraging, caring and humble person with a truly savage wit. The fact that his favorite charity is what it is (Best Friends Animal Society) should give you a clue about the kind of person he was. Without getting overly sentimental I will leave it at that. Beyond the wildness of The Cramps which was also a very real side of Lux, he was too, as I knew him these final years, just a really decent guy who left us way too fucking soon. Lux was a one of a kind. I'll miss you buddy.
R.I.P. LUX INTERIOR! KEEP ON ROCKING IVY! LONG LIVE THE CRAMPS!
Thanx to Jenny Dayton and GaythaWatley for allowing me to post their artwork.
Roll on, rock on, yeah now bop, yeah rock on Well, there's still a lot of rhythm in these rockin' bones
I wanna leave a happy memory when I go I wanna leave something to let the whole world know That the rock 'n' roll daddy has done past on But his bones keep rockin' long after I'm gone
Roll on, rock on, yeah now bop, yeah rock on Well, there's still a lot of rhythm in these rockin' bones
Well when I die, buried six foot deep With a rock 'n' roll record at my feet A phonograph needle in my hand I'm gonna rock my way right out of this land
Roll on, rock on, yeah now bop, yeah rock on Well, there's still a lot of rhythm in these rockin' bones
Well, when I die don't bury me at all Just a-hang my bones up on the wall Beneath these bones let these words be seen: "The running gears of a boppin' machine"
Roll on, rock on, yeah now bop, yeah rock on Well, there's still a lot of rhythm in these rockin' bones Still a lot of rhythm in these rockin' bones Still a lot of rhythm in these rockin' bones Still a lot of rhythm in these rockin' bones
~Ronnie Dawson, 1959
I couldn't have said it better than Ronnie Dawson has. But from me more needs to be said. And much more WILL be said soon enuff! But in the meantime I'll say this: The sudden death of Lux Interior has his friends and fans in shock. I am still in a stunned disbelief (writing this on little sleep so pardon the grammer). Truth be told, I haven't felt this sad in years. This is a tough one, folks. But Lux and The Cramps, despite their groundbreakingly ghoulish tunes and horror-filled lyrics, were really all about life; Livin' it up and tearin' it up! I knew Lux and I can tell you he wouldn't want people sitting around crying over him like many of us have been doing all this week. Nope, he'd want you rockin'-out in his memory! So if you are feeling as depressed and numb as I have been, fear not! A little feelgood medicine has just arrived: My mysterious friend Dr. Penis aka The Purple Zombie DJ has posted the entire "Purple Knif Radio Show" presented by Lux Interior (aka The Purple Knif) circa July of 1984. So turn that frown upside-down, my chillun! Check out the link below for Dr. P's blog, download the show and dig it!
Speaking of the sad passing of Ray Dennis Steckler, did you know that besides directing all those incredibly strange movies he also made a promotional music film for Todd Rundgren's band The Nazz? Around 1968, Steckler made what can be considered an early predecessor to the music video for the song "Open My Eyes". The short film, re-broadcast on MTV's "Closet Classics" show in the late 1980s, has the same kind of manic exuberance, fast editing and overall wackyness as the music scenes in "Rat Pfink a Boo Boo" and "Wild Guitar". Check it out!:
Brian Horrorwitz (left) and rock-n-roll record guru Gary Mitchell (right) spinning it raw and wild! 
Horrorwitz stands in awe at the dazzling handiwork of wax flipper extraordinaire Lee Michael Demsey! 
