Following “Psychedelic Jungle,” The Cramps got fed up with their label, IRS Records. After litigating to extricate themselves from those Copeland clutches, the practical upshot was an embargo on any new material for almost two years. When the band finally resurface in 1983, it was with a live EP on the Enigma label. The band’s lineup was the same since the last record but so much else had changed.

The Cramps – Live!! Smell Of Female | 1983 – 3.5

The Cramps maintained that this live EP was the fastest way they saw to issue new material following their lawsuit.  One certainly can’t fault their enthusiasm! This disc heralds a whole new era for the band, or should I say nude era? The tone of the original material shifted dramatically here from horror movie conceits to ribaldry and double entendre. “Thee Most Exalted Potentate Of Love” kicks off the program with an ardent paean to fornication, rendered in the best possible taste. Unlike the previous album, the band, live in their element, sound robust and…uh, potent here.  Kid Congo Powers has integrated into the band and he and Ivy occupy different stages for their guitars, making the conceit work this time.

The bluesy “You Got Good Taste” hits the sweet spot as Lux delivers lyrics that cheerfully skirt the edges of lewdness like:

“You Got good taste. You got good taste. You come here, sit on my…lap, you know I know where its at…Ooooooh,  and that’s good taste!”

Side one, uh…climaxes with the talking blues number “The Call Of The Wighat,” which examines the influence of Cle horror host Ghoulardi on Lux’s development and the origins of the band. The sound is miles from the hazy rockabilly of their early records as the tempos have risen to the velocity that a former speed dealer like Lux should be accustomed to. The band’s grasp of transcendently loopy absurdity shows they have nothing to prove as they are now making their own myth, literally, into music.

Side two has two cover songs, both from the garage punk side  of the tracks. They render the theme song to Russ Meyer’s “Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!” in a arrangement that doesn’t stray far from the Bostweed’s original. The delicate glockenspiel solo on the bridge, may be an addition. I’ve not heard the original in about 15 years to check. The other cover is a run through The Count Five’s venerable “Psychotic Reaction.” In between the last new original tune, “I Ain’t Nuthin’ But A Gorehound,” is sandwiched. The band take one last look back at H.G. Lewis before plunging deep into Russ Meyer territory. This record corrected many blind alleys that the group had traveled into on the last album as well as mapped out a gleefully degenerate path of carnal zeal that showed that they remembered the real meaning of “rock and roll.”

The Cramps – Bad Music For Bad People | 1984 – 3

This compilation was IRS Records kiss off to the band, and it compiles all of the group’s non-LP B-sides from their singles on the label along with a handful of mandatory “greatest hits.” Fans who didn’t get their mitts on the group’s UK 7″ and 12″ singles, could now luxuriate in a wealth of “new” material heavily skewed towards the rockabilly end of The Cramps spectrum.  The sole nod to JD-friendly garage punk though, is the absolutely essential “A New Kind Of Kick,” from the 12″ of “The Crusher.” When Lux begins the cut by authoritatively intoning “life is short, filled with stuff” he didn’t know how right he was! Ivy’s fuzztone guitar riffs sting like acid as Lux mapped out a path of sybaritic chemical excess.

For the most part, the “new” cuts are rockabilly covers ranging from the relatively sane Charlie Feathers [“I Can’t Hardly Stand It”] to the far reaching outsider fringe of rockabilly where artists like The Phantom [“Love Me”] and Hasil Adkins [“She Said”] dwell. The performance and engineering on these cuts is as low-fi as The Cramps will ever get going forward. Hearing the doppler shift of Lux’s voice on “Love Me” as he obviously careened throughout the vocal studio as he was singing the song is a delight that not too many other singers would think to share with their fans. For good measure, “Human Fly,” “TV Set,” “Garbageman,” and the single mix of “Goo Goo Muck” make appearances since no home should be without them. If you could have only a single Cramps album, this covers admirable bases.

The Cramps – A Date With Elvis | 1986 – 4

If “Live!! Smell Of Female” seemed like an explosion of lecherous excess then “A Date With Elvis” went completely over the edge into purple realms of priapic immoderation. Seven of the eleven songs here writhe wantonly with salacious abandon. “How Far Can Too Far Go” opens the record with the ideal philosophical question that such an album can logically pose. Ivy’s fuzztone tremolo riffs open the album but the guitar tone stays on the clean side of town even as the mind of Lux wallows in the gutter. The band by now have fully mastered the studio and they’ve never sounded better. Drumming sounds crisp and punchy, the guitars are rich and clean with Ivy sounding closer to Carl Perkins than Link Wray. For the first time ever, there is a bass guitar on the record [also played by Ivy, who adopted Tura Satana-like drag on the back cover photo to give the band a simulated four-piece look], and that really frees them up to aim for a bigger sound with more impact.

The tone of the music on this album veers shockingly close to the country side of the rockabilly tracks. This has the net effect of making the bawdy lyrics all the more glaring in their relief. Lux has never sounded more at home than he does on this program of songs. On the occasions where the lyrics stray from the topic of amour, he moves into new territory as on the hilariously anti-social “People Ain’t No Good.” That song breaks shocking new ground by having a chorus of children [The McMartin Preschool Choir, no less] singing the phrase while Lux outlines the many reasons why that title rings true.

That’s not the only vocal surprise here, either. For the first time ever Ivy joins Lux at the mic for the dreamily psychedelic, yet heart-tugging duet, “Kizmiaz.” The end result sounds for all the world like the group’s insanely successful attempt at a Lee Hazelwood/Nancy Sinatra sound for an audience of like-minded degenerates!

The lion’s share of this album remains a swan dive into torrid realms of southern fried sexuality and the eternal mystery of women. The titles say it all: “Hot Pearl Snatch,” “Can Your Pussy Do The Dog?,” “What’s Inside A Girl?,” “Corn Fed Dames,” “[Hot Pool Of] Womanneed].” The liner notes reveal that “Corn Fed Dames” was “based on the novel by Dave Stuckey.” For decades, I assumed that the amazing song had been “adapted” by the band from some lurid corn pone porn paperback the band had found in their ceaseless search for kicks. As I was researching for this post, I decided to find out about this “Dave Stuckey” and apart from being in the band Untamed Youth, it seems that he was a pal of Lux who had sent him a comic strip he had made with that title. Lux extrapolated the title into the sprawling epic of barnyard lust that makes it, for me, the centerpiece of a classic album. Just don’t listen too hard to the sounds of sheep bleating on the fadeout!

Two cover tunes are appended to the flow and the traditional “Chicken” makes a fantastic coda to follow on “Cornfed Dames” and the band finally gets to steep in the great tradition of rock and roll “chicken songs” like their heroes Link Wray and Hasil Adkins had done previously. The capper to the album is the country weeper “It’s Just That Song” which is played relatively straight. For an album that skirts the edge of country music throughout its running time, finally ending on a traditional country note makes a kind of sense. Though the group was reduced to a trio on this album, they had never sounded bigger. The Cramps machine was firing on all cylinders, and apart from the tragedy that this new album did not have a domestic release, it seemed as if the band had been dramatically re-energized following their lawsuit to leave IRS Records.

Next: the Candy DelMar years…