The Cramps
Gravest Hits

Take the best way to say fuck off and then turn it into a tribal experience. Add a laugh and the game is done...

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The bottle of bourbon was nearly empty and I, Spisni, and maestro Urbani were quite far gone. We were listening to “Lonesome Town,” track five of “Gravest Hits”...

Well, “Lonesome Town” is a ballad, actually more than a ballad, it’s a transcendental experience. And this for at least two reasons: (one) it comes after total chaos, (two) it is the kind of piece that, by surpassing itself, somehow elevates to who knows where. Damn, we were speechless.

When the piece ended, we continued to say nothing for a while, then we replayed the record from the start, listening to it repeatedly...

At a certain point, there was a strange mutation of time and space, a void, a gap, a passage of energy. It was at that moment that a reddish-skinned guy appeared. Although he had neither horns nor a pitchfork, we recognized him immediately. He stayed with us only for a moment, enough time to give us the most beautiful smile we had ever seen.

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It’s not easy to be hypnotic and wild at the same time.

Like me, listening to these crazies, I go into a trance. Not a mystical trance, but rather psychoactive. A kind of body medicine, if you will.

It must be the voodoo of woodoobilly, it must be the undulating reverb of the guitars...

Yes, the guitars, that expansive and disjointed wall of sound with almost Morricone-like refrains. In those moments I am Poison Ivy, and I move like her, a slight sway on the same tile. That’s the trance...

Then when those same guitars (Poison and the other guy with the quiff) get into the racket and fuzz big time, or when the crazy rocker starts howling, that’s when the shocks come...

And then I let go of Poison and become him...

I become Lux Interior...

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Roasting insensitively next to the warmth of the fire, eyes fixed on the ground, the devil said: “finally.”

“Finally!!!”

Then, after rolling his street-cat eyes, he gulped down a glass of ambrosia upside down. He couldn’t believe it; for the first time, rock ‘n’ roll was keeping ALL its promises.

What he saw and heard was indeed quite eloquent.

The gangly (and haunted) werewolf in the center, the gentle and gloomy sway of the girl on the left, the ultimate grin of the other guitarist on the right. The impassive voodoo drummer behind.

In short, flame against flame, the stage returned the same warmth that was roasting it.

Then he couldn’t help but reminisce about all those years of hard work. He recalled the vivid eyes of the dark pioneers who sang like wolves or like children. He remembered the sepulchral tremor of Link Wray’s guitar and all those songs that ended up in collections with improbable names.

Only with these Cramps, we went beyond.

The chaos was like tenfold, and perhaps even more importantly, there was a strange laughter, if not something akin to the joy of living. And he had a keen eye for the joy of living...

After all, being monstrous is the best way to be happy.

Ah, he couldn’t wait to go to the club and throw his new discovery in the face of that brute Dionysus and those posers Orpheus and Apollo. Those three thought they were the only ones who knew ecstasy. Well, he would show them.

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“Gravest Hits” contains the first cries of the monstrous creature: an original track and four covers of 1950s rockabilly classics.

And thus syncopated swaying, catacombal blues strains, and everything we’ve already mentioned: fuzz, reverb, psychotic singing, voodoo tum tum.

The five tracks are all fabulous, but two reach some kind of limit. I’ve already hinted at the beginning...

“Surfin' Bird,” a fabulous cover of the Trashmen, as well as one of the best fuck offs in history, shot at full speed and dedicated to absolute chaos.

And “Lonesome Town,” virile voice, trembling soul, slide that penetrates under the skin. Something like Elvis in the land of shadows. Those bastards even knew how to do ballads...

And then, well, there’s “Human Fly,” the buzzing human fly...

“I got 96 tears and 96 eyes

I'm a human fly and I don't know why”...

I would say nothing else is needed...