Rock & Roll isn't a genre, it's a primal force: It's the melding of the blues, country, and gospel that has the beat of the heart and the sway of the hips. It's also a rare and elusive beast, at least in its original of forms, and the last great champions of its were The Cramps, who spent 33 years sweating it out from every pour they could find. Never quite fitting into whatever was hip at the time they were listened to and loved by a lot of people who knew music, but never really got huge so you may know the name but never listed to them, which you should because....
They Are Rock & Roll!
I mean really rock and roll, as in 40s to 50s USA original. Not the sanitised version you remember from the Beatles or the Stones in the 60s, not the mutated form in the 70's that became Hard Rock to Heavy Metal, and not the 80's disco and dance infused revivals. We're talking thick, simple, and likely to cause pregnancy at 20 paces. Something like this:
When Lux Interior says "Rock & Roll" it's not a boast or a claim, it's a simple fact of life. It's the voodoo yell, the reason the instrumental "Rumble" got banned for inciting violence, it's Rebel Without a Cause with none of the family friendly elements. It's not anti-social, it just doesn't want to socialise on your terms, but it sure would like to get friendly with you...
They covered every topic teenagers care about, ever
Sex, death, sex, intoxication, high weirdness, sex, alienation, and sex. Nothing else, nothing more, nothing less. Tracks like "I was a teenage werewolf" should be given to every adolescent so they know that someone understands the pains they are going through, "It Thing Hard-On" should follow it up so they know how great things are going to get, whilst "Ultra Twist" needs to taught as a basic mating ritual with "What's Inside A Girl" for what to do once things get personal. Simple, universal, and eternal because no matter how old you get you can just listen to it and tap into the energies being given off. And the lyrics are a joy to behold, "Garbage Man" is a feast of metaphor, "Journey To The Center Of A Girl" is filth without a single offensive word or term, and "Bikini Girls With Machine Guns" is just joyfully daft whilst expressing Americana in its rawest forms.
They sound like noone else
Especially on the first couple of albums, because they had no bass player. But even when they got in a four stringer they just had too much locked into Poison Ivy's buzzsaw playing style and it gave everything so much bite and tenacity. Add in the groundwork of Nick Knok showing how much could be done with so little on the drums and you've got a tight and simple sound that uses no tricks and leaves space in the sounds so you can hear everything yet have it all group in as one. Others have tried, but they either went too dense or too sparse and it just falls apart.
They were dedicated to their cause
All they ever did was play their thing. Musically there was minimal progression in style or tone, other than getting better and better, and lyrically it was all just as above. But it isn't in a bad way, and it hasn't got a gimmick feel to it. It's just a real definite approach and a dedication to a cause, which means it just gets better and there isn't a 'bad' album amongst their catalogue, only 'better' and 'best'.
So, please, give it a listen and come back to me with what you think.
It'll be good for you, or maybe just bad for you in all the right ways.
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