Produced alongside The Box Tops and Big Star’s singer Alex Chilton, Off The Bone is a 1983 compilation of songs by The Cramps. Well, okay, it’s mostly cover versions, but the band make them very much their own. From a pounding take on Sam Phillips’ Domino, to the cartoonish libido running feral on Charlie Feathers ‘ I Can’t Hardly Stand It, it’s a graveyard shift for groovy ghouls drunk on blood, absinthe and the power of drag racing. They called it “psychobilly” but we Goths dig it, too.
Some of the biggest Cramps 7″ hip shakers are, happily, present and correct here, too. Human Fly, Drug Train, Garbage Man, and New Kind Of Kick drip with the comic book sleaze, humour and violence that was to become their blueprint. This is the classic line-up: Ivy, Lux, Bryan Gregory, Kid Congo Powers and Nick Knox.
Filthy types, this lot, like the bastard offspring of Bettie Page and Frankenstein’s monster, born under a rock and raised by wolves. I can hear Little Richard, The Shangri-Las, Screaming Jay Hawkins and Bernard Herrmann, all now taking up residence between the Black Lagoon and abandoned asylum of The Addams Family. From time to time,they ‘re out when the moon is full and they’re too thin, on the scavenge for food, and kicks.
I first got into it when I was fourteen, which is exactly the right time, methinks. I was corrupted by the coolest cars in fur and fetish gear. They endure, because they’re timeless, and totally bad-ass. “Buzz buzz buzzzzzzzzzzz”….
Hit The North 
Have you heard about Alex Chilton’s obsession with The Cramps? Kind of cool and makes sense. I wish I had come to them at 14; I think I was just intimidated by the punks who wore their gear and T-shirts at school…then years later was surprised by how tame the music sounded compared to what I imagined, and after I’d consumed much “harder” music. What an aesthetic though, and you’ve captured it perfectly here.
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On , but they’re so camp! And I think they always leaned towards camp in everything they did. Thanks for reading, Bill 🙎
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