One thing I hate is when you see some internet headline that screams; “Check out this (insert person, place or thing) YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF BEFORE!” Because of course when you invariably click to read the article it becomes clear the person place or thing you’re never supposed to have heard of or seen before is something you’ve known about, heard about or visited already.
But…in this case…
First thing’s first; you’ve NEVER heard what’s in these
grooves. You don’t have a bootleg LP of it; your cool uncle doesn’t have it on
a tape in the back of his closet somewhere; you’ve never heard it at a hip DJ’s
birthday party in Bushwick that one time; you didn’t download it from some blog
in the late 90’s: This is the real deal Jack and Jill’s. It’s an honest to
badness album full of songs you’ve never heard by The Cramps! Well, to be more
specific, mixed and mastered recordings you’ve never heard before, and a few
never recorded in a studio and released with this line up. Got it? Get with it! “Ancient Knowledge!
Believed Lost To The World!! Can (really) now be YOURS!”
I forget where I first heard about Gravest Gravy originally,
but Lux and Ivy talked about it at some point in some interview or other. It
was a full album’s worth of songs recorded back when they were at Ardent Studio
with Alex Chilton recording what would become their first singles. I remember
at the time thinking; “Yes! This is what we’ve all been dreaming about for
years!” It seemed for decades all sorts of awful bands were releasing box sets
of rarities with outtakes and live material. Why couldn’t The Cramps do
something similar? The fan base was ready, drooling and waiting for something
like this!
Gravest Gravy became this legendary phrase whispered by die
hard Cramps fans for decades. Did it even exist? What exactly was it? Was it
going to be an album, a video box set? Rumors about it were all over the
internet. To geek, perchance to dream…
In 2004 The Cramps released the double CD set called HOW TO
MAKE A MONSTER and we finally had an official release with demos and rare live
tracks. Maybe the flood gates were open and we’d get more treasures and
rarities? But it was not meant to be. Fans
got one more (great) album; Fiends of Dope Island and that was it.
Until now.
Gravest Gravy has been birthed from the bubbling green slime
of the cauldron of cool! It has gestated long enough in the muck and the goo of
rock n’ roll history and now it’s here for all of us to freak out over. And
freak out you will, I guarantee it. Contained within these grooves are the
wildest of psychotic teen sounds.
What you get in this beautiful package are 12 songs recorded
by the band in 1977 with Alex Chilton behind the board, when the band was at
their hungriest. Before the record deals, and the world tours. It’s all here;
their twisted and inspired take on what they thought “modern” rockabilly should
sound like.
Hearing the songs that comprise the album in various forms
on its way to being pressed to vinyl is pretty hard to describe. Here were
tracks that I’ve been dreaming about hearing for the longest time. First there
were the raw files, un-mastered, in their “pure” state. Incredible sounding because who ever thought
these songs would see the light of day? Next came the mastered files a while
later. As good as the original files sounded, the mastered versions were night
and day. The final step in the journey was the arrival of a test pressing. Like the lyrics on Gravest Gravy’s version of
The Natives are Restless; my “body started quivering, my knees began to shake”
as I put the record on the turntable for the first time. It goes without saying
that the record blows my already high expectations away. The fact that Gravest
Gravy even exists, and is due out soon, is completely surreal.
I began writing this review months ago, after the official
announcement. I knew I wanted to get my thoughts on paper and eventually post
the review on my blog. Between writing this review and its publication today,
all the naysayers and shit-talkers came out of the wood work (on, where else,
the internet). No matter what you said there was no dissuading them from
believing that they’ve heard it all before.
Taking that as a challenge I did a deep dive into a few
bootlegs that said they were recorded at Ardent Studios in 1977. Out of the
handful of songs that are on these bootlegs AND Gravest Gravy, I can say with
100 percent certainty that almost all the songs on Gravest Gravy have never
been released in any form. The bulk of the songs on Gravest Gravy aren’t even
ON those bootlegs.
That leaves the lead off track, which, no doubt, you have
all heard by now. It does look like the version of TV Set that leads off
Gravest Gravy may have appeared before in a few places. Mostly notably, the
French pressing of Songs the Lord Taught Us. But I’ll tell you this; the mix on
Gravest Gravy is amazing. The boots that are out there have tape hiss that
sound like you’re standing next to Niagara Falls. All the songs on Gravest
Gravy sound incredible. It’s all there, Ivy’s strong steady leads, Bryan’s screeching guitar solos and the great metronome
drum beats of Nick; And of course Lux is in fine form, you even get an instant
or two where you can hear him screaming off mic (a great moment that I won’t
ruin for you, but it’s near the end of side 1).
Speaking of the album’s sides, Gravest Gravy is a double A
side album if I’ve ever heard one. When that last song on side two ends, I
guarantee you will want to flip it over and keep playing it; Again and again,
over and over. This is the sign of a great record; a record that many die hard
Cramps fans have been waiting for and that we never thought we’d ever see!
I’ll let you discover more about the actual recordings in
Henry Rollins’ liner notes that accompany the record, but let’s get to the
actual record itself.
Remember that first time you heard The Cramps? I bet you do.
I think most long term diehard fans remember that first time they heard the
band that would forever change their lives and the way they listened to music.
Now you can almost recreate that feeling with Gravest Gravy. When you hear the
opening drum beats of TV Set you will be instantly transported back to that
first time. If Gravest Gravy is your first time hearing The Cramps, enjoy and
be prepared to start living “differently.”
There’s a whole world to discover.
Before your brain can comprehend what you’re actually
hearing the 2nd song slams in: finally, a studio version of Weekend on Mars!
Previously available only as a live recording on some versions of Smell of
Female, Mars is a MONSTER of a song. For some reason Weekend on Mars morphed
into a song The Cramps called The Lowdown (where Lux channeled Pete “Mad Daddy”
Myers and changed the lyrics and did off the cuff rhymes on the live versions
I’ve heard). I’m super happy to finally have a studio version of the song with
Bryan on guitar. The guitar interplay between Ivy and Bryan is EVERYTHING on
this track.
I’m not going to walk you through every song on the album;
you will have that experience yourself shortly, but to my ears Gravest Gravy is
one of the best representations of The Cramps interpretation of rockabilly, what
rockabilly should have become as time went on. Rockabilly wasn’t about fashion;
it was about wildness and the crazed passion to create something and to get
people moving. Gravest Gravy will get you moving, no question about that.
The deepest and most heartfelt thanks must go to: (the
artist formerly known as) Ivy, Larry Hardy, Jimmy Maslon, Henry Rollins, Ian
MacKaye and all the other folks involved in making this happen. As I’ve been
saying since the announcement, The Cramps Legacy is in the best of hands and
the stuff that is coming will blow up every Cramps fan’s mind.
The Cramps: back from the grave and ready to keep on
influencing human beans for as long as we’re around….
August 21st can’t get here fast enough!
