Saturday 2 July 2016

The Cramps..........and their record collection !

Sinking to new depths !
Well, The Cramps franchise is most certainly alive and kicking out there judging by the choice of various Cramps associated releases which have been made available in recent times....be it the lovely packaged 10" LP series from Stag-O-Lee in Germany or the rather less interesting CD only releases from Cherry Red (UK) sub-label 'Righteous' which can also boast some the poorest artwork seen on the 'official' releases....It should also be pointed out that none of these are bootlegs as the artists copyright has lapsed....most of these tracks are OLD ! (Pre-1966).
To a degree, it's almost as much fun collecting these releases as it is collecting Cramps stuff, especially as there's also a market out there for reproductions (copies) of the original 7"s too, which only adds to the starin on my wallet.

Really ?
I suppose that really, this area of Cramps 'associated' releases falls into 2 parts, the compilations of original tracks which the Cramps used to make their 'own' songs and the more recent releases claiming to be compilations of records in Lux & Ivy's personal record collection....To be honest, the most reliable source for these tracks would be at 'Kogar the Swingin' Ape's' blogsite....Over the years the guy (who has infinitely more patience than me) has tracked down any reference to records in Lux & Ivy's record collection, be it mentions in magazine and radio interviews, mix tapes put together by Lux or anecdotal. All of these tracks are there to be appreciated and can be downloaded for free....Cynical of me probably, but I imagine that the compilers of the recent and recentish releases make this source their first port of call !     

Sophia Loren...Cramps fan extraordinaire !
I'm not too sure how I feel about actually buying these records (& CDs), although sucker that I am, if it has 'The Cramps' on it, I'll pick it up and give it a home ! Ivy, (notoriously private) has never actually published or publicly listed the contents of their record collection even when the annual rumour of an impending auction crops up. So it's never sure that what's being put out, is in reality, somewhere among their boxes of vinyl.....maybe a forthcoming title will be 'Songs we thought The Cramps may like' ?  
Personally, I'd much rather see 'Vengeance' release a series of compilations compiled by Ivy, and obviously on vinyl...least ways there would be no doubting the source and I'm sure that the liner notes would make a far more interesting read too.

Best sleeve of the series.
The upside about these comps is that they're fairly cheap and relatively easy to get hold of, 10 minutes on Google and you could probably have most of them in your collection within the week. The Cramps association aside, they're generally good comps, to my taste at any rate....apart from the repetition of a few tracks, the CDs in particular make car journeys that bit more enjoyable. The artwork on the CD releases (as I already mentioned) is pretty lame and poorly conceived but the sleeves on the 'Beat From Badsville' series are rather decent and actually tie into the theme for the most part. However, I did find that Vol 4 was a bit of a stinker truth be told.....can't be a winner every time. The 10" format forces me to make the purchase without fail though !


Crap sleeve, has to be said !
If you want more stuff to take with you on that Cramps trip and you find that the Born Bad series and the Songs The Cramps Taught Us series, just ain't enough then you could do worse than pick a few (or all of them) up...You've plenty of choice !  'Smell Of The Cramps' The Cramps Jukebox', Spirit Of The Cramps' 'What The Cramps Ate For Breakfast'..........
I had considered putting up the track listings for these releases but then why should I spoil your fun ?......Seriously though, you can have a bit of fun hunting these all out and waiting for the postman or you can just Google....'Kogar's Jungle Juice' and get 'em for free !




Double LP, Orange vinyl.
Shameless plug time :  The Trash Wax website has never been fuller, shitloads of new stuff, restocks and probably one of the best selections of Trash out there....New Cramps stuff, a few boots (We have 6-7 copies of The Cramps 'King Is Back' LP from Russia), The new semi-official, Double LP on Orange vinyl 'Do The Clam'...if you can't see it, just email me directly. Stunning releases from 'Jungle Jim' Chandlers band 'Twin Guns'....you need their records, brilliant stuff  even if I say so myself !

Go on, treat yourself : www.trashwax.com

And for an even bigger selection of single item stuf, head on over to the discogs page here :
https://www.discogs.com/seller/Darrenross

You're sure to find something you want !



Laters folk and Stay Sick !    

1 comment:

  1. Great revue Darren.
    But all those CD's sound like awful 128 MP3.
    The real deal is to have them on 7" or 78 RPM

    ReplyDelete