Journey to the Centre Of The Cramps by Dick Porter

Author:Dick Porter [Porter, Dick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783233885
Publisher: Omnibus Press
Published: 2015-01-11T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

The Magic That You Do

Drugs and a crazy way of life is good for some people and bad for others, but there has to be somebody speaking out for that side of things.

Lux Interior

There are so many ways to initiate people and drugs aren’t essential – but sex and rock’n’roll, it’s a whole different thing.

Poison Ivy

ALMOST exactly five years after they had arrived in New York to participate in the Big Apple’s burgeoning rock’n’roll underground, Lux and Ivy arrived in Los Angeles just as California’s second wave of punk rockers were defining the parameters of the US hardcore movement. The half decade that the couple spent in New York had seen the most apolitical of bands rise to prominence while the punk scene from which they had risen had become increasingly politicised. As the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and the final years of premier Leonid Brezhnev’s reign saw the Cold War approach a nuclear boiling point, America and Britain’s media stoked public concern, which resulted in both nations electing right wing administrations that promised to oppose the perceived threat of Soviet expansionism. By the end of 1980, UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher had also embarked on a series of radical policies aimed at addressing the country’s economic problems, which led to the dismantling of Britain’s industrial and manufacturing infrastructure and unprecedented levels of unemployment that led to widespread civil unrest the following year. On November 4, US voters returned former B-movie actor Ronald Reagan to the White House with a decisive majority, his policies promising to take America along a similar path as that of Britain. As the Conservative government organised the distribution of a booklet to every household in the UK explaining what measures should be taken in the event of the increasingly anticipated nuclear strike on the country, those opposing the regime became more vocal.

These societal shifts were reflected within the punk movement, just as the Clash’s well-intentioned but naively gestural approach to politics had been superseded by the more considered militancy of groups such as Crass and the Poison Girls. In America, Californian bands including the Dead Kennedys, Black Flag and the Circle Jerks were indicative of the way in which stateside punk had also become more political. As Los Angeles punks increasingly embraced this culture of opposition, the Cramps again found that they were swimming against the Zeitgeist. “We’re different from that in that our music isn’t political. Our lyrics aren’t political and that’s just not what we want to do. I think [hardcore] is a platform for political ideas in their lyrics,” Ivy observed. “We very deliberately avoid politics in our lyrics. We figure that our lifestyle is enough of a statement and a comment on politics or anything else. We don’t vote, but we feel like we vote with our behaviour, we vote with how we spend our money – because money is the main thing that gives power to something. If you don’t want something to exist, then don’t back it up by buying certain things.

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