I'm utterly baffled by the news that Lux Interior, lead singer of the
Cramps, has died. This is inconceivable to me. I understand that people
are mortal. I can accept the passing of Joey Ramone, Joe Strummer, and
millions of others who have gone before their time or well past their
sell by date. But Lux struck me as, well, inhuman. He regularly
produced gallons of sweat while performing, without any evidence of
dehydration. (John Doe still earns my nomination for sweatiest man in
rock, though, because he does it in natural fibers while Lux favored
sweat-causing synthetics.) More impressively, he threw up on the stage
in the middle of performance at the Reading Festival in 1991,
understatedly announced, "I feel much better" and just kept on singing.
If nothing else, I thought that level of commitment would keep him
going forever, but he had a preexisting heart condition.
I'm currently consoling myself listening to Tim Napalm's tribute on Woody Radio,
but I'll need to fire up Fiends from Dope Island
tomorrow if Tim doesn't get to it before I fall asleep, just to hear
"Elvis Fucking Christ."
