I Ain't Sophisticated

LeRoy Robbins

Coast Highway, near Oxnard

Psychobilly royal couple Lux & Ivy performing with the Cramps at Eldorado in Paris, June 1984, as captured by Bruno Galus.

“When Lux is onstage, he gets very animal-like. He’s very unrepressed. His animal side comes out quite naturally. But he expresses himself with a special style”

Poison Ivy

Recently unearthed photos of The Cramps rocking the Odeon in Edinburgh, Scotland, as captured by Laurie Evans in 1979, during their first tour abroad supporting the Police.

This was actually a weird bill, the brainwave of Miles Copeland, who had signed the largely unknown to European audiences at the time Cramps to his fledgling I.R.S. Records, while also managing his brother Stewart Copeland’s band, The Police, who were on the verge of smashing it big time. Performing their scary voodoo psychobilly to audiences who had obviously come to enjoy The Police’s undemanding reggae-infused pop-rock led to lukewarm reactions, though that never stopped Lux from diving off stage into the people gathered below.

After all, it was him who had said: “It’s more dangerous walking down the streets of New York than it is being in this band”.