Lux Interior, Rest in Peace

The copyright image above is borrowed with the good graces of photographer Mike Leach, who retains all the rights he want to retain and who has a fabulous collection of rock show awesomeness covering the last 30 years at: http://www.bestrockphotos.com/

Go there. Spend money. Put some rock history on your wall.

This week I learned from the novelist Colson Whitehead (who should probably be working on his next novel instead of confirming such things) that Lux Interior died last year.

Lux Interior, of course, was the frontman for the crazed psychobilly band The Cramps.

I saw them in 1984 at a little low-ceilinged place in Seattle called The Golden Crown (actual shot from that show appropriated above). Influential proto-grungers U-Men opened. Man, it was one of my most memorable shows.

At the time, Seattle was a post-Here-Come-the-Brides backwater; nothing like the self-satisfied metropolis it became in the late 90's. I was just out of college, and naive as hell. This show blew me away. I stood on a chair at the back of the room as Poison Ivy did her slinky ice queen thing and Lux Interior howled and perspired and crowd surfed and (literally) kicked a fan off the stage. I don't think I had ever seen someone stage dive before, and certainly I'd never seen crowd surfing. I remember standing on that chair, ceiling within reach, while the audience passed Lux toward the back of the room, surfing on their outstretched hands, looking (I thought) at me with a menacing look on his face. Like, This is life or death here, asshole. But I've never had such a wide grin on my face. It was glorious.

See also "Lux Interior's Astral Ascension" in the LA Weekly. The guy was something else.