It's hard to believe that it has been 17 years since the world lost Lux Interior, essentially marking the end of The Cramps. While the market has been flooded with poor quality bootlegs and studio re-releases, there has always been a missing piece, the never released Alex Chilton produced 1977 album, Gravest Gravy. Fortunately, Henry Rollins and Ian McKaye have stepped in to right this wrong.
Gravest Gravy marks the first release under newly formed The Cramps Inc. imprint. Recorded in the same sessions that produced the Gravest Hits EP, Gravest Gravy is a collection of demos that show a rawer side of a Cramps who wouldn't release their debut album, Songs the Lord Taught Us, for another 3 years. Despite still being in their infancy at the time of recording, Gravest Gravy shows a band that arrived fully formed.
Opener TV Set was scheduled to be the only track recorded with a single in mind, but Alex Chilton insisted the band recorded an album's worth of material. It starts with an even more ominous thud than the version that appeared on Songs the Lord Taught Us and continues with a far fatter punk guitar sound than the version we have been acquainted with for over 40 years. While the collection continues with early versions of many songs that would become Cramps staples after appearing on Psychedelic Jungle (Jungle Hop, Can’t Find My Mind, The Natives Are Restless, and Rockin’ Bones) there are vast differences in arrangement. It is indeed arguable that many of the 1977 versions released here for the first time surpass their later versions that we have become so familiar with.
Gravest Gravy is far more than a mere collection of demos, but rather a time capsule of a band who defined a genre at their most raw and is all the better for it
