29 years ago, in 1990, The Cramps were on French TV music and talk show Nulle part ailleurs (NPA) performing “Bikini Girls with Machine Guns” featuring Lux Interior in pvc posing pouch (men’s thong!) and stilletos.
âBikini Girls with Machine Gunsâ reached #35 on the UK Top 40 chart. This most well-know track from their fourth studio album Stay Sick! wasnât so much a song as it was a mid-century B-movie gone sonic. The Cramps laid down some righteous rockabilly riffage while channeling liquor and drug fueled drag races, beach movies, and the films of Russ Meyer.
“Poison Ivy’s guitar work has grown by leaps and bounds since the Cramps released their first record over a decade ago, and she can now conjure up all the early rockabilly and surf greats, from Paul Burlison and James Burton to the Ventures, filtering it through an entire history of punk. In fact, all hilarity aside, it’s the playing that makes Stay Sick! one of the most satisfying grunge records since the Cramps’ released A Date With Elvis as a British import in ’86,â wrote Bill Holdship for Spin magazine in 1990.
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Text via Retro in the 90s and Decade 77-87
