Another Person I've had on my list to meet before I die...

......has just died. My list of wonderfully creative and inspiring people keeps getting shorter and shorter every year. And why the hell is it that the Punk musicians on my list are the first to go?

Lux Interior died this morning.

Interior was the lead singer of the band The Cramps, who for my money produced some of the greatest Rock music ever. No hyperbole. I'll take a Cramps song over any band if I just want to hear some great rock and/or roll.

Their music was more than simple and often repetitive. Songs with less than four chords, played with an immoderate amount of fuzz and sprinkled with the spirit of rockabilly. It worked so well that many have tried and failed to match their intensity.

Lux himself has been described as Iggy Pop's demented twin, and I'm sure he wouldn't have minded that. But Lux just had this playfulness that was rare in any frontman. Lux was born to do one thing and this was it; to chuck his 110 pound body around a stage in shiny spandex.
I've been told by others that apparently his record collection is legendary and his encyclopedic knowledge of music was unbelievable.

So why did he end up making the simplest form of music?

I'd like to think that Lux understood rock and roll better than 99% of those that 'claim' to play it. Because it is simple, stupid.

Play something catchy.

Make it short.

Make it loud/big.

Talk about what is on your mind RIGHT FUCKING NOW. Sex, doing drugs, getting angry at something, some strange idea you just thought of... Give it a beat and a riff and you've made a
better song than 'Stairway to Heaven.'

Lux, you've made things a whole lot better since you've been on this rock hurling through space. You've certainly made it weirder.
Shine on. Like Spandex.