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The first chapter of kicksville 66 has been published in Loops Journal, a UK music magazine.
I've reaaranged this blog to run consecutively, give or take. You're on page one. To read more, please click on subsequent chapters in the sidebar.
Erick Purkhiser, better known as Cramps leader Lux Interior, died on February 4. Long ago, and for one year, he was my friend. I was the drummer in the first Cramps lineup which played forty-odd dates over an eight month period from the first show on All Saints Night 1976 through July 13, 1977, the date of the NYC blackout. With his passing came a mess of calls asking about the early days. After years of avoiding a backward glance, I was suddenly dropped headlong into the well. A moldering box of old stuff materialized from way back of the closet, and old friends began sending in decades-old snapshots, clippings, bits of correspondence. That first year in New York was my coming of age, at least in calendar years. It was also my first year behind the traps, on the flipside of fandom. It provided a hazing that alternately galvanized and confused my head, so these few words and pictures will seem sad and funny at the same time. I hope this helps clear the cobwebs for those who care. Walking through my dreams, like the Pretty Things would say. RIP, Lux.
Stuff started seeping out of the woodwork before the paint was dry. Phone calls, remember-whens, faded pictures, a couple grainy super-8’s, old letters, a stop-by. “Lux is dead,” they’d say. “He’s gone.” So I get a call from my first big town roommate, Pam, sister of the great and also-late Bryan Gregory, and we ruminate, a shot of white light into one hell of a moldy basement, and it’s with that conversation that I begin this slow descent into a year that time forgot. Round One is shot out of the cannon, a random blast. It was a lifetime ago-- everything’s changed, and nothing’s changed. Like when you spin around real fast and stop, and you’re digging your heels in, and everything around you is a whirling blur.
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I suppose it started a year earlier, while going to school in Kent, a small college town in Northeast Ohio, some 35 miles south of Cleveland and 12 miles east of Akron. In August of 1975, I wrote a teenage letter to a penpal in Detroit that I’d made some kooky new pals on a NYC road trip with my sister Helen. “Got asked to be a drummer in an avant-gard (sic) band, they want someone who’s never touched a drum kit. These people say they’re better than anyone, truly bizarre. Tux (sic) is 29, Ivy like 26, both beautiful young college graduate Californians (!) who finally want to get a band together in the Big Apple.”
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So then, in a nutshell and on a whim, again neglecting parts of the story to keep it snappy, there was another road trip to NYC with Cleveland pals which also included James Sliman (future Run DMC/Dodi Fayed press cat), delightfully zany Babs Fraley and Wildman Stiv Bator of Frankenstein fame. We all ganged up and went to see the New York Dolls, I swear, in a shopping center on Long Island, or New Jersey, whatever— a total teenage weekend bash, Cleveland/Detroit versus the world. Somebody confirm this for me-- I know they played at Max’s on the fourth-- I still have that darn stars and stripes Dolls badge from the show, but wasn’t that demented shopping center blowout round about that same time? I’d met up with Lux and Ivy and had stayed over at their place, a small, low ceiling walkup on East 73 rd Street. A cool old jukebox took up a good chunk of the living room-- Lux said he paid a guy five bucks to
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Fortunately, my pal James wanted to move to New York right away, too. We found a two bedroom (plus living room) walk up in an old tenement on East Ninth Street and plunked down a deposit. I think we got one month free with a sob story about having to go back to Ohio to wrap up loose ends. At any rate, the rent worked out to forty bucks each if we got a third roommate. Back in Cleveland, local maniac Bradley Field immediately volunteered to fill the void. Then, we got news that the Ramones and Groovies were going to be playing in Los Angeles. This was the ultimate double bill, and we decided to head to our new home in New York City via the west coast. I wrote to Purple Warp editor Tom Hosier, quoting the Ramones, “Hey daddy-o, I don’t wanna go… but whether I wanna or not, I am… going to move to the evil city itself, nooyawk… as soon as I get back from the waste coast/yeah, I leave to L.A. tomorrow… in a pale grey Valiant… I’m going to see the Ramones and my fave rave band in the whole wide world the Flamin Groovies at the Roxy Aug 11 and 12... I was in NYC for a week or so apt-hunting and found one on east ninth street in the el dumpo region of the village. There exist in said apt large cockroaches and other bugs, but otherwise, I LIKE IT. I will be living with two demented pals. I am the only normal person I know anyway. I am a nice normal one year past teenage girl and my favorite band is the Flamin Groovies. I idolize Cyril Jordan and know all the Groovies songs off by heart.” Well, that LA trip the next day did not happen, because Bradley, the driver of the grey Valiant apparently got arrested for urinating on a police officer. The next morning here’s me and James all packed and ready to head East, er, West, and our driver is in the klink, possibly for a month or more. James blew a fuse, and then stormed off to make some phone calls. He managed to rustle up local gal Tracey Lacy who could be persuaded by James to do just about anything. Just like that, Tracey was driving me and James to our new pad in New York in her convertible Karmann Ghia.
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Meanwhile, Pam had come in with James and me at the Ninth Street pad- Three’s Company, lower east side version: one Lebanese photographer with a humongous pet python (which ended up escaping its cage, slithering out the window into the night) and a vast collection of photo-print silk shirts and Cuban heel shoes (and an incredible sense of humor), teeny tiny, long haired and gorgeous Pam (who we nicknamed Pam Balam – Blam- for the Groovies tune!) who missed Michigan more than I missed Ohio at the time, and me with the drumsticks and the bad perm. We were all flying by the seat of our collective pants, starting from scratch in the Snake Pit. Pam and I got jobs as lunch crowd waitresses at Brew Burger (shades of Hamburger Patti), a job that obliged us to wear horrible Danskin leotards and steer-head medallions. Those creepy waitress outfits were as far as I would ever go with “stage wear”. During that first year, I was oblivious to the fact that the band was in need of an image re-do. If anything, Bryan was the fashion icon, what with the Veronica Lake hair, the mod ties and the polka dots—it was all about his obsession with the Rolling Stones, and Brian Jones in particular (hence the moniker). I'd follow with the Stones fixation by giving myself a well-honed mop top as well.
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That’s me and Bryan upstairs at CBGB’s pouncing on the leading man. The band playing is the Erasers, I’m told. Then all four Cramps beat the heck out of the guy in the lavatory in CBGB’s basement. Now that’s method acting! I remember the first hint of theatrical getups for the group. Photographer/dancer Anya Phillips (RIP) wanted to take some studio snaps of the Cramps. She set up lights and umbrellas and then ran off, returning with some sort of rubber shirt with bones on it, dangling from a wire hanger. “Put this on,” she said to me. “Uh, no,” I said. She tried to encourage me to squeeze into the goofy get up, but nothing in the world could get me to cooperate. I may be wrong, but I think Anya was the one who first put latex and chicken bones into the Cramps itinerary. I think no-wavester Lydia Lunch ended up taking that rubber and bones creation to heart and building some kind of look around it. Some time after my departure, I recall being stunned by the transformation the Cramps had made, when they took on some kind of bondage drag identity with the makeup and high heels and all, a heavy handed nod to the Dolls at their glitziest. That first year, Bryan held sway at a record store called Musical Maze and did some foot massaging as a sideline. Lux worked at MM early on, too. When Bryan had first joined, and Pam was banging their gong, they would blast away in the basement of the store. Lux must have quit or had his hours shortened, as he would come downtown and we’d check out the record stores and junk stores, me running three steps to each of his long strides down the sidewalks. We’d do the flyering for shows, taping handbills to walk/don’t walk signs and tacking them up at the record shops. At one point, Gregg Turner at Back Door Man appointed me the East Coast Promo Gal for Zero records and it was my job to get the singles into the shops. Same with Ohio bands Pere Ubu and Devo. So we added a bit of shlepping to the record hunt jaunts. Like the Avon lady, only different. It felt like a bizarro world episode of Ozzie & Harriett, and why not, Lux was obsessed by Ricky Nelson. It was kind of weird. He loved Ricky so much, he thought he resembled him. Beautiful.
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When we weren’t playing, we were rehearsing, and when we weren’t rehearsing, we were out watching bands. Initally, it was all about the Ramones and the Dictators, and my admiration for them would never fade. The one drum “lesson” I ever got was from Tommy Ramone, who showed me a to hold the sticks “like this”. In Spring of 1977, Richard Robinson, the revered producer of the Flamin’ Groovies Teenage Head album, paid to take the Cramps into Bell Sound, recording eight tracks. This was stunning to me. Not in my wildest dreams could I believe that the guy who recorded my favorite band wanted to record us. I honestly felt that I was on CANDID CAMERA, that this was all a dream, or a hilarious hoax that was being played on me.
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You see, the Groovies played, and will always play, a major role in my life. It was around this same time that my friend Greg Shaw from Bomp magazine passed the Flamin Groovies Fan Club presidency mantle on to me. It was a thrill, and I would soon begin to honor the title by publishing my own home spun version of the Flamin Groovies Monthly fanzine. I met all of my dearest friends through the Flamin Groovies Fan Club. Sounds a bit strange, doesn’t it? But it’s true—Billy, Todd, Jim, Bernie, Alan, Gary. Anyway, when the STILL SHAKIN’ album came out in mid ’77, I was delighted that Richard gave me the first copy hot off the press, autographed. I’d started working at the Strand Bookstore on 12th and Broadway in September, and it would become my real home for years to come (save for a year-long exit in 1978 to work for Marty Thau). To this day, the Strand is better than the Taj Mahal to me. A regal place filled with ghosts and great old books.
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New York was a very different place in those days. The city was nearly bankrupt, some unknown psychopath dubbed the Son of Sam was shooting disco people every couple of months, and there were no yuppies or rich kids anywhere in sight. Everybody was a scrapper. Cheap rent, quarter coffee and hard work in some capacity. The Cramps were now opening for the Ramones, getting a dollop of attention from the press. At one point, Hilly Kristal, the owner of CBGB’s, was messing with the idea of having local bands cover Rolling Stones songs (great idea!) and everybody was making dibs on tunes. I remember blowing through Off The Hook a few times, anticipating recording it, but the whole project fell through. Around the same time, we were messing with the Troggs’ Night Of The Long Grass. That still is a personal fave. God bless Reg Presley and all he stands for, crop circles and all.
Somebody get Reg on Coast To Coast AM, please! That spring, my Ohio pal Peter Laughner came to visit at the apartment above a hardware store on 12th Street and First Avenue that I was by then sharing with Miss Lydia Lunch and nutty Cleveland import Bradley Field, who was fresh out of jail in Ohio. (The pair would go on to bang a gong as Teenage Jesus and the Jerks.) Peter arrived with Lester Bangs and Richard Lloyd in tow, and we hung around listening to records and a demo Richard had just cut, solo; finally taking a cab to pick up photog Stephanie Chernikowski. It was a perfect late spring day, the windows were down and the taxi was going fast. I remember it clearly, as it was the last time I would see Peter. He phoned right before his death in June. I’ll never forget the call, in the middle of the night. Lydia, Bradley and I had been invited to some kind of fancy shmancy party and I’d fallen asleep in the living room. They’d tried to wake me up, but I was so sleepy, I told them I’d meet up with them later. The ringing phone woke me up hours later. In retrospect, it was already a call from the other side. We talked about good things happening in New York, about the Groovies fan club, and his writing, and music plans back in Ohio, about coming to New York to visit again. Of my many heroes at the time, he ranked at the very top. I learned of his passing days after the fact, when Lydia and I ran into Lester on the Bowery. LB was upset that we were out having a good time, “considering”. I had no clue what he was talking about. When he told me, I was shattered. This was unbelievable to me, it was not supposed to happen. Impossible!
Somebody get Reg on Coast To Coast AM, please! That spring, my Ohio pal Peter Laughner came to visit at the apartment above a hardware store on 12th Street and First Avenue that I was by then sharing with Miss Lydia Lunch and nutty Cleveland import Bradley Field, who was fresh out of jail in Ohio. (The pair would go on to bang a gong as Teenage Jesus and the Jerks.) Peter arrived with Lester Bangs and Richard Lloyd in tow, and we hung around listening to records and a demo Richard had just cut, solo; finally taking a cab to pick up photog Stephanie Chernikowski. It was a perfect late spring day, the windows were down and the taxi was going fast. I remember it clearly, as it was the last time I would see Peter. He phoned right before his death in June. I’ll never forget the call, in the middle of the night. Lydia, Bradley and I had been invited to some kind of fancy shmancy party and I’d fallen asleep in the living room. They’d tried to wake me up, but I was so sleepy, I told them I’d meet up with them later. The ringing phone woke me up hours later. In retrospect, it was already a call from the other side. We talked about good things happening in New York, about the Groovies fan club, and his writing, and music plans back in Ohio, about coming to New York to visit again. Of my many heroes at the time, he ranked at the very top. I learned of his passing days after the fact, when Lydia and I ran into Lester on the Bowery. LB was upset that we were out having a good time, “considering”. I had no clue what he was talking about. When he told me, I was shattered. This was unbelievable to me, it was not supposed to happen. Impossible!
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Three days later, on Wednesday night, lightning hit a Con Ed station, and then another, plunging all five boroughs of New York City into total darkness. The city went berserk for twenty-five hours running in what was dubbed the Great Blackout of 1977. I was downtown when the lights went out, with bashing and crashing from all directions, and cop cars and ambulances shrieking up and down the avenues all night long. By dawn, huge sections of the city were burned, looted, trashed. Like Pompeii, without the lava. Within hours, I would feel pretty much the same way, kind of like I’d been torched in a moldy burlap bag and left to smolder in a dumpster in the South Bronx.
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You know, back in ’73 when my sister and I got back home to Ohio from England, we went to work at an automotive plant making hoods for Mack trucks. Enormous fiberglas parts would roll out of hot ovens on rail tracks and we’d grind and sand eight hours a day, sweating in goggles, masks, earplugs, protective gear, four women to a frame, hood after hood, day in, day out. I considered it a necessary hazing. A life experience. One of those deals that does doesn’t kill you, but makes you stronger. My first year in New York was a necessary hazing, too, a full-time, full-on occupation that just happened to be filled with loud music and sweaty people, day in and day out—at least the earplugs were optional. Not entirely a bad thing, not by any means. And for someone who shot out of the hopper at full-tilt, I had a relatively soft landing, thanks to fellow Groovies fans Trixie A. Balm and Shawn Brighton, who showed up at my door the proverbial morning after with a hell of a pep talk and plans for, what else, a band. I’m eternally grateful to them for their timing. But I’m also thankful for the days to Lux and Ivy and Bryan. That first year shot me into an overdrive that I’ve yet to come down from. Before the snow would blow at the end of ‘77, I would be bashing away with Nervus Rex (before their power pop alliance with Chinn and Chapman), having met my better half and instant sweetheart Billy Miller (at a record fair, natch), and would soon start a job with music biz honcho (Buddah bigwig—FLAMINGO!!!) Marty Thau at his new label, Red Star Records. Some time before the Cramps left New York, Lux and Bryan came to see the Zantees (who I’d joined straight out of Nervus Rex) at Hurrah’s, and to say goodbye. I was so happy to see them there, and remember standing on the stairs, halfway up, halfway down. It was only Lux and Bryan, and the three of us kind of just stared at each other. I felt real bad. I had that hollow break-up feeling in my throat. It was the last time I would see Bryan, and I know he heard me choke on hard tears when I hugged him goodbye and shook his ring covered hand. I remembered that hard bitten goodbye when he too fell of the masthead, a year and a half later. I got messages from him over the years, “Bryan says hi!” “Bryan asked about you!” “Bryan sends his love!” I never saw him again. I didn’t see Lux or Ivy again until 2003. It was at the Warsaw in Brooklyn. I went to say happy birthday to Ivy, as she’d hit the big five-0, a big one for the ladies. A time to celebrate with everybody you’ve ever known. On leaving, I said goodbye to Lux on the long flight of stairs from the dressing room. I stared at him the same way as I had that night with Bryan at Hurrah’s, that feel-bad choking goodbye that has to carry weight, because there are no plans to ever meet again.
Gig list / First lineup 1976-1977
Lux Interior (vocals), Ivy Rorschach (guitar), Bryan Gregory (guitar), Miriam Linna (drums)
11/1/76 CBGB, NYC W/Dead Boys (first show)
11/21/76 Max's Kansas City, NYC
11/27/76 Max's Kansas City, NYC w/Suicide and Fuse
12/17/76 Max's Kansas City, NYC w/Suicide and Jango Edwards
12/29/76 On The Rocks, NYC w/Stiletto
1/6/77 Max's Kansas City, NYC w/Uncle Son
1/7/77 Max's Kansas City, NYC
1/8/77 Max's Kansas City, NYC
1/9/77 Max's Kansas City, NYC
1/13/77 Max's Kansas City, NYC w/Kieran Liscoe Band/Stumblebunny
1/14/77 Max's Kansas City, NYC w/Mink Deville/Suicide
1/21/77 Max's Kansas City, NYC w/Blondie
1/22/77 Max's Kansas City, NYC w/Blondie
2/3/77 Max's Kansas City, NYC w/Marbles and Mumps
2/4/77 Max's Kansas City, NYC w/Marbles and Mumps
2/5/77 Max's Kansas City, NYC w/Marbles and Mumps
2/18/77 Max's Kansas City, NYC w/the Fast
3/20/77 CBGB, NYC w/Dead Boys
3/24/77 Max's Kansas City, NYC w/Suicide
3/25/77 Max's Kansas City, NYC w/Suicide
4/1/77 CBGB, NYC w/Ramones
4/5/77 Max's Kansas City, NYC w/Stilletto and the Visitors
4/13/77 My Fathers Place, Roslyn (Long Island) w/The Ramones
4/13/77 CBGB, NYC w/Come On
4/14/77 My Fathers Place, Roslyn, (Long Island) w/The Ramones
4/14/77 CBGB, NYC w/Contortions
4/15/77 CBGB, NYC w/Steel Tips
4/20/77 CBGB, NYC w/The Ramones
4/26/77 Max's Kansas City, NYC w/Lollipop
5/2/77 Lower Manhattan Ocean Club, New York, NY
5/13/77 Max's Kansas City, NYC w The Fast
5/14/77 Max's Kansas City, NYC w/ The Fast
6/9/77 CBGB, NYC w/Ramones
6/10/77 CBGB, NYC w/ Ramones
6/11/77 CBGB's w/ Ramones
6/15/77 Village Gate w/Tuff Darts and Alex Chilton
7/7/77 CBGB, NYC w/Viletones /Diodes/Teenage Head/Boyfriends
7/8/77 CBGB, NYC w/Viletones /Diodes/Teenage Head/Boyfriends
7/9/77 CBGB, NYC w/Viletones /Diodes/Teenage Head/Boyfriends
7/10/77 CBGB, NYC w/Viletones /Diodes/Teenage Head/Boyfriends
(Thanks: Pam Balam, Michael Purkhiser, Nikki Lorenz, Charles Hall, Tom Hosier, James Sliman, Lisa Falour, James Marshall, Todd Abramson, Nila Onuferko, Lenny Kaye, Andy Shernoff, Brian Horwitz, Lindsay Hutton, Char Rau, Richard Robinson, Stephanie Chernikowski, Godlis, Roberta Bayley, and Howie Pyro. And Bhob Stewart, absolutely!)
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Wow! This is excellent. So glad you are blogging!
ReplyDeletewow miriam, this was such an amazing read. it brought back so many memories (recent ones too...all those calls about lux that day & the days that followed) you are the best & left me with a 96 tears in my 96 eyes...
ReplyDeletehowie
Absolutely fantastic, Miriam... Thanks for sharing!!!
ReplyDeleteLove it, love it, love it.
ReplyDeleteOutstanding! Nothing about quoting Shakespeare while lying on the sidewalk? Pt 2?
ReplyDeletewow, thanks for sharing...
ReplyDeleteWhat an excellent and well-written article, and what a great memory you have! Thanks!
ReplyDeletegreat story. i've lived in kent for 20 years now and god, it seems that it was much cooler back then.
ReplyDeletehi miriam
ReplyDeletecool blog. how's things in the big apple. bon of girl trouble says "hi"
i'm stuck in this shithole town called 'Terrace " in BC canada. if you have sometime have a look at my blog
http://mredmusicroundup.blogspot.com/
Take care
ed nadorozny
oh say hi to billy too
Fascinating read! Kudos!
ReplyDeleteHooray!
ReplyDeleteThanks Miriam for sharing your memories with us all!
ReplyDeleteI sense a book forming! Be zorch...
ReplyDeleteHoly smokes!
ReplyDeletethanks for putting this all on the record...
ReplyDeleteHi Miriam! This is lovely! Beautifully expressed, and I'm so happy you reminded me of Chicken & Burger World, and of the Interior/Rorschach UES railroad flat.
ReplyDeleteBravo!
ReplyDeletethe possibilities of the world -- none of which I challenged or realized -- were again brought to life by your first entry.
ReplyDeleteWow.
Thanks you.
This was the greatest read I've had in years, keep it up, I felt like I was there!!! For me the Cramps werent just a band but a way of life, felt like I lost a family member!! Thanx again!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.myspace.com/helgababy
Thanks for the fine, fine writing here. And what Jumpy said re books a-forming. You've got the talent; you've got the story.
ReplyDelete"Take it easy, people. This isn't War & Peace."
ReplyDeleteYou're right -- this is much more interesting! ;P
Hi Miriam, my friend Tim Stegall turned me on to this blog, and now I feel even more privileged to have seen you a coupla weeks ago, drumming your heart out for Cyril and Roy Loney's reunion in N.O. You are a sweetheart and I hope to read many more of your memories!
ReplyDeleteLaura, artist check-in grrl, Ponderosa Stomp
Laura, girl! We miss you Stompers BIG TIME. It was such a full on blast. Look for Grovies fanclub post this week. Say hey to Mr. T!
ReplyDeleteXX Miiram
So, we came downstairs at the Stomp after Cyril and Roy and this backing band start playing, and my wife goes, "they got a chick drummer, cool." After a kickass set of Grovies music, a band I'm ashamed I never paid much attention to, I find out who that Billy guy was, and that drummer chick, and connections with one of my favorite record lables, and the band that, next to the Ramones, formed my teen worldview... Anyway, glad to find out who the chick drummer was/is.
ReplyDeleteMy head is spinning.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing your thoughts, memories and stuff from the basement, Miriam.
I felt fortunate I got to see you play with the Cramps at CBGB's in 1977. The Cramps really turned my head around, to say the least. I was a kid from Long Island back then and we couldn't believe we were living near the epicenter of cool! (LOL) I think I have a cassette of it somewhere--don't laugh, it's in a box somewhere in the basement of my home in Durham, NC (allegedly the birthplace of Pigmeat Markham)! Reply if you're interested and I'll go on a hunt down there...
Miriam, I also want to thank you for your Flamin' Groovies fanzine -on color xerox, no less- the sustenance people like you gave people like me just can't be measured, so thanks!
I've bookmarked your blog and I'll be checking it out.
Tony! Wow, an olde tymer. Groovies stuff is next off the hot plate. Nortonville blog starts today as the official newsletter so back to the future, or whatever. Would luv to hear your '77 blast from the past. Downstairs in the basement? How appropriate! Be well, be good, and beware! X M
ReplyDeleteGreat story! I always wanted to asked you about this! now its here! thanks!
ReplyDeleteSee ya Soon, Keep on Rockin´
Mariano
Bringin death and livin to'uh jook-jivin world once again! Aside from Norton inserts, yer writins sho'ly been missed! Still need'ta hunt down su'more 'Kicks' issues! Lux death's, despite never havin met him (though, a friend also drummed in the Cramps fer'uh spell sum years back), was'uh doomful one fer me, right on the heels Ron Asheton and Ray Dennis Steckler. The sitch wasn't helped by Lux's passin, all that's alot'ta process in a lil over'uh month...are we truly livin in the end times?
ReplyDeleteHi Miriam ! From my far and away Belgium, i'd like
ReplyDeleteto thank you so much for sharing this. For a huge Cramps fan like me, this is a kind of Holy Grail..
Really ! Good luck + keep on writing and posting !Of course, i post a link today in my 100% Cramps blog : http://brainsteakbikini.blogspot.com/
Cheers, Krom.
Wonderful stuff,
ReplyDeletemuch awaited from you Miriam, I met you a few times and wrote to you during the Kicks days. From what you said to me and wrote at the time it sounded like you wanted to keep the Cramps period behind, and not want to talk about it at all.
Your blog is a joy, and a relief too, it is so well written (like your notes on those wonderful Mad Mike LPs)
From a life long fan
FrenchPhil
Wonderful job Miriam!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteYou are incredible!
Sin-seerly,
Malibu Mike Murphy
This is so brilliant....
ReplyDeleteThis really was wondeful
ReplyDeleteYou should right a book Miriam
ReplyDeletethanks Miriam
ReplyDeleteyou rock MIRIAM..i remember the early shows..lux we will miss ya!!!--- check out this fuzzfest-- www.myspace.com/mechaniquemusic
ReplyDeleteAAAA
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ReplyDeleteHi Miriam.
ReplyDeleteThis Nile from the Strand Days.
Love your writings. Bring back many memories.
I don't know if you remember the Cramps "poster" you and Lux signed for me when I left The Strand for the wilds of Kenya.
It was a head shot of an African with a huge lip circle of wood on which was lettered "The Cramps."
Around 10 years or so sago The Cramps played in Lawrence, Kansas, just up the road. It was a GREAT show and I took the poster hoping I could get an update signing. The heavy at the backstage door took the poster when I requested an "audience" and reappeared tout suite and escorted me upstairs to the post show lounge.
Lux and Ivy signed it and got a kick out of it.
Thanks for the memories! Great writing.
Nile
Is it ok if I site u as an influence?
ReplyDeleteHi Miriam
ReplyDeleteThanks so much! What a wild, warm, and wonderful story. Excellent writing too!
I especially liked the bit about the Canadian bands and the impromptu house-warming. Frankie's gone now too.
My personal little Groovies epiphany from the summer of '77 was finding both Flamingo and Teenage Head in the cut out bins in Ottawa. I couldn't believe my luck! I thought Canadians were crazy, selling such great albums for so cheap, so naturally decided to move here!
Take care,
Marc
great post
ReplyDeleteYes, the latter-day Dolls (minus Johnny & Jerry) DID play Max's on the fourth, with Mick Ronson guesting on lead guitar. And ya know what? Here is the recording: http://nuzzprowlinwolf.blogspot.com/2009/07/new-york-dolls-wiv-mick-ronson-live.html
ReplyDeletehttp://dulltooldimbulb.blogspot.com/2010/09/kicksville-of-miriam-linna-good-things.html
ReplyDeleteMiriam, great writing. I grew up in Westchester during that period. I remember the blackout, son of sam and al the noise the Ramones and others were making then. We would make weekend trips into the city. Saw the cramps every Holloween at the Pepermint Lounge (you had gone by then). Thanks for sharing your wonderful window in time. It reminded me a bit of Swimming Underground, by Mary Woronov. Have you read it? Steve
ReplyDeleteThis is so lovely, Miriam, I'm right there with you every step of the way. Incidentally, I have one of those Dolls '76 Old-Glory badges, too, but I can't tell you whether the gig went off because I was in, of all places, Kent! (My first visit to Ohio, and not my last by a long shot.)
ReplyDeleteGod bless you Miriam and all you stand for!!!!
ReplyDeleteLove you Miriam!
ReplyDeleteHi Miriam! Thanks so much for this.... as they say, a head spinner fer sher and such an amazing blast from the past! Can't wait to read more and if ya don't mind, will share the link with my 'children' here in Indonesia.
ReplyDeleteLots of love and super fine memories!
miriam,
ReplyDeleteso great you took the time to reminisce and relay such an incredible story replete with all the characters from an enviable perspective of one of the greatest eras in rock n' roll !! i enjoy your writing style and anxiously await future missives...
hope you, billy and norton are well on your way to recovering your former glory after that clumsy bitch, sandy stormed through town . . .
as ever, two-bit johnny xx
When is the book coming out? ;-)
ReplyDeleteGood job!! Thanks!!
ReplyDeletehttp://lossantos.bandcamp.com/
<< fresh out of the crazy old record store across from the Strand Book Store. >> Dayton Records, yeah. I remember it well. Ostensibly a haven for rare-jazz buffs, but they had a great section in the middle of the store for us rock-and-roll dirtbags as well. And they paid more for used records than Freebeing or Max at Hall Place Records did.
ReplyDeleteMy dear friend and former teenage penpal, thanks for this, it's beautiful! Ah the good old days,we had some great times and amazing adventures...I'm so happy I saved all those letters and especially that were still friends. Love you my rock'n'roll sister!
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