big beat records Archives - Vinyl From The Vault

The Cramps “A Date With Elvis”

sfilzen — Mon, 20 Feb 2023 17:32:54 +0000

The Cramps “A Date With Elvis” 1986. Today, February 20th, is Cramps’ guitarist/songwriter Poison Ivy’s 70th birthday (b. Kristy Wallace, 1953). Originally released on UK label Big Beat Records, this copy is the 1990 reissue on red vinyl from Enigma Records and has four bonus tracks. Swampy, campy punk’d up psychobilly, A Date With Elvis was The Cramps’ third studio LP. It’s also the first record to feature Poison Ivy on vocals: on both “Kizmiaz,” a sneakily sweet garage-psych song that is also hilarious, and the bonus track “Get Off the Road” (a track credited to H.G. Lewis, a filmmaker known for his horror films). The record charted only in Australia, at #98. The Cramps released two singles in the UK from A Date With Elvis: one of my favorites “Can Your Pussy to the Dog?” and “What’s Inside a Girl?” The bonus tracks on our copy are the b-sides from the 12″ singles of those two releases. My other top pick is the frenetically choppy “Cornfed Dames.” The original release includes two cover tracks: the traditional song “Chicken” and the bluesy Charlie Feathers track “It’s Just That Song,” both Cramped-up to make a little evil.

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Pink Fairies “Live at the Roundhouse 1975”

sfilzen — Tue, 29 Nov 2022 18:35:20 +0000

Pink Fairies “Live at the Roundhouse 1975” 1982. Big Beat Records, on pink vinyl. Today, November 29th, is Pink Fairies drummer/vocalist Twink’s birthday (b. John Alder, 1944). Psychedelic hard rock, Pink Fairies was born from the ashes of the Deviants and added Pretty Things’ Twink as a second drummer, and throughout the years has had a revolving door of members including T. Rex’s Steve Peregrin Took; Shagrat’s, Motörhead’s and UFO’s Larry Willis; and The Move’s Trevor Burton. Live at the Roundhouse was a reunion concert of sorts, organized by the head of Chiswick Records. Performing that night were Twink on drums, Russell Hunter on drums, Sandy Sanderson on bass/vocals, Larry Wallis on guitar/vocals, and Paul Rudolph on guitar/vocals. The live album is a highly abbreviated recording of the full concert, “the rest being deemed unsuitable for public consumption” (Wiki). I don’t know if that means the quality was shitty or the performance got totally out of hand. Also according to Wiki: “Demand was so high [for the concert] that those locked out attempted to burn down the doors of the venue. The stage was ‘enhanced’ by a large polystyrene Mandrax tablet erected by the road crew and the distribution to the crowd of many cannabis ‘joints’.” Only two of the five songs on Live at the Roundhouse are Pink Fairies originals: “City Kids” and “Uncle Harry’s Last Freakout” which is an epically long freaky jam session. The other three are pretty great covers: “Waiting for the Man” (Velvet Underground), “Lucille” (Little Richard) and “Going Down” (Freddie King). Now considered protopunk, Pink Fairies performance is hard, raucous and heavy with a lot in common with slightly earlier US bands MC5 and the Stooges. “Following this concert, Wallis, Sanderson and Hunter decided to give the Pink Fairies another try. This line up eventually gave numerous ‘farewell tours’ before disbanding. After a period of inactivity they entered the burgeoning punk scene as one of the few ‘hairy’ bands revered by the new guard” (Wiki). Pink Fairies continued to shed and add members over the years, recording their last record in 2018; Sanderson and Wallis both died in 2019. Twink is, I believe, still going strong.

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The Cramps “Stay Sick!”

sfilzen — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 00:06:48 +0000

The Cramps “Stay Sick!” 1990. Enigma Records. (Posting for plague and quarantine season, but please don’t really stay sick!) Produced by Cramps guitarist Poison Ivy, Stay Sick was The Cramps fourth studio LP; this copy a 1993 reissue on Big Beat Records with 3 bonus tracks: “Her Love Rubbed Off” (a Carl Perkins cover), “Her Love Rubbed Off (live)” and “Bikini Girls With Machine Guns (live)” – those last two recorded at the Ventura Theatre in 1990. Stay Sick! was also one of The Cramps more successful releases – its single “Bikini Girls With Machine Guns” went to #35 in the UK. Despite the title, there aren’t a lot of plague/sickness/general feelings of illness tracks on the album. It’s the Cramps-style psychobilly they do so well, with lots of slappin’ bass and double-entendre lyrics (i.e. “Daisys Up Your Butterfly”). I’m super-familiar with lots of tracks on this record because I’m pretty sure a guy I was dating in ‘92 made a mixtape with a bunch of the songs, and despite being super-relieved that guy is loooonggg gone, those particular tracks are my favorite: “Bikini Girls With Machine Guns,” “Shortnin’ Bread” (a Cramp’d up rendition of a traditional African-American folk song that dates back well over 120 years but was first written down by James Whitcomb Riley in 1900 ) and “Mama oo Pow Pow.” Other top tracks that I like but didn’t make it on to that mixtape are “Journey to the Center of A Girl” (such a great groove!), “Saddle Up a Buzz Buzz” and “Mule Skinner Blues,” originally by Jimmie Rodgers in 1930. “Mule Skinner Blues” has a particular soft spot in my heart because The Fenderman covered it in 1960, initially releasing it on the Wisconsin-based label Cuca Records which I wrote the history of for my master’s thesis; The Fenderman’s version of “Mule Skinner Blues” hit #5 in the US #32 in the UK.

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