Kick Out the Jams: The Cramps at House of Blues, Oct. 28

I last saw the Cramps in '89, at the old Ritz in Manhattan. The venue was a dark, jammed hothouse, and my brother and I were the only psychobilly fans there who'd forgotten our leather and spikes. Somehow, I got pretty close to the stage in a college sweatshirt without getting punched as a pallid Lux Interior swaggered out, bit the cork from a wine bottle and spat it into the crowd. He twitched, leapt, yodeled and eventually wrung out his leather pants and writhed nearly naked in the sweat pool he'd been working on. I was happy and agape, a dot of sensible athletic-gray caught in the heavy, black wave action of a Cramps crowd.

It's much later now, and last Thursday's show wasn't quite the same, although not as far off as I might have feared in a crowd that was hip and properly edgy, yet decidedly more record store clerk than thug. The Deadbillies threw down first--burly, somber rockers in black Stetsons and heavy eye-makeup who played a stage nicely festooned with garlands and skulls, a voodoo-ish décor that seemed to further strengthen the savory zombie/redneck association we've found so fun in recent years. The Gore Gore Girls were voluptuous retrovisions, all white leather skirts and hollow-body guitars played fiercely well as the quartet fired up tight, poppy punk compromised somewhat by a weak vocal mix.

When the Cramps took over--yes!--there was that spat cork again, arcing into the third row. Had no idea it was a ritual. An older, maybe slightly drunker Lux still gyrated horrifically, growled in his signature, muppety falsetto and charmed fans with the oddly warm overtones of his vacancy. Most everything played was new or recent. No stripping down to a g-string this time, but we did get flashed full-frontally by the guy whose place in music is a kitschy, plastic vampire's throne somewhere between Iggy Pop and G.G. Allin--closer to the former, to be sure, and yet there's something in Lux's big eyes, something that still withholds any assurance he won't start slinging broken glass, and who can resist that spell?--Dave Surratt