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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 25, 1997)
„ ...... „ Photo courtesy of epitaph PSYCHOBILLY VETERANS The Cramps, still together after more than 20 years, bring their Southern-influenced rock to the Ranch Bowl Friday. Musical Midol The Cramps take inside track on tour By Bret Schulte Senior Reporter Lux Interior, lead singer of The Cramps, doesn’t understand why peo ple accuse his group of misogyny. After all, cramming his feet into a size - 12 woman’s stiletto heel hurts no one but himself. “We are so far from being misogy nist,” Interior said. “We’re helping to liberate people from a lot of things - from their uptight inhibitions and their other problems. People for the past 20 years have come up to us and said, ‘You’ve saved my life.’” With songs like “Naked Girl Falling Down the Stairs,” “Swing the Blue-Eyed Rabbit” and “Like a Bad Girl Should,” The Cramps have always countered accusations of misogyny with proclamations of sex ual liberation and typical rock ‘n’ roll woman worship. Besides, Interior says, the band’s lead guitarist is a woman, and his wife. “People find it unusual that I am in a band and I write songs about girls,” he said. “But that has been going on forever.” Granted, but unlike some other male rockers whose lyrics typically revolve around breaking up, getting UJILMtMM'Jia' 1 back together or gushing about the eye color of their beloved, The Cramps are curious about a different side to females - like the inside. On “What’s Inside a Girl,” Interior muses, accompanied with frothing guitar and pounding drums, about the composi tion of the female gender. The group is notorious for its almost always sex ualized imagery, which is both shock ingly humorous and dark in its explo rations of the subversive and recreant. As Interior says in disbelief, “Because I think women are sexy, I hate them?” ■. Friday, the Epitaph records recording artists will be trotting its vinyl-tight and female-focused rocka billy act at the Ranch Bowl for an all ages show, ( A notoriously raucous and signa ture West Coast band, Interior says that Nebraska is familiar ground for The Cramps, which has played Omaha’s Ranch Bowl three times in the group’s 20 years. “I remember one time it was real ly empty when we played there,” he said. “But the crowd was really good.” Interior believes that “An American band” like The Cramps should be embraced anywhere its spiked heels may tread, citing its Southern rock influence and artistic conviction. Nothing’s shocking A rock ‘n’ roll anomaly back in 1976 when it formed in New York, The Cramps delivered rockabilly to most of the world out of its need for punk and love of garage bands of the ’50s. “An amazing amount of rockabil ly came out in the ’50s,” Interior said. “It was all pretty obscure stuff except for a handful of singles; this music was being forgotten.” Since the late ’70s, Interior, gui tarist Poison Ivy and a host of rotating bassists and drummers have simulta neously impressed and shocked pop music culture with their sexually charged punk rock, ingrained infatua tion for trailer-culture tack, and cal lous rock ‘n’ roll bravado - a legacy that, according to Interior, is question able at best. “Rock ‘n’ roll, like art, is sup posed to shock people out of their bor ing, lazy, dull, stupid existences,” Please see CRAMPS on 10 Second ‘Kombat’ film just plain horrible Movie lacks ability to entertain By Gerry Beltz Film Critic Okey dokey, boys and girls, today’s lesson is “movies that never should have been made,” and our guest is ... “Mortal Kombat: Annihilation!” Let’s have a round of forced applause for this piece of cinematic swill. Now, the original “Mortal Kombat” film wasn’t exactly a candidate for Mensa graduates either, but at least it had some raw entertainment value if you took it down to the bones. There were actually a few humorous spots, as well as some decent fight scenes. But, boys and girls, sadly, the new one is just ... nothing. It picks up right from where the other one left off and goes absolutely nowhere. And it does it so quickly! Maybe that is the one good thing we can all say about this film! It has no point whatsoever, and it hits that point faster than a horny hummingbird’s heartbeat. Our five heroes from the ariginal - Liu Kang, Sonya Blade, Kitana and Johnny Cage - - have retttrrted'to- BaftfrhWd afi celebrating when bigger, badder bad guy Shao Khan shows up with a bajillion ninja wannabes and some new faces (if you don’t play the video game). These surprises include a satyr, a four-armed beast woman, and Sindel, who just happens to be Kitana’s mom. A TtmFatft =. Title: “Mortal Kombat: Annihilation” , ^ / Stars: Robin Shou, Brian Thompson, James Remar, Talisa Soto Director: John Leonetti Rating: PG-13 (video-game violence) Grade: D Five Words: Festering, rotten, pathetic, ridiculous garbage. (Two more surprises for the audience - first, James Remar takes over the role of thunder god Rayden, formerly played by mas ter thespian Christopher Lambert. The second surprise? Remar is a worse actor Than Lambert, if that can be believed.) If Shao Khan fs Wfefe»TB soon, the Earth woiildf fall mtb a - deep, dark despair and succumb ; to the evil overlord of Shao Khan, yadda yadda yadda ... well, you know the drill - the standard “two worlds merging” garbage where he is the leader of both, blah blah blah. This movie is a waste of time, space, energy, you name it. The fight scenes are deplorable, and Bpi ;tm The soundtrack, while designed to get the adrenaline pumping, is an hour of techno-crap not wor thy of further mention. All in all, boys and girls. “Mortal Kombat: Annihilation” can be described with one-word: Can you say, “cowpie?'” I knew you could. Aaron Steckelberg/DN
