„ ...... „ 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