Kristy
Marlana Wallace (born February 20, 1953), known as Poison Ivy or Poison
Ivy Rorschach, is a guitarist, songwriter, arranger, producer, and
occasional vocalist who co-founded the American band The Cramps.
In 1972, while attending Sacramento State College, Wallace met future Cramps singer Lux Interior. In 1974, they moved first to Lux Interior's hometown of Akron, Ohio, and then to New York City. In 1976, as part of the emerging punk rock scene, they began performing as the Cramps. Their music is mostly in rockabilly form, played at varying tempos, with a minimal drumkit. An integral part of the early Cramps sound was dual guitars, without a bassist. The focus of their songs' lyrical content and their image was camp humor, sexual double-entendre, and retro horror/sci-fi b-movie iconography. Their sound was heavily influenced by early rockabilly, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll like Link Wray and Hasil Adkins, 1960s surf music acts such as The Ventures and Dick Dale, 1960s garage rock artists like The Standells, The Trashmen, and The Sonics, as well as the post-glam/early punk scene from which they emerged, as well as citing Ricky Nelson as being an influence during numerous interviews. They also were influenced to a degree by the Ramones and Screamin' Jay Hawkins, who were an influence for their style of theatrical horror-blues. In turn, The Cramps have influenced countless subsequent bands in the garage, punk and revival rockabilly styles, and helped create the psychobilly genre. "Psychobilly" was a term coined by The Cramps, although Lux Interior maintained that the term did not describe their own style.
The lineup in 1976 was Poison Ivy Rorschach, Lux Interior, Bryan Gregory (guitar), and his sister Pam "Balam" Gregory (drums). In a short period of time, the Cramps changed drummers twice; Miriam Linna (later of Nervus Rex, The Zantees, and The A-Bones and co-owner of Norton Records) replaced Pam Balam, and Nick Knox (formerly with the Electric Eels) replaced Linna in September 1977. In the late 1970s, the Cramps briefly shared a rehearsal space with The Fleshtones, and performed regularly in New York at clubs such as CBGB and Max's Kansas City, releasing two independent singles produced by Alex Chilton at Ardent Studios in Memphis in 1977 before being signed by Miles Copeland III to the young I.R.S. Records label. Their first tour of Great Britain was as supporting act to The Police on that band's first UK tour promoting Outlandos d'Amour.
In
June 1978, they gave a landmark free concert for patients at the
California State Mental Hospital in Napa, recorded on a Sony Portapak
video camera by the San Francisco collective Target Video and later
released as Live at Napa State Mental Hospital. Once back to the east
coast, they played the revamped 1940s swing club "The Meadowbrook" in
New Jersey, which had a huge stage and dance floor. The Cramps were the
featured act, with opening set by Nozon and The Smiths. Next they
recorded two singles in New York City, which were later re-released on
their 1979 Gravest Hits EP, before Chilton brought them back that year
to Memphis to record their first full-length album, Songs The Lord
Taught Us, at Phillips Recording, operated by former Sun Records label
owner Sam Phillips.
The
Cramps relocated to Los Angeles in 1980 and hired guitarist Kid Congo
Powers of The Gun Club. While recording their second LP, ''Psychedelic
Jungle'', the band and Miles Copeland began to dispute royalties and
creative rights. The ensuing court case prevented them from releasing
anything until 1983, when they recorded Smell of Female live at New
York's Peppermint Lounge; Kid Congo Powers subsequently departed. Mike
Metoff of The Pagans (cousin of Nick Knox) was the final second
guitarist – albeit only live – of the Cramps' pre-bass era. He
accompanied them on an extensive European tour in 1984 (that had been
cancelled twice because they could not find a suitable guitarist) which
included four sold out nights at the Hammersmith Palais. They also
recorded performances of "Thee Most Exalted Potentate of Love" and "You
Got Good Taste" which were broadcast on 'The Midsummer Night's Tube
1984.' Smell of Female peaked at No. 74 in the UK Albums Chart.
In
1985 the Cramps recorded a one-off track for the horror movie The
Return of the Living Dead called "Surfin' Dead", on which Ivy played
bass as well as guitar. With the release of 1986's A Date With Elvis,
the Cramps permanently added a bass guitar to the mix, but had trouble
finding a suitable player, so Ivy temporarily filled in as the band's
bassist. Fur (Jennifer Dixon) joined them on the world tour to promote
the album. Their popularity in the UK was at its peak as evidenced by
the six nights at Hammersmith in London, three at the Odeon (as well as
many other sell out dates throughout the UK) and then three at the
Palais when they returned from the continent. Each night of the tour
opened with the band coming on one at a time each: Knox, Fur, Ivy and
then Lux before launching into their take on Elvis' "Heartbreak Hotel".
The album featured what was to become a predominating theme of their
work from here on: a move away from the B-movie horror focus to an
increased emphasis on sexual double entendre. The album met with
differing fates on either side of the Atlantic: in Europe, it sold over
250,000 copies, while in the U.S. the band had difficulty finding a
record company prepared to release it until 1990. It also included their
first UK Singles Chart hit: "Can Your Pussy Do The Dog?"
It was not until 1986 that the Cramps found a suitable permanent bass player: Candy del Mar (of Satan's Cheerleaders), who made her recorded debut on the raw live album RockinnReelininAucklandNewZealandxxx, which was followed by the studio album Stay Sick in 1990. It spent one week at No. 62 in the UK Albums Chart in February 1990. Knox left the band in 1991. The Cramps hit the Top 40 in the UK for the first and only time with "Bikini Girls with Machine Guns"; Ivy posed as such both on the cover of the single and in the promotional video for the song.
The Cramps went on to record more albums and singles through the 1990s and 2000s, for various labels. In honor of the excess of The Cramps, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has on display a shattered bass drum head that Lux's head went through during a live show. On January 10, 2001, Bryan Gregory died at Anaheim Memorial Medical Center of complications following a heart attack. He was 49. In 2002, The Cramps released their final album, Fiends of Dope Island, on their own label, Vengeance Records. They played their final shows in Europe in the summer of 2006 and their very last live show was 4 November 2006 at the Marquee Theater in Tempe, Arizona. On February 4, 2009, Lux Interior died at the Glendale Memorial Hospital after suffering an aortic dissection which, contrary to initial reports about a pre-existing condition, was "sudden, shocking and unexpected".
