Parade Of Great Guitarists: Poison Ivy of The Cramps

She’s the Queen of the Psychedelic Jungle, Punkabilly Rebel, and Garage Goddess. And was The Cramps’ leader, though the planet hardly acknowledged it.

“Nobody ever talks to me about music or guitar,” ran the one-time complaint of The Cramps’ ice queen guitarist Poison Ivy Rorschach, born Kristy Marlana Wallace in San Bernardino, California on February 20, 1953. “I’m the queen of rock ’n’ roll, and for this not to be recognized is pure sexism.”

Ivy wasn’t wrong. The world was focused on The Cramps’ extrovert Iggy Presley frontman, Lux Interior, the other half of the power couple behind the band. They were so busy zeroing in on the madman in PVC, writhing in the grip of the band’s demonic punkabilly/garage stomp, they didn’t notice the music was generated from the smooth brow of the stockstill guitarist oozing frozen disdain. It was as if Keely Smith led the band, not Louis Prima. Well, if Prima wore PVC and had a penchant for gettin’ nekkid, that is.

Ivy had many of the same obsessions as her future partner Lux, born Erick Lee Purkhiser in Akron, Ohio in 1946. The music spanned the spectrum from '60s garage to Sun Records  outtakes. Pulp paperbacks in battered condition, particularly those drenched in lurid sex and violence, were among the reading materials. These, along with midnight B-movie creature features and bloody pre-code EC Comics titles like Tales From The Crypt, fueled a certain fascination. But rockabilly was the roux at The Cramps’ sonic gumbo’s base, which hardly changed over their 30 years, save for introducing bass guitar in the early ‘80s. 

“We had a mission to move to New York and become the new New York Dolls,” Lux said of his and Rorscach’s initial quest, upon relocating to NYC from Akron, Ohio, after they’d met at Sacramento State College. “We were influenced by their glamor, two-guitar assault and firm grasp of R&B, but we thought nobody – from the early Stones and Yardbirds to the Dolls and T. Rex — had included the most deadly ingredient of all: rockabilly.”

Once they’d relocated to NYC, obtaining jobs as a record store clerk (Lux) and a dominatrix (Ivy), they set about creating that mutant Dolls-oid garage-abilly with creepy polka dot Flying V guitarist Bryan Gregory [birth name: Greg Beckerleg], all pockmarked, fuzz-toned insolence. There was also a series of drummers — Gregory’s sister Pam Balam, future A-Bones/Norton Records honcho Miriam Linna, herself a fount of rock ‘n’ roll greatness; and ex-electric eels member Nick Knox, who was the one who stuck. Ivy already cracked the whip, assuming musical director duties. In time, she would be The Cramps’ producer and manager. It was largely unspoken, but Ivy was the bandleader.

“If something bad [happened], Ivy would snap her fingers and point and we’d have to beat someone up,” said Gregory’s eventual replacement, Kid Congo Powers. “It was like being in a gang– like a juvenile delinquent band– and it was great.” 

One of the initial Cramps rules she laid down: Chuck Berry was verboten.

“We loved Chuck Berry, but we had a rule that we wouldn’t do Chuck Berry licks,” Ivy explained to Guitar World. “All rock ’n’ roll from the '60s, going into the '70s, was based on Chuck Berry, at the exclusion of any other influence. So even though we loved Chuck, we decided to do all we could to not have that influence. There was too much, y’know?”

She has a point. Even in punk, all roads lead back to Chuck, as filtered through Johnny Thunders.

“Yeah, and it’s astounding,” she agreed.  “You never would hear Link Wray influences or Duane Eddy. We couldn’t figure it out because it was pure rock ’n’ roll. It’s as monumental as Chuck Berry, and for it to be ignored seemed strange. So to this day, it’s a rule: we will not throw in a Chuck Berry riff.

“Link Wray is all about The Chord,” she continued. “A monumental chord and the drama of it. It’s very haunting, stark. He had that thing I call ‘the grind’ – that really fast, grinding, dead strumming. With Link Wray it’s about the chords and the drama. It sounds dangerous to me, it sounds spooky.

“With Duane Eddy, it’s all about The Note — a single note, just the ultimate twang. Duane Eddy also sounds spooky. They both have drama. He had those backing vocals that sound like they’re ghosts, y’know, from hell. 

“They just sound like they’re dead to me. I always pictured it like they’d been on a chicken run or something and got killed and now there they are, howling away on Duane Eddy records. His early stuff like ‘Ramrod’ and 'Stalkin’’ was just rough, dangerous hoodlum music. That’s who bought that stuff.

“Another guitarist I love is Ike Turner. He produced a lot, and he considered himself more of a piano player, but his guitar playing was totally unique. He must’ve got a Stratocaster the day it came out, and he went nuts with the vibrato bar. It’s insane. If you see pictures, he has these really long fingers and huge hands wrapped around a skinny Stratocaster neck.”

Lux Interior might have been the face of The Cramps, the walking, screaming obscenity that grabbed all the headlines. He defined the term “unpredictable,” writhing around like — as disciples The Gun Club once described him — “an Elvis from Hell.” His PVC get-ups usually ended up shredded, only bikini underwear remaining…if even that! He might exit through the stage, ripping a splintery hole through the floorboards with his bare hands. Or lay across the monitors stark naked for a full five minutes, rubbing his crotch-level microphone across them as they screamed feedback, until long-serving drummer Nick Knox returned, draping a towel over his shoulders and escorting him offstage like a perverted James Brown.

But make no mistake – Poison Ivy was the fuel that powered that engine of sonic depravity. Her guitar work was a perfect storm – the raw, snotty edge of punk fused with the raw, untamed spirit of rockabilly. It was like taking a shot of cheap whiskey and snorting a line of razor blades – pure, uncut adrenaline, filtered through thick fuzz, reverb and tremolo. It powered songs like “I Was A Teenage Werewolf,” which used Bonanza star Michael Landon’s mid-’50s B exploitation flick to riff on the pain of adolescence: “You know, I have puberty rights/And I have puberty wrongs/No one understood me/All my teeth were so long.” Later, it was the sensual undertow The Cramps used to explore our curious relationship with sex: “I'm the king of the jungle/They call me Tiger, man/I'm gonna do the bird/If I can, if I can/My bird can do the dog/If your pussy can.”

Ivy’s equipment choices also reflected her desire to honor rock ‘n’ roll’s roots while avoiding its cliches. No Les Pauls or Strats for her! She informed Vintage Guitar her initial guitarsenal consisted of a pair of obscure instruments from The Great White North: “I had this kind of rare Canadian guitar called Lewis. Actually, I had two of them. I bought the first on 48th Street in New York City in 1976, then the second in Vancouver in 1983. They’re both solidbodies with a Bigsby-like vibrato bar, and they both weigh a ton. One unusual characteristic about both of them is that the necks are flat and wide, like a classical guitar. I wish I could find out more about them. When I bought the first one, the salesman told me it was a Canadian make. Well, the headstock on my main Lewis got snapped off at a concert in Paris. There was this riot, and a security guy grabbed it really fast… Actually, what broke it was him falling down the stairs with it!

“That’s when I got my Gretsch, and I never turned back. That was ’85. I got a 1958 Gretsch 6120 and there’s just no going back. I’ve got other guitars including a Gibson ES-295 and some guitars I almost never touch. I have a Telecaster that I love. It’s great, but it’s just not my style. The Gretsch is my ultimate style. I have a 6120 reissue as a backup, for when I break a string. But the original Gretsch is my main guitar, and that’s all I play. It weighs a ton and I have heavy gauge strings on it, so it’s a struggle. But it just sounds so damn good! I hesitate to take it out because it’s worth more than the reissues, but I just can’t get that sound with anything else. I’m too attached to it and it just kind of responds to me.” She channeled that responsiveness through a pair of Fender Pro Reverb amps live, and various small amps in the studio: “Those Fenders are roadworthy, but they’re too loud to record with. I play through small amps in the studio because the size doesn’t matter, just the overdrive and tone. For recording, I mainly play through a tiny Valco amp with one 10″ speaker. It just sounds great and it’s got a great reverb in it.” Her effects pedals included a Fulltone tremolo box, a Univox Super Fuzz, and “a Maxon delay for slapback,” alongside the Fenders’ built-in reverb and tremolo.

And thus it remained for much of their history. The Cramps were the sort who found things that worked for them and stuck with them forevermore. Why evolve when you’ve achieved perfection? Their phantasmic punkabilly (I refuse to use the term “psychobilly” to describe them, as it more fits music inspired by The Cramps, rather than their own peculiar whatsis) drove eight studio albums with nary a weak moment, as well as powering countless world tours. They quietly retired after stealthily playing their final gig  November 4, 2006 at Tempe, Arizona’s Marquee Theater. Three years later, on February 4, 2009, Lux Interior unexpectedly passed away at Glendale Memorial Hospital due to an aortic dissection. Initial reports suggested that he had a pre-existing condition, but this was later disputed. It felt like a tall, thin, PVC-clad hole had been ripped out of the heart of the universe. We would never see the likes of The Cramps again.

Certainly, Poison Ivy Rorschach has not been seen again. Kristy Wallace laid her creation to rest alongside her lifelong soulmate Lux Interior, as Erick Lee Purkhiser’s crypt was sealed. She continues living a private life, and why not? She gave everything to rock ‘n’ roll as Poison Ivy. It’s enough. She was a goddamned revolutionary, a sonic architect who built a world where horror movie soundtracks collided with ‘50s rock n' roll freakouts, and then with a burlesque show. The Cramps were the antithesis of everything that was polished and palatable in the music scene – a middle finger raised high with a sneer and a snarl. Poison Ivy redefined rock n' roll guitar and left a scorch mark on the face of music history. Let her reign as the heroine she was, the phantom menace behind one of the greatest bands to emerge from the punk rock gutter. Hail Poison Ivy! God save the queen!

Duane Eddy is dead at age 86

It was as I finished this Poison Ivy lovefest that word reached Napalm HQ that one of the guitar greats she mentioned as one of her profound influences, Arizona twangmeister Duane Eddy, died in Franklin, Tennessee at age 86. I nearly misspelled that “Teenessee.” Talk about your Freudian slips! Honestly, what the New York Times so dryly described as his “reverberant, staccato style of guitar playing that became known as twang” is as teenage and purely rock ‘n’ roll as the electric guitar gets. It’s as crucial as Link Wray’s power chords and Chuck Berry’s raunch. Until we can bring you a broader Parade Of Great Guitarists appreciation of Duane Eddy, perhaps next week, I recommend finding “Rebel Rouser” at your favorite streaming service, unless you already own that record. Which you should. Just crank it loud as it can go, and bask in the glory of all that reverb, all that twang. That’s the best way to honor and appreciate Duane Eddy.

Rockabilly Week ends here!

If the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, I must have one of the most well-paved highways to Hades ever built! This honestly was supposed to be a week of special rockabilly esteem. Thanks to The Book and the new part-time gig, every intended Rockabilly Week installment got dragged out over two weeks, into the next month, until their knuckles were skinned down to the bone. I appreciate the patience of all you diehard members of the Napalm Nation for sticking with me. I didn’t lose one of you as I broke yet another promise in service of finishing this fershlugginer book. But I sure have shed subscribers before then! Guess not everyone has patience for my shenanigans. So I appreciate all of you who’ve hung in there, as we turn to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming. In gratitude, I will extend the 19.55% Rockabilly Week Subscription Discount Offer another week, so those of you enjoying your free subscriptions can fully support The Tim “Napalm” Stegall Substack much more affordably. Or maybe you’re an all-new subscriber? Paying subscribers will have full access to our archives, where I will place the previous two years of posts upon The ‘Stack’s second anniversary. Paying Napalm Nation members will also be able to read The Tim “Napalm” Stegall Interviews, my novel-in-progress Every Father Kills His Son (Chapter Two coming soon!), and listen to the revival of my “Punk Boss Radio” podcast Radio Napalm, once I get off my well-upholstered backside and start producing it again. That’s an awful lot of goodness for $4 per month and $40 annually. And that will be your subscription rate for life! No switching  back to the regular rate when your sub renews! So take advantage of these savings now, while they last! It’s what Elvis would want you to do!

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