New Kind Of Kick

As a kid, I rarely had the opportunity to listen to a band or a record before buying it. It was kind of a thrill to see a record that I'd never heard of before in a store, and use three criteria (cover art, what the band looked like, and record label) to determine if it was worth the gamble to purchase. Often times this process worked out, but there were a few times that young Mike was left with an album that left him wondering what the fuck he had purchased. One of those times was when I bought the cassette for Bad Music For Bad People from The Cramps.

I saw the cover for this album in the racks at the record store around 1987... and with that creepy face artwork, and the font for the band name, I thought that was in for some evil shit. What I imagined, and what The Cramps sounded like, did not match up at all. Still, as a kid with a limited budget for buying records, I was stuck with that tape, and even though it wasn't metal, I made myself listen to it and try to find something redeemable in the music... and there was a kind of depravity there that kept my attention and lyrics like "I cut your head off and put it in my tv set" were fun enough that I would play it for a laugh with my friends. So yeah, I came to enjoy that cassette.

I hadn't really given The Cramps much of a thought since those days when the Bad Music cassette was new to me. I've been opening my mind and enjoying different kinds of music the past couple of years... stuff that I would have told you with the utmost confidence that I hated... and when The Cramps came up on my radar last year, I thought that it was the perfect time to revisit the band. Man, I would just throw Spotify on a Cramps shuffle playlist and not hit a single bad song. So fun and so good. When I saw that Tim's collection included the vinyl for Bad Music Bad People, I had to make it mine. Also, I feel like I might need more Cramps vinyl this year.