The Cramps Lost 1977 Album 'Gravest Gravy' To Finally Be Released
(JMPR) Greetings. Henry Rollins here. Weeks ago, we told you about the formation of The Cramps Inc., that restarted The Cramps' label Vengeance Records, created official merchandise, and ventured into the vaults to unleash unheard recordings of this amazing band.
Our first archival release, Gravest Gravy, will be coming out August 21st. Additionally, a limited edition 7", artfully titled More Gravy, featuring TV Set (alternate vocal) and Can't Find My Mind (alternate mix), will be released in September (date TBD) - details forthcoming.
As I stated in the previous press release, Ian MacKaye and I, operating as RAM Prod. (Rollins and MacKaye), are working on behalf of The Cramps Inc., coming up with releases pulled from the Cramps audio archive. We are aligned with Inner Ear Studios in Arlington, VA and Infrasonic Sound in Nashville, TN. The two of us are going to keep working steadily at developing potential releases, running the concepts by Cramps Inc., And if we get the clearance to keep going, we will. We'll leave the release dates to Cramps Inc.
As soon as we had cut the lacquers for Gravest Gravy, and More Gravy, we got to work on our next two Cramps releases, slated for 2027. In the spirit of under-promising, and over-delivering, I can say that the first of these two scheduled monstrosities is mastered, the second one is almost finished. We will connect with you when the snow melts next year to inform you about what's next. At this time, I can tell you that since these two projects are now stabilized, we're moving on to get another extremely cool Cramps project underway to completion.
Several days ago, we all got copies of Gravest Gravy. It sounds great and looks awesome. We can't wait for Cramps fans all over the world to get their copies and get them spinning. We are extremely excited that Gravest Gravy is done and came out so well.
If you want a refresher on the origins of Gravest Gravy, please find the story from the previous press release below.
Out of an abundance of respect and affection for the Cramps, their amazing legacy, and their extraordinarily enthusiastic global fan base, we started work on all of this several months ago in relative secrecy.
Not only do we have a completely mind-blowing first release to kick things off, we have other projects in various states of completion that we will announce when the time is right. All of these are from source masters and previously unreleased. We will update you on upcoming releases.
Now, about this first dose of Vengeance, here are some facts:
In October 1977, the Cramps, who were at that time, Lux Interior on vocals, Poison Ivy on guitar, Bryan Gregory on guitar, and Nick Knox on drums, ventured into Ardent Studios with the extraordinarily talented musician and producer, Alex Chilton. These sessions were responsible for the first two Vengeance Records releases, both permanently disfiguring the music world in 1978.
Surfin' Bird / The Way I Walk
Human Fly / Domino
In 1979, young British degenerates were treated to a five track 12" EP by the Cramps called Gravest Hits, which featured all four tracks released in the USA, along with another from the October 1977 sessions, a great channeling of Ricky Nelson's hit Lonesome Town. From there, the band released their first LP, Songs The Lord Taught Us, again working with Alex Chilton, and went onward, releasing records and touring all over until the sad passing of Lux in 2009.
What Cramps fans might not know, was at Ardent, the band had planned to record their song TV Set to be their first A side, along with another track or tracks. Alex told them that he liked to have a band play every song they knew and the best of the batch would be committed to vinyl. This was fantastic advice, and luckily for us, that's what the Cramps did. This is how Lonesome Town found its way to Gravest Hits. But, there was much more to the story.
In the late 1980s, Lux and Ivy endeavored to release more recordings from the October 1977 sessions. It was to be titled Gravest Gravy. It was a record for the fans, a journey back to Memphis, back to the first Cramps records, that, try as it might, the world has been unable to heal from. Lux and Ivy mixed several tracks between June 14 and 30, 1989 at Present Time Recorders, in North Hollywood. Alex mixed a few tracks in Memphis. The album had a title, a cover by the great Stephanie Chernikowski, who passed away recently, but for reasons lost to time, Gravest Gravy was shelved.
In 2026, we sought to change that. It was apparent that this record absolutely needed to be with the fans. A team, still severely cramped from initial contact with the band, began to form and got to work.
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