The Cramps - Live at Napa State Mental Hospital

Starring:Nick Knox, Poison Ivy Rorschach, Bryan Gregory, Lux Interior, The Cramps
Studio: Music Video Dist.
Product Type: DVD

Product Description

LIVE AT NAPA STATE MENTAL HOSPITAL (CRAMPS)

Customer Reviews:

Superior Interior.......2007-03-14

You can't tell the musicians from the audience!!! That's the charm of this 22 minute piece of, dare I say it, madness that incredibly was allowed to be filmed. Not exactly something you would want to leave in a time capsule for people to later base their knowledge of the 1970s on [you would need to leave a rather detailed written explanation with it]. This is The Cramps at home.

"What hath God wrought?".......2006-09-05

Not everyone will love this video, but it deserves wide viewing. This is not simply for rock freaks, video oddity collectors, or Cramps completists, although all of the above will add to the five star pile.

What is compelling about this is that *this*concert*actually*happened* and it is empirical proof reality is far stranger than any imagined fiction.

1978. Punk band. Mental hospital. Stoneage video camera. Zeitgeist and ancient Dionysian rite all wrapped up in a throb and ooze. The codine and crank speedball crowd meets the Thorozine and Lithium set.

It.Really.Happened.

The obvious complaints that this is a very short video, has poor production quality, and is padded out with ghastly useless filler is simply overwhelmed by the sheer wonder that it exists at all.

"What hath God wrought?" the first message of the age of electronic communication age once had an observation on its continuingly unfolding time line of this moment.

The Cramps finally gave Morse an answer that even the deaf and insane could hear.

And feel.

Rare Cramps.......2006-02-27

Raw, primitive footage of early Cramps live! They are performing before mental patients, and at times, they look a little nervous. The audience seemed to enjoy themselves, and had no problem grabbing the microphone and joining the act! Thought I was watching a real life Marat/Sade here.

Video and sound are bad however. You have to see this as "archival" footage. An interesting watch for fans. Disk also includes previews of other video products the company sells. Underground and punk groups you may not even heard of.

Who thought of this?.......2005-08-26

Who in the world thought that The Cramps (I cut your head off and put it in my TV set) playing at a mental hospital would be a good idea? I dunno, I doubt anything like that would happen in this day & age, not that there's any bands like The Cramps around anymore. The footage of this is pretty rough, as the box says, and Lux Interior spends a lot of time wrestling the microphone away from would-be stars, but this gives you a good idea of what the original Cramps (with Bryan Gregory & Nick Knox) were like. I love the Cramps but unfortunately the footage of this event is over before you know it and all that's left to watch is some shameless self-promotion from Target Video, some of which is interesting to see (like Crime playing at San Quentin, another lapse in good sense from somebody), but a lot of which is which is just plain irritating like a long segment featuring (I think) Non, a one man show wherein this guy bangs on a lot of pieces of metal and rattles lots of "found" objects, at which point I'd had enough and turned it off. The Cramps are great but it's hard not to feel like you've just bought 20 minutes of music and 40 minutes of advertisements.

The Essence of Rock!.......2005-08-05

The setting is perfect. The band is perfect. The sense of chaos is REAL! It's what rock used to be before everything was so staged and predictable (thanks to bands like U2, The Stones, R.E.M.- all groups I do like). Only Iggy and The Cramps still represent the raw power rock once was, back in the day. Green Day writes nice songs, but I go along with this line from The Cramp's song (and I am 52): "You ain't no punk you punk! You wanna talk about the REAL junk." This is it.

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