The Cramps : Drug Train
In September of 1980 IRS Records released The Cramps' Alex Chilton produced single "Drug Train" in the UK, backed with a cover of Charlie Feathers' "I Can't Hardly Stand It". This is the last track to feature the cigarette swallowing Bryan Gregory on guitar. It sounds like a party, but apparently Gregory was more interested in either drugs or the occult. Depends on whom you ask. In December of 1980 Kid Congo Powers, a former president of The Ramones fan club, would join the band.
In the US the single was "Garbageman" b/w "Drug Train".
I like the way a Otto Luck reviews the single on Rate Your Music:
When a clearly-agitated and bug-eyed Lux adamantly proclaims, “You ain’t no punk, you punk” to kick off “Garbageman,” it’s probably best to nod your head and say, “Yessir!”, thanking God and all the muses that he’s going to let you live. For now.
It’s just about impossible to overrate this rigomortized Cramps mind splitter, which surfs out of nowheresville on the back of the sinister dark-hearted twelve strings of Bryan Gregory and Poison Ivy Rorschach and the jungle pulse laid down by Nick Knox, perhaps the coolest drummer EVER. It wouldn’t surprise me if autopsies of all three revealed battery acid in their veins.
Spiritedly rudimentary, “Garbageman” is deliberate musical primitivism from a band who look to be cursed with bad genes and broken chromosomes and sound like they invented whatever genre you may want to lump them under. And if they didn’t, well…you tell ‘em, not me.
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