Lux Interior

By: David Smay
October 21, 2010

Step right this way, ladies and gents! See Erick Lee Purkhiser, an innocent child from Akron, Ohio, whose mental faculties were disturbed by Ghoulardi’s late-night Shock Theater movies and the offbeat radio emanations of Pete “Mad Daddy” Myers! Watch as Purkhiser transforms before your very eyes into LUX INTERIOR (1946-2009), a paragon of perversity who, along with partner Poison Ivy, remade rock and roll in his own bestial image — a music conceived in sin and dredged through the foulest depths of the human psyche! Often imitated, never duplicated, none can match the carnal depravity of The Cramps! The wanton gyrations, the reverb oscillations, the frantic tantrum of their mind-searing music! You will actually see him cry ninety-six tears from ninety-six eyes, and witness the braces on his fangs. You will wither beneath the dominating gaze of Ivy, thrill at Lux’s strangely compelling vocal utterances! Learn things undreamt of in your petty philosophies! Step right this way…

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PUNK, POST-PUNK & ALTERNATIVE on HILOBROW: Joey Ramone | Dez Cadena | Jello Biafra | HR | Mike Watt | Vivienne Westwood | Iggy Pop | D. Boon | John Lydon | Henry Rollins | Palmolive | Plastic Bertrand | Kira Roessler | Lisa Carver | Frank Black | Ari Up | Gary Panter | Mike Watt | Ian Curtis | Paul Simonon | Darby Crash | Penelope Houston | Exene Cervenka | Sid Vicious | Andrew Eldritch | Kate Pierson | Richard Hell | Paul Westerberg | Lux Interior | Ian Dury | Stiv Bators | Tom Verlaine | Colin Newman | Johnny Thunders | Poison Ivy | Green Gartside | Lydia Lunch | Mark E. Smith | David Byrne | Debbie Harry | Captain Sensible | Mark Mothersbaugh | Kim Gordon | ALSO: The Original Generation X (1954–1963) and the birth of DIY | The Original Stooge | Origin of the Pogo | Shocking Blocking: Rock’n’Roll High School | Punk fanzines from the 1970s | Post-Punk and New Wave on HiLobrow

On his or her birthday, HiLobrow irregularly pays tribute to one of our high-, low-, no-, or hilobrow heroes. Also born this date: Ursula K. LeGuin.

READ MORE about members of the Blank Generation (1944-53).