Stay Sick!

After recruiting bass player Candy Del Mar, thus allowing Poison Ivy to get back to her guitar playing full time, the Cramps recorded their fourth studio album, STAY SICK. This record continues the tradition of Lux Interior's hysterically (in both senses) juvenile, and decidedly non-PC obsession with women (at least as far as they are presented in the most B-movie sense imaginable)--he even appears, along with drummer Nick Knox, in full drag on the cover art.
Standouts include a sort-of-faithful cover of Carl Perkins "Her Love Rubbed Off", which appears in both studio and live versions, and a pair of propulsive rockers, "All Women are Bad"--with pounding drums and Interior spouting some amusing Biblical references in his patented jerking vocal style--and "Journey to the Centre of a Girl"--a sort of companion to A DATE WITH ELVIS's "What's Inside a Girl", with Ivy's heavily-echoed guitar leading the way. Other highlights include a scorching, if somewhat bizarrely chosen, cover of the blues standard "Shortnin' Bread", the straight-ahead (as far as the Cramps can be straight-ahead) rockabilly of "Daisys Up Your Butterfly", and the distorted, surf homage "Saddle Up a Buzz Buzz". STAY SICK is a solid entry into the Cramps canon.|