Product Description

Initially released as a six-track live EP in 1983, the re-issue of SMELL OF FEMALE contains three bonus songs. Opening with a stunning rendition of "The Most Exalted Potentate of Love", this set presents the Cramps in all of their sleazy glory. The guitar interplay of Poison Ivy and Kid Congo Powers, along with Lux Interior's cheerfully sneering vocals and Nick Knox's relentlessly pounding drumming, elevates these songs far from the world of novelty into which they could easily have sunk.
Ivy's searing lead guitar is the highlightof "You've Got Good Taste", which is dedicated to "all you Gucci bag carrier's out there". "Psychotic Reaction" features a wicked, high-speed harmonica solo set against scale-climbing guitars. Among the added bonus tracks are a version of the extremely obnoxious "She Said", with very different, andapparently improvised, spoken-word verses, and "Surfin' Dead", a slow-tempo twist, recorded in the studio, with heavilyechoed guitars. The latter contains a prime example of Cramps-style double entendres (along with a borrowed lyric from "New Kind of Kick", an early track by the band). If you wantto know what the Cramps sound like live, this collection isfor you.

Track Listing

1. Most Exalted Potentate Of Love
2. You Got Good Taste
3. Call Of The Wighat
4. Faster Pussycat
5. I Ain't Nothin' But A Gorehound
6. Psychotic Reaction

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #37758 in Music
• Released on: 1991-02-25
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

High energy rockabilly garage - 10/10
If you already own anything by the Cramps and like it, then buy this!! Along with Songs The Lord Taught Us, this is the essential Cramps purchase. It's all fantastic stuff, but 'The Most Exalted Potentate Of Love' and 'Call Of The Wighat' are particularly mind-blowing, while the bonus studio track 'Surfin' Dead' is classic Cramps. High energy, fuzz-guitar, wild, dirty and darn-right crazy rock'n'roll – this is the muts nuts!!!!

If you like rockabilly, 50's rock'n'roll, surf, 60's garage - then buy this cd - it is all of these...soaked in drug-fuelled b-horror movie mayhem.

“You’ got good taste,
You’ got good taste,
You come here,
Sit on my......lap!!”

Classic Cramps
Somewhere I still have the picture-disc LP of this album but like all LP's it rarely sees the light of day and I was reluctant to play pic-discs too often anyhow. Now, 16 years later as a 'true grownup' with 'responsibilities' it is fantastic to be able to crank up the Cramps and remember it all.

This is a live set from the 80's which captured the atmosphere of the Cramps gigs perfectly in my opinion, taken at a time after they stopped taking themselves too seriously but before they moved on to more advanced self-parody.

Cramping your style
This live EP, recorded at famed NYC punk venue The Peppermint Lounge, was released in 1983, bridging the lengthy gap between The Cramps' second and third albums. It's a bit of a classic in its own right, however. Taking its title from the voiceover prologue to Russ Meyer's cult film 'Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!', 'Smell of Female' includes a cover of the film's hilarious theme song, along with four original songs and a cover of The Count Five's trash-rock hit 'Psychotic Reaction'. The best tracks are 'You Got Good Taste' and 'I Ain't Nothin' But A Gorehound', but The Cramps deliver energetically throughout, and there are no really weak songs. The CD release features three bonus tracks, including the studio cut 'Surfin' Dead', which was used on the soundtrack of 'Return of the Living Dead'. This is the best available document of the live sound of The Cramps in their heyday, and as such is highly recommended. The cover shots of Poison Ivy Rorschach shaking a tail feather are a nice bonus!