Los Angeles Noir Comes to Glendale

LOCAL culture vultures know Denise Hamilton for her work as a journalist and mystery writer. She's also edited two anthologies of crime fiction, Los Angeles Noir and its sequel, for Akashic Press.

The city of Glendale has just chosen the first book, made up mostly of new writing, as part of its One City/ One Book program. (The book includes pieces by Gary Phillips, Naomi Hirahawa, Michael Connelly, Janet Fitch and others.)

Here is my interview with Hamilton when LA Noir came out -- she speaks quite intelligently about the importance of tradition while recognizing that the changing art form and much changed city make it feeble to fall back on familiar fedora-and-dahlia imagery.

Death of a Cramp

Well folks, normally i would not offer two posts on punk rock in the same week, much less the same day, but these aren't normal times.

Today, Lux Interior, lead singer for the band The Cramps, died (fine LAT story here). ohio native erick purkhiser became part of the CBGB punk scene and moved to california. (when i bought a house four years ago i realized i lived one street over from him and cramps guitarist poison ivy -- on the edge, natch, of one of LA's biggest cemeteries) ... the cramps combined punk, camp, rockabilly, surf guitar, sex, horror movie shtick and bizarre popcult references -- it was screamin' jay hawkins meets the ventures with punk-rock force. here they are with "tear it up."

lux reportedly died of "a preexisting heart condition" at the age of either 60 or 62.

they cramps were among the first bands i discovered as a teenager moving on from my obsession with the beatles and dylan into a harder-edged and more contemporary sound... tho the world of the cramps was never my world. i remember the excellent liner notes to either "gravest hits" or "songs the lord taught us," which described the band's germinating in "the cold blue rays of 50s television," or something. they captured the weird irony i came to love about the LA scene.

lux, RIP, we hardly knew ya!!

Photo credit Flickr user 17