The Best Gig I Ever Saw: Sylvia Black Recalls Cramps and WeirdosMulti-faceted post-punk and psychedelic blues femme fatale Sylvia Black told us about her Cramps/Weirdos experience...

Sylvia Black: I probably haven't seen as many live shows as one might expect. Tough to choose between Betty Carter at Yoshi’s in Oakland, CA, and Retrovirus with Lydia Lunch in Brooklyn Summer of 2017. But I s’pose one of my most memorable concerts was one of my firsts. It was 1990, San Francisco Civic Center, New Year’s Eve. It was the party to go to that night in the Bay Area with the Red Hot Chili Peppers headlining. But that night was where we discovered The Cramps and The Weirdos, who were supporting acts. 

It was loud and wild. The energy was just reverberating through the steamy air as Lux gave us a show in his shiny skivvies. Let’s just say that my best girlfriends and I had the full San Francisco experience and crossed some kind of threshold that night. It was NYE so everyone was ramped up and loaded to 11. We were completely and utterly young, dumb, feral and free. There wasn’t one corner of the Civic center or the surrounding streets that could contain us for long. And somehow we came out unscathed.

There was no photographic record. Were no text chains or geo locating. No real safety nets. My god, I feel so bad for my parents. But Lux did leave an indelible mark on my mind as I went on to make The Cramps song ‘Primitive’ one of my main cover songs in my lounge act. I soon thereafter discovered Primitive was originally recorded by The Groupies. 

Sylvia Black's new single "Long Gone Gardens" is out now; the album Shadowtime is out January 16.

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