The Cramps Play a Psychological Well being Hospital in Napa, California in 1978: The Punkest of Punk Concert events

“We’re The Cramps, and we’re from New York Metropolis, and we drove 3,000 miles to play for you peo­ple.” So begins one of many odd­est but in addition the punk­est of punk rock con­certs in his­to­ry, as The Cramps play for a crowd at a state males­tal hos­pi­tal in Napa, Cal­i­for­nia. The date was June 13, 1978, a time when Napa was extra identified for the hos­pi­tal than for its bur­geon­ing wine indus­strive.

Lead vocal­ist Lux Inte­ri­or made this intro­duc­tion after the primary num­ber, “Mys­tery Airplane.” The band performed on a patio, sev­er­al steps above the courtroom­yard on the insti­tu­tion, whereas the band’s pals frolicked with the 100 or so sufferers in atten­dance.

“And a few­physique informed me you peo­ple are loopy, however I’m not so certain about that,” Lux con­tin­ues within the video. “You appear to be all proper to me.” Certainly, most each­physique appears to be hav­ing a hell of a time, some danc­ing as in the event that they’re at a sock hop, oth­ers simply com­plete­ly thrash­ing about.

This wasn’t the primary band to have performed on the insti­tu­tion, because the hospital’s Bart Swain, who invit­ed The Cramps to Napa, usually introduced in musi­cians to broaden the sufferers’ hori­zons. However on that night time a video cam­period was additionally introduced alongside to report the set. (Swain wor­ried about pre­serv­ing the anonymi­ty of the res­i­dents.)

Anoth­er band on the invoice, The Mutants, did­n’t get video­taped, pos­si­bly as a result of the solar had gone down round this time. Both method, it’s a very uncommon slice of punk his­to­ry, with few com­par­isons other than the Intercourse Pis­tols play­ing Chelms­ford jail and when a lit­tle identified thrash met­al band referred to as Gob­cease­per performed a Christ­mas par­ty at a house for devel­op­males­tal­ly dis­abled youngsters and adults.

Accord­ing to this arti­cle on the occasion, Napa State nonetheless stands however the probabilities of such a con­cert hap­pen­ing once more are slim. The most important­i­ty of its ten­ants at the moment are each vio­lent offend­ers and males­tal­ly unsta­ble, too dan­ger­ous a venue for any­physique to play, no mat­ter how punk.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

When the Intercourse Pis­tols Performed on the Chelms­ford Prime Secu­ri­ty Jail: Hear Vin­tage Tracks from the 1976 Gig

75 Put up-Punk and Exhausting­core Con­certs from the Nineteen Eighties Have Been Dig­i­tized & Put On-line: Fugazi, GWAR, Lemon­heads, Dain Bra­m­age (with Dave Grohl) & Extra

The Intercourse Pis­tols Do Dal­las: A Unusual Con­cert from the Strangest Tour in His­to­ry (Jan­u­ary 10, 1978)

Ted Mills is a free­lance author on the humanities who cur­lease­ly hosts the artist inter­view-based FunkZone Pod­solid. You may also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, learn his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his movies right here.