Spring 1977
The Foreigner
Director:
Amos Poe
*Featured in this film are appearances by the punk band The Erasers, and The Cramps as "punk thugs".
FEATURING:
| Lux Interior | ... | Punk Thug (as The Cramps) |
| Poison Ivy Rorschach | ... | Punk Thug (with The Cramps) |
| Bryan Gregory | ... | Punk Thug (as The Cramps) |
| Miriam Linna | ... | Punk Thug (as The Cramps) |
Cast:
Deborah Harry,
Patti Astor,
Eric Mitchell
European secret agent, Max Menace arrives in New York City, waiting for his assignment. Set in the strange world of 1977s New York City club scene, Max (Eric Mitchell) becomes entangled and pursued by an odd assortment of lowlife characters, never to discover his mission. Unusual events befall Menace on his journey.
Cast
(in credits order)
Anya Phillips ... Doll Patti Astor ... Fili Harlow Deborah Harry ... Dee Trik Séverine ... Zazu Weather (as Terens Séverine) Robin Crutchfield ... Fido Hex Kitty Sondern ... Kit Bag Duncan Hannah ... King Bag / Shake Steven Kramer ... Mouse Susan Morris ... Mo Bag Amos Poe ... Amos Nitrate David Forshtay ... For Bag Pusante Byzantium ... Skratch / Rumanian Ana Marton ... Fullee / Rumanian Chirine El Khadem ... Mr. Kool James Crosby ... Son of Sam Richard Merkin ... The 357 Klaus Mettig ... Contact on beach Ronny Stefan ... Contact at gay club David Letray ... R. Lux Interior ... Punk Thug (as The Cramps) Poison Ivy Rorschach ... Punk Thug (with The Cramps) Bryan Gregory ... Punk Thug (as The Cramps) Miriam Linna ... Punk Thug (as The Cramps) Jody Beach ... Punk band bass player (as Erasers) Jane Fire ... Punk band drummer (as Erasers) Susan Springfield ... Punk band guitarist / singer (as Erasers)
Bryan Gregory formed the group in 1975 with his drummer sister Pam 'Balam' Gregory, frontman Lux Interior and guitarist Poison Ivy. The group made their live debut at New York CBGBs in 1976, and appeared in film The Foreigner in 1978 as "punk thugs".
Nov. 1, 1976
on audition night.
and continue playing the NYC club circuit
Spring 1977
appear in
Amos Poe film,
The Foreigner
Sept. 77
Oct. 77
Memphis, TN
to record at Ardent Studios
and Sam Phillips Studio.
Feb. 78
"Raunch and Roll".
CBS uses quarter page
NY TIMES,
Daily News,
and NY Post
advertising
April 78
"The Way I Walk" b/w "Surfin' Bird",
on their own Vengeance label.
It hovers in
Record World's
New Wave Top Twenty chart
CRAMPS drive to California for their first West Coast tour. Among their appearances, the band performs for inmates at Napa State Mental Hospital.
August 78
this time in Philadelphia.
Halloween 78
"Human Fly" b/w "Domino"
It makes NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS' Top Twenty of the Year.
horror promo film.
Chris Spedding produces eight track five song demo
Feb. 17, 1979
Feb. 21 - March 79
While in Los Angeles, the band encounter Miles Copeland who,
based on the Spedding-produced
release of a British EP on Illegal Records
May 26, 79
press receive them
and the band make the covers of
and NME (June 23)
Cramps return to Memphis with Alex Chilton who produces their first full-lenght album, Songs the Lord Taught Us
Fall 79
The band headlines most dates while also performing
the POLICE (10/16, Phila.Wash.DC)
More extensive European tour,
this time in support of album
which hits Top Ten in France.
CRAMPS
produce
"Garbage man" video
at Shepperton Studios
in London,
also do live TV in Manchester and Belgium
May 80
B
e
a
st
Bryan Gregory-guitar
Andrella Christopher-vocals
Greg Langston-Drums
James Christ-Bass
Walraven-Keys and Sax
Brian Macleod -drums
on Wolfbane night/Posessed
Possessed / Wolfbane Nite
7" single
1982 Amdusias
both songs written by Wax - Bony Devils BMI
Love in a Dying World / Floating/Dead
7" single 1983
Amdusias - Love in a Dying World
by Andrella Floating/
Dead by Wax Bony - Devils BMI
(etched into the run off groove "If I were in Cleveland I'd be famous now")
New Moone / Guardian
7" single 1983
I.D. Records eye T3
Guitarist Bryan Gregory of The Cramps, a band that helped to launch the punk music revolution in the late 1970s, has died. He was 46. Gregory, a native of Detroit, died Wednesday at Anaheim Memorial Hospital, spokeswoman Gina Esparza said. A cause of death was not immediately available. The guitarist had recently suffered a heart attack and had been ill for several weeks, his former wife, Robyn Hunt, said by telephone from her home in Florida. The Cramps made their debut in 1976 at the legendary punk rock club CBGB's in New York. Gregory was known for his wild antics on stage and his distinctive black hair with a lock of white hanging over his eye. "He was into feedback," friend Andrella Christopher said of Gregory's musical style. "He loved making the most obnoxious sound he could get out of that guitar." The band released two albums with Gregory, "Gravest Hits" in 1979 and "Songs the Lord Taught Us" in 1980. Although Gregory left the group in 1980, band members Lux Interior and Poison Ivy continue to perform as The Cramps. Gregory also appeared with other Cramps members as "punk thugs" in the 1978 film "The Foreigner." After leaving The Cramps, Gregory performed with the band Beast from 1980 to 1984, and with The Dials from 1992 to 1995. He had recently formed a new band called Shiver, Christopher said. Gregory is survived by a daughter, Tracy Ellis, and a sister, Pam Beckerleg, both of Michigan.ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) - January 10, 2001from the webmaster...In 1987 I worked in an L.A. record shop with a most interesting woman called Andrella. She told me she was in a band in England with her partner James called "The Veil" and gave me their latest 12" on Clay Records. They had a clothing shop in England called "Straightjacket". They toured with "The Damned" too. I really liked their moody sound and set out to find all that they had recorded. I searched in record shops throughout the land and found all the rare, hard-to-find "The Veil" records, and all the records from their first band, the San Francisco-based "Beast".
Gregory resurfaced in 1982 with Beast, a death-rock quartet fronted by singer Andrella Christopher; heavy on candle-lit atmospherics and midtempo dirges, Beast released one full-length album (*I believe it was just the 3 singles listed below) and undertook U.S. and European tours, but disbanded by 1984.
"Ages ago in NYC, I was making a call outside of Gem Spa and almost had a heart attack to turn around and see Brian Gregory standing at the phone next to me, wearing nothing but a grass skirt, and bone necklace. I just stood there staring, making sure he didn't see the Cramps written on my size 3 combat boot... since he was in town for a Beast show (am I the only person who really liked that band?), I didn't want to offend him. He finished his call, smiled, and sauntered barefoot down St. Marks. He looked a lot different at the show that night - pink leotard, tights, and stilletto boots. Having never gotten so see him with the Cramps, I was pretty impressed at his cigarette chompin' antics and general guitar shreddin'."
SpouseRobyn Hunt |
BRYAN GREGORY, the Detroit guitarist died last Wednesday (January 10) at the Anaheim Memorial Medical Centre, after several weeks of illness following a heart-attack, according to Associated Press, who quoted his wife Robyn Hunt.
Gregory formed the group in 1975 with his drummer sister Pam 'Balam' Gregory, frontman Lux Interior and guitarist Poison Ivy. The group made their live debut at New York CBGBs in 1976, and appeared in film The Foreigner in 1978 as "punk thugs".
He appeared on two Cramps records, 1979's 'Gravest Hits', produced by Alex Chilton, and 'Songs The Lord Taught Us' in 1980, after which he left the band suddenly. He performed from 1980 to 1984 with the band Beast, and The Dials from 1992 to 1995. He had also recently formed a band called Shiver.
The Cramps went on to release several albums, and Lux Interior and Poison Ivy are still touring and recording.Poison Ivy's Memorial to Bryan
2001Sadly, after 20 years of misinformation and misquotes regarding the Bryan Gregory chapter of the Cramps, here's my one and only chance to directly express my feelings. While it's true that Bryan didn't actually play on some of the seminal recordings that are attributed to him (he wasn't always present for Songs the Lord Taught Us), he could be a truly charismatic live performer when the spirit moved him - particularly in the CBGB/Max's Kansas City days, when spirit was everywhere in the air. He wasn't anything like the myth promoted by his record company and subsequently the press; the real Bryan had a kooky charm the public doesn't even know about - the truth was far stranger than fiction. He and I shared a birthday, and we met on our mutual birthday on February 20, 1976. We were almost the same size and could fit into each other's pants and shoes. We understood each other because we weren't the boygirl next door, and we'd both already been through a lot and knew how to hustle tooth and nail to survive. We could be our scary selves without horrifying each other. My fondest memory is of tripping on acid together in Central Park that summer. We were never quite able to sustain that high. Bryan's creative forte was more visual than sonic - when we met him, he had just moved to New York to pursue a graphic- arts career. He loved art, jewelry making, decorating - I think it was the visual aspects of the Cramps that appealed to him most. Lux and I had come to New York in 1975 with a mess of songs and crude home demos and a plan to take over the world, but I think it was mostly our exotic looks and Flying V guitar that lured Bryan to join us. When we gave the guitar to him, he immediately decorated it with polka-dot price stickers and painted our name in fancy script on the case, and you know what? It looked hot! Bryan was more enigmatic and incongruous than imagination would allow. Once, in a packed coffee shop, he pulled a switchblade on a boothful of square businessmen who were snickering about him, but on another occasion he whined that he couldn't leave his apartment because the neighborhood teen toughs followed him down the street teasingly singing 'Sweet Child in the City'. A sense of adventure led him to let Lux dangle him upside down by his ankles from a 17th-floor high-rise window "just to see what it's like", yet he despised touring because of his fear and hatred of "foreigners". He thought rockabilly was "goofy" but said we made it work for us "cuz you're so weird." We had a brief, intense relationship, and I don't think any of us knew what hit us. At one time we all wanted to be in a band that people were afraid of offstage. He was a true DMF - Detroit Motherfucker. On a soul level, the affair was over by 1979, after we started touring and recording regularly. Without a passion for and understanding of the fundamental forces influencing the Cramps, a combination of too much hard work, chemical haze and backstage leeches drove him to the next bright, shiny object in his path and a pursuit of so-called social relevance. I'll always remember the high-flyin' Bryan that few people had the privilege to know, before he stopped being a rocker and became a "rock star" . . . the way he walked, the way he talked, the way he rocked.- Poison Ivy
THE FOREIGNER
Short YT Clip
Erasers PERFORM 'NO FUN'
as Max gets beaten up
by
The Cramps
in the independent film,
'The Foreigner'
Amos Poe
1978