This is another from the "to post" archive with a very cool concert from 1978 when the Cramps played the Napa State Mental Hospital.
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The Cramps Play a Mental Health Hospital in Napa, California in 1978: The Punkest of Punk Concerts
The Cramps Live at Napa State Mental Hospital
We’re The Cramps, and we’re from New York City, and we drove 3,000 miles to play for you people.” So begins one of the oddest but also the punkest of punk rock concerts in history, as The Cramps play for a crowd at a state mental hospital in Napa, California. The date was June 13, 1978, a time when Napa was more known for the hospital than for its burgeoning wine industry.
Lead vocalist Lux Interior made this introduction after the first number, “Mystery Plane.” The band played on a patio, several steps above the courtyard at the institution, while the band’s friends hung out with the 100 or so patients in attendance.
“And somebody told me you people are crazy, but I’m not so sure about that,” Lux continues in the video. “You seem to be all right to me.” Indeed, most everybody seems to be having a hell of a time, some dancing as if they’re at a sock hop, others just completely thrashing about.
This wasn’t the first band to have played at the institution, as the hospital’s Bart Swain, who invited The Cramps to Napa, often brought in musicians to expand the patients’ horizons. But on that night a video camera was also brought along to record the set. (Swain worried about preserving the anonymity of the residents.)
Another band on the bill, The Mutants, didn’t get videotaped, possibly because the sun had gone down around this time. Either way, it is a very rare slice of punk history, with few comparisons apart from the Sex Pistols playing Chelmsford prison and when a little known thrash metal band called Gobstopper played a Christmas party at a home for developmentally disabled kids and adults.
According to this article on the event, Napa State still stands but the chances of such a concert happening again are slim. The majority of its tenants are now both violent offenders and mentally unstable, too dangerous a venue for anybody to play, no matter how punk.
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Ted Mills is a freelance writer on the arts who currently hosts the artist interview-based FunkZone Podcast. You can also follow him on Twitter at @tedmills, read his other arts writing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.
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- Days ago: MOM = 3569 days ago & DAD = 224 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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