Formed 1976, New York City · Lux Interior and Poison Ivy
The Cramps built an entire aesthetic out of digging up forgotten American 45s and playing them louder and weirder than anyone had intended, and “Goo Goo Muck” is the purest example of the method working. They cut it at A&M Studios in January 1981 for Psychedelic Jungle, self-produced, and turned a regional novelty into something genuinely menacing. The mistake in the record is chronological and nothing else — their version is the better record, and it is the one that earned the song its audience. They simply did not write it or record it first.