Now I’m feeling zombiefied — well, I had a longer blog post here but the computer ate it and I’m sad. But in brief, I come here to praise Alien Sex Fiend not bury them. Everyone so often I have a phase and I’m in one now, plunging through a few collections and things, and remembering how much I like these ridiculous characters. Like the Cramps — Nik and Mrs. Fiend being the group’s Lux Interior and Poison Ivy Rorshach, the eternal beating heart that hasn’t just found a niche but made something of — they are dedicated to something that holds them through to this day — no worrying what the current standard for cool is, entertainment as the end goal, and the joy of making a whole mess of noise. Goth as pantomime, Screamin’ Lord Sutch via Alice Cooper and the Damned, cackling raspiness. They established a sound that’s much a fusion and celebration as the Cramps’ own hotwiring of styles, not so much garage rock as beatbox capering, and more than once on a song like “Ignore the Machine” their own form of rattled sublimity. Something becomes a trend somewhere and they usually do something with it, techno remixes, sampling hooks (but sampling stuff like Blackadder punchlines), god knows what else. Bandwagon jumping? No more than we all can be bandwagon listeners, and if the likes of Andrew WK want fun, so do these folks — they just have a different way about it, and having it for twenty years can work just as well as for twenty minutes.