“Somebody told me you people are crazy, but I’m not so sure about that…. you seem to be all right to me.” So says lead singer Lux Interior of The Cramps, challenging the mainstream stereotype of the crowd assembled before him at the Napa State Hospital.
On June 13, 1978, The Cramps went to play Napa State, a psychiatric hospital in the small town of Napa in Northern California. Opening for them was The Mutants, an eclectic septet of art school punks from nearby San Francisco. Also there was seminal Bay Area art collective Target Video, to capture the show using one of the first video cameras available to the public, democratizing a medium controlled by mainstream media outlets. The resulting VHS tape of the show is one of the most legendary music documents in history and a cult classic tape.
BLU-RAY INCLUDES:
• The Cramps at Napa State (remastered)
• The Mutants at Napa State (unreleased until now)
• “We Were There To Be There” (2021, 27 min.), a documentary by Jason Willis and Mike Plante
MIX TAPE SPECIAL FEATURES:
• Complete and remastered tapes of the Mutants performing at Mabuhay Gardens and the Oakland School for the Deaf
• “Mutants: Opposite World” (2023, 28 min.) — a brand new documentary about the band
• Cramps testimonials by Jem Cohen, Ian MacKaye, Lucy Sante, Kogar the Swinging Ape and Melissa Auf der Maur
• Napa State photos and history with archivist and writer Patricia Prestinary
• PMRC – Punk Media Research Center promo
DELUXE EDITION* INCLUDES:
• The Cramps and the Mutants: The Napa State Tapes Blu-ray
• “The Way We Walk” — a 108-page pulp book of color photos from the 1970s Bay Area punk scene, by Jill Hoffman-Kowal of Target Video
• One (1) 11″x17″ handmade silkscreen poster for “We Were There To Be There” designed by Jason Willis, hand printed by Caitlin Gill, daughter of Napa State employee Alan Gill
• A set of 30 trading cards of the people involved in the Napa State show photos by Ruby Ray, Jim Jocoy and Jill Hoffman-Kowal , designed by Jason Willis
• One (1) Xerox zine of the Target Video origin story
*Limited to 150 copies total!
