Rapper pleads innocent to assault charge

Rapper pleads innocent to assault charge

NEW YORK — Rapper Jim Jones has pleaded not guilty to beating a friend of hip-hop star Ne-Yo at an upscale New York City store.

Jones, 32, was arraigned Wednesday in Manhattan Criminal Court and freed without bail pending a March 24 court date. He is charged with assault.

He allegedly beat Jayvon Smith on Dec. 22 outside the Louis Vuitton store on Fifth Avenue.

Jones downplayed the incident, saying: “It’s what you call an expensive inconvenience.”

Founder of the Cramps, horror-punk band, dies

LOS ANGELES — Lux Interior, co-founder and lead singer of the pioneering horror-punk band the Cramps, has died, the group’s publicist said. He was 60.

Interior — whose real name was Erick Lee Purkhiser — died Wednesday of a pre-existing heart condition at a hospital in Glendale, Calif., publicist Aleix Martinez said in a statement.

Interior met his future wife Kristy Wallace — who would later take the stage name Poison Ivy — in Sacramento in 1972.

The pair moved to New York and started the Cramps with Interior on lead vocals and Ivy on guitar. The group was a part of the late ‘70s early punk scene centered at Manhattan clubs like CBGB, alongside acts like the Ramones and Patti Smith.

Their unmistakable sound was a lo-fi synthesis of rockabilly and surf guitar staged with a deviant dose of midnight-movie camp. Some called it “psychobilly.”

The pale, tall, gaunt Interior appeared shirtless with black hair and tiny, low-slung black pants, looking part zombie, part Elvis Presley as he crawled, writhed and howled his way across the stage.

Today’s birthdays

Actress Zsa Zsa Gabor is 92. Actor Rip Torn is 78. Actor Mike Farrell is 70. NBC news anchorman Tom Brokaw is 69. Singer Fabian is 66. Singer Natalie Cole is 59. Actress Kathy Najimy (“Veronica’s Closet,” “King of the Hill”) is 52. Vocalist Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses is 47. Singer Rick Astley is 43.