Kid Congo & the Pink Monkey Birds

From the early '80s onward, guitarist Kid Congo Powers has been a distinctive presence at the nexus of roots music and punk. Powers had memorable tenures with the Gun Club (which he co-founded with Jeffrey Lee Pierce), the Cramps, and Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, but it wasn't until 2009 that he launched his own band, Kid Congo & the Pink Monkey Birds. The group plays a swampy mix of primitive, swampy rock & roll, garage rock, and fractured blues with East L.A. Chicano rock and a dash of punk and psychedelia, debuting their approach on 2009's Dracula Boots and hitting a peak of strength and confidence on 2016's La Arana Es la Vida. 2024's That Delicious Vice featured dark rock & roll and upbeat dance numbers, as well as contributions from L.A. punk heroine Alice Bag. Kid Congo Powers was born Brian Tristan on March 27, 1959, in La Puente, California. He was raised in a second-generation Mexican-American household, and grew up on a diet of Mexican and Chicano music; the first concert he saw was by the legendary East L.A. band Thee Midniters. In his early teens, he became a glam rock devotee, spending his evenings at Rodney Bingenheimer's notorious English Disco in Hollywood, where he indulged his musical interests and explored his sexuality as a young gay man. In 1976, Powers discovered punk rock and founded a Ramones fan club; he later created a fan newsletter for the influential L.A. synth-punk band the Screamers. After a spell in New York City, where he shared a flat with Lydia Lunch, Powers came back to Los Angeles, and with his friend Jeffrey Lee Pierce, he formed a band called Creeping Ritual, which quickly evolved into the Gun Club. Though Powers was still learning to play, his open-tuned slide work was powerful in context, and the group became the talk of the L.A. underground scene. As the Gun Club's popularity grew, Powers was persuaded to join the pioneering psychobilly band the Cramps after guitarist Bryan Gregory left the group. Powers signed on, and appeared on their second album, 1981's Psychedelic Jungle, but a legal battle with their record company put the group on hold for the better part of two years, and not long after the February 1983 shows that were recorded for the EP Smell of Female, Powers left the Cramps and rejoined the Gun Club, appearing on their 1984 album The Las Vegas Story. In 1986, he was invited to join Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds and took part in the recording of 1988's Tender Prey and 1990's The Good Son, as well as touring with the group. Powers occasionally worked with the Gun Club during this period, and he would rejoin them in 1990 after amicably leaving the Bad Seeds. Powers dropped out of the Gun Club before the recording of 1993's Lucky Jim, which proved to be their last album. Powers and Pierce staged a handful of Gun Club reunion shows in 1996, but the group's story came to a close in 1996 with the death of Jeffrey Lee Pierce. Powers teamed with Sally Norvell to form the duo Congo Norvell, who debuted in 1994 with the LP Music to Remember Him By, and he joined Bob Bert (of Sonic Youth and Pussy Galore) and Jerry Teel (of Boss Hog) in the Knoxville Girls, whose self-titled debut was issued in 1999. In 2005, New York Night Train issued Solo Cholo, a collection of songs Powers cut with several different bands, including Die Haut and Khan. The same year, Powers' proper solo debut arrived, Philosophy and Underwear. As Powers began refining his skills as a songwriter and vocalist, he ramped up his recording and touring schedule, and formed a band to accompany him on his projects. Powers dubbed his new band the Pink Monkey Birds, and it initially featured Powers on guitar and vocals, Jack Martin on guitar, Kiki Solis on bass, and Ron Miller on drums. By the time the band recorded its first album, Dracula Boots, in 2009, Martin was out and Jesse Roberts had stepped in on guitar and keyboards. Kid Congo & the Pink Monkey Birds continued to tour regularly, racking up more miles than Powers had since the '90s, and they released Gorilla Rose in 2011 and Haunted Head in 2013. In 2016, Powers and the group delivered their fourth album, La Arana Es la Vida. The LP introduced a new Pink Monkey Birds lineup. Jesse Roberts parted ways with the band, and Powers recruited guitarist Mark Cisneros to fill the vacancy. In 2021, Powers and the band issued a four-song EP, Swing from the Sean DeLear; the title track paid tribute to the memory of Sean DeLear, a key figure on the West Coast queer punk community who died in 2017. The EP also included "He Walked In," inspired by a vivid dream in which Jeffrey Lee Pierce returned to life. In 2024, Powers and the Pink Monkey Birds released That Delicious Vice, which found them collaborating with another icon of L.A. punk, Alice Bag, who wrote two songs for the album and contributed vocals on five tracks.
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