On the radar: Kid Congo Powers

Photo: Ilse Lambert

I noticed the last time that Kid Congo Powers was coming through town, just about a year ago, but I didn't do anything about it. I think I was busy that month.

I'm not so busy now.

Other people in the same predicament should start with his music, obviously. I'm already assuming you know he played with the Gun Club, the Cramps, and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, among others (ooh, Divine Horsemen, you say?). This is a great little video of Kid Congo playing live in the studio. Dunno about you, but as soon as that opening bit of effects-laden noise clears and he starts actually playing, I'm like, "oh. I would enjoy seeing this live." (And thankfully, "and so would my girlfriend" follows immediately thereon). There's a surf quality to it that makes perfect sense, that I immediately caught myself kickin' myself for not having expected.

Where next? There's Kid's blog, and would you look at that - he's using the same blog template that I just changed up from! (I wonder if he realizes that the new templates are in fact a painless switchover - I lost zero content, it seems; formatting on old pieces changed, but I can live with that, and it's handy that the blog does obvious things now like provide Facebook "like" links, which his blog, like mine a week or so ago, lacks).

...Or if you would rather something briefer, there are a couple of Straight articles praising him, written over the years, here and here say. Seems like Adrian Mack is the official Kid man there, and there's a few high-end Mackisms to be found; dude can turn a phrase. Wonder how Kid felt to have his lips described as "child-bearing?" I get jealous of phrases like that, or, say, the observation that Kid looked "alternately like a grinning hit man and a bit player from a porno remake of Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia." It's almost hard for me to read writing that good!

And by the way, the line of Mack's likening Kid to the last queer beat poet standing? See here, if, like me, you had no idea that Kid was gay.

Guess the next step is to buy his most recent record, then go to the show, maybe with my own interview with him somewhere in-between there...? Let's see about that, anyhow.