Kid Congo Powers and the Pink Monkey Birds – Engine Room, Brighton – 1/12/09
5/5
By: Keri Kennedy
Kid Congo is a legend. That may be forgotten when you see a small 50-year-old guy rigging up his guitar in a ramshackle, shy manner, smiling sweetly at anybody who catches his eye. For Kid Congo is the man who formed The Gun Club with Jeffrey Lee Pierce, ran the Ramones fan club, joined The Cramps and later Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds.
Now fronting his own band – The Pink Monkey Birds – they mix up tracks from his awesome past and their 2009 LP Dracula Boots. ‘Rare As The Yeti’ is a fuzz-laden swamp song closest to his Cramps days, while the fantastically titled ‘I Found A Peanut’ – about eating a peanut found on the floor and getting sick – has Hawaiian guitars and a voodoo vocal to send shivers down the spine.
The Gun Club’s ‘Sex Beat’ is welcomed with borderline hysteria and it’s fucking amazing to hear live. Kid is clearly having a moment and the odd flailing body shoved onto the stage at the front are too.
The stomping ‘Black Bag’ from 2006’s Philosophy And Underwear continues the bone-shaking vibe, Kid and his Monkey Birds – dressed in full mariachi gear – are clearly loving the last night of their UK tour.
Paying tribute to his good friend and Cramps colleague Lux Interior, they lay into ‘I’m Cramped’ and everyone goes nuts, again. While it seems things couldn’t possibly get better, ending on a full version of The Gun Club’s ‘For The Love of Ivy’, for a moment, Brighton’s Engine Room could almost be a sweaty night at CBGB’s.
While many of Kid Congo’s previous musical accomplices are dead and gone – not including Nick Cave, who’s alive and well in the crowd – Kid is still going, and long may he continue.
Artists in this article: Kid Congo
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