I’ve always incorporated all these kinds of music together to make a new language. A lot of the bands I really like, they use a lot of old music. That was my favorite thing about the Cramps: They were mixing rockabilly with psychedelic music, which now everyone does, but back then it was revolutionary. The mixing of styles is a thing also with the Gun Club, mixing punk with country stuff and old blues and psychedelic music, too. But you can mix a lot of stuff and make no sense. The trick is to mix all these styles and create a new language, a language that people can understand and also that people want to learn.
And somewhere in there, there’s always Thee Midniters.
When I was a little kid, I had two older sisters and many cousins who had bands. I was around a lot of teenagers and I always remember them being really excited because they were going to a dance where Thee Midniters were playing. And they were getting ready, they were playing [the band’s L.A. hit] “Whittier Blvd.,” and they were dancing and I remember being a little kid and thinking, “I don’t know what ‘Thee Midniters’ is, but whatever it is, it seems really exciting, and I can’t wait to be a teenager.” I really didn’t know what this was, but I always remembered this — it was a snapshot in my psyche.
And much later I started listening to them again, started playing the records and realizing how amazing those records are, all garage, stompin’, R&B songs. Incredible. So I did a cover version of one of their B-sides called “I Found a Peanut” [on 2009’s Dracula Boots], which was a great stompin’ rocker.
ILLUSTRATION BY JIM RUGG
"I've always been a complete eccentric": Kid Congo Powers
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So there’s a festival in New Orleans called the Ponderosa Stomp, which celebrates the “unsung heroes of rock & roll,” and every year they have people from the ’50s to the ’70s who are still alive who made these incredible records. And last year they had Thee Midniters and they asked me to interview Thee Midniters’ [bassist] Jimmy Espinoza, who was one of the original members. I was really thrilled about that, and then they suggested, “Why don’t you sing ‘I Found a Peanut’ with them at the show?” And I was thinking, “This cannot be happening! This is insane.” I got onstage and I got to sing a song with Thee Midniters. To me it was this whole childhood realization.
This is probably how the Pink Monkey Birds feel about playing with you.
Yes, it’s very possible. They never would tell me, though [laughs].
Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds’Gorilla Rose is out now on In the Red Records. They play June 24 at the Echoplex with the Middle Class and the Urinals.
