He's A Pink Monkey Bird

February 12, 2006 4:04 PM

Kid Congo Powers, noted guitar stylist, teenage president of The Ramones Fan Club, erstwhile member of The Cramps, The Gun Club, and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (also known for his collaborations with Julee Cruise, The Legendary Stardust Cowboy, Khan and others) has produced a two part online autobiography of sorts for New York Night Train. It includes oral histories, available as transcriptions or MP3s, pages from his Cramps scrapbook, a vintage Creem article, free MP3s from his back catalogue, and, of course, his recipe for enchiladas.
posted by jack_mo (6 comments total)

See also, Kid Congo Powers' latest group, The Pink Monkey Birds (on MySpace, so music will play without you asking for it to - good music, though!).
posted by jack_mo at 4:27 PM on February 12, 2006

The free MP3's link goes back to Metafilter.
posted by cropshy at 4:31 PM on February 12, 2006

Oops, sorry, and thanks for spotting that cropshy. Here they are: free MP3s. (If mathowie or jessamyn could fix that link in the post, I'd be most grateful)
posted by jack_mo at 4:39 PM on February 12, 2006

This is awesome, Jack_Mo. Great find. This will eat up most of my evening, especially now that I know Anita Lane has a website. Yummy.
posted by bayliss at 5:16 PM on February 12, 2006

Once upon a time...

Somewhere around '92, I was managing a record store in downtown San Jose called Underground. It was a grey evening and business was slow, when this striking gentleman wondered into the place and started browsing the bins. He dressed stylishly, and had a vibe about him kind of like a punk zoot suiter. And yet, he was also kind of reserved, polite, and almost shy, in a strange kind of way.

I was playing something on the store's stereo that he liked and asked about... I believe it was one of The Cranes' first albums. He started asking about a few other things, most of which I didn't have, but I understood enough about his interests to pull out some similar things that we had on CD, as well as some of our old vinyl, which I started to play. He dug through our bins and found a large selection of things he wanted to hear. He pulled up the stool, sat across the counter from me, and we hung out, chatted a bit, and listened to music, which was fun... just as well, as the store was dead.

At the end of that time, he asked about nearby places to eat, and I told him about my favorite local dives. He mentioned then that he was playing upstairs that night at the Ajax Lounge, a small club just a few doors down from us run by my neighbor / friend Chris. He said it would be good to see me at the show, and offered to put my name on the list, but I told him I had to close the store, unfortunately, and needed to get home, as it had been a long day.

I told him I had a feeling that he was a musician, and said that if he had anything recorded, we could sell it for him in the store or play it as a demo and look into stocking it if it was good. He said he didn't have anything on him at that moment, but he had some vinyl upstairs, and would try to drop off a copy after the show, if he could. He bought a handful of things and took off.

I didn't think too much about it at the time, because I was pretty shy but I got the feeling he was flirting a bit, or maybe lonely and looking for a kindred spirit. He reminded me of many of my best friends, who were mostly artists and musicians themselves. Pretty charming and endearing.

I closed up around 10:30 that night. The next day, I came in for my shift. Pat, the owner, said, somewhat suspiciously, "Some guy dropped by this morning and dropped off a record for you. He also left one for the store."

I saw the record, which was autographed, and was pretty much gobsmacked. I hadn't heard about his new project, and I had seen him play before with Nick Cave, but I hadn't even recognized him.

It was a good memory.
posted by insomnia_lj at 8:08 PM on February 12, 2006

Great story, insomnua_lj. (Sort of reminds me of the time I met John Peel at a party and said, 'So, John, what do you do?'...)
posted by jack_mo at 4:26 AM on February 13, 2006