“A player of stunning force and imagination" - Robert Palmer, The New York Times "The songwriting of Kid Congo Powers and Jeffrey Lee Pierce has the freshest white take on the blues of it's time." - Jack White " The coolest looking guy in New York." - Time Out New York " Screw James Brown. The title of Hardest Working Man in Show Business truly belongs to Kid Congo Powers." - Kurt B. Reighley, Seattle Weekly The gigantic tone of Kid Congo Powers’ open-tuned guitar is one of the more readily identifiable sounds in the history of underground rock. Best known for his contribution to the development of the contemporary ambient, noise, and rock guitar with The Gun Club, The Cramps, and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds in the 1980s, Kid’s spent the last fifteen years as a sideman (Make-Up, Mark Eitzel, Angels of Light, etc.), as a partner in Congo Norvell and Kid and Khan, a member of garage rock supergroup Knoxville Girls, and, most recently, the leader of Kid Congo Powers and the Pink Monkey Birds. What’s important about Kid’s resume isn’t only that he played with some of the best bands of all time, but that he did so during their finest hours, from The Cramps’ Psychedelic Jungle to Nick Cave’s Tender Prey to Angels of Light’s How I Loved You, Kid’s always had a knack for being with the right people at the right place at the right time. The last five years however, Kid’s gradually quit relying on his luck and taken matters into his own hands, emerging as a world-class songwriter and a distinctive vocalist. Jump-starting his career when he and Jeffrey Lee Pierce formed The Gun Club in 1979, Kid Congo Powers left the obscure new band in late 1980 when he was offered the universally coveted gig replacing Bryan Gregory in The Cramps. Though Kid was already a Cramp when The Gun Club recorded their classic debut Fire of Love (1981), a number of songs that he helped write and develop appear on the record. Kid wound up in The Cramps throughout the peak of their popularity, leaving the band in 1984. Psychedelic Jungle (1981), Smell of Female (1984), and Bad Music For Bad People (1984), are among Kid’s souvenirs of the era. After rejoining The Gun Club for a 1984 Australian tour, Kid stayed in the picture for their The Las Vegas Story (1984). When the band fell apart the next year, Kid moved to London and played with The Legendary Stardust Cowboy, The Beasts of Bourbon’s Tex Perkins, and his own band, The Fur Bible. In 1986 he was invited to join Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds for the Your Funeral, My Trial tour – moving to Berlin and becoming a full-time member until 1990 - appearing in Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire (1987) and on the albums Tender Prey (1988) and The Good Son (1990). During his German years Kid not only played and recorded with Die Haut, The Butcher Shop, and Barry Adamson, but also embarked upon sevenyears of constant recording and touring with The Gun Club. In 1993, Kid Congo Powers made his final appearances with The Gun Club and Die Haut to devote full-time attention to his own project with actress/chanteuse Sally Norvell - Congo Norvell. After the duo released a string of singles, EPs, compilation tracks, and the success of the LP Music To Remember Him By (1994), Priority signed them to record The Dope, The Lies and Vaseline (1996). Falling victim to the dissolution of the “alternative” division of the label, the two moved to New York and recorded Abnormals Anonymous (1998) for Jet Set. Kid was immediately asked to play with everyone in town – performing, recording, and touring with Jonathan Fire*Eater, Mark Eitzel, The Angels of Light, The Vanity Set, Make-Up, and a number of others. During this period Kid teamed up with Bob Bert from Sonic Youth and Pussy Galore, Jerry Teal from the Honeymoon Killers and Chrome Cranks, guitar ace Jack Martin, and keyboardist Barry London to form the prolific hard-touring supergroup, Knoxville Girls. After a trio of albums on In the Red, Knoxville Girls imploded in 2001. Not long after the breakup, electro-star Khan invited Kid to appear on his Matador LP No Comprendo (2001). By 2002 the duo forged an official project, Kid & Khan, and began touring the world alone or with Twin Peaks vocalist Julee Cruise. Around the same time Kid formed his first band of his own, Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds. With the release of Kid & Khan’s Bad English and Washing Machine, 2005 was a big year for Mr. Powers. But 2006 and has far surpassed it - seeing the American release of Pink Monkey Birds Philosophy and Underwear and career-spanning compilation Solo Cholo on New York Night Train. 2007 has seen Kid taking up the typewriter to pen his wild years from childhood to glam rocker to disco queen to punk rocker to garage rocker to art rocker to queer rocker, drug addict, do gooder, no good dooer, in a world travelled monolouge which take you through all the un-comprimises in music and life from 1959 to the present. It is a memoir he describes as sociology and gossip, to be finished this year. Still the hardest working man in showbiz, Kid Congo Powers shows no signs of slowing down - touring and recording regularly with both the Pink Monkey Birds and Kid & Khan.
http://2008.sxsw.com/music/showcases/band/71417.html
