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Jeffrey Lee Pierce Mixtape #1 (1980) by spacecaserecords.

Thanks to Jeff Steiner for help with compiling these tracks and to Brad Dunning for sharing the playlist.

#jeffrey lee pierce #jeffrey lee pierce mixtape #gun club #brad dunning #mixtape #1980

Kid Congo Powers Interview, Part One

Kid Congo Powers playing with The Cramps at The Roxy, 1981. The Gun Club opened the show. Photo by Larry Hardy.

The following interview originally ran in Razorcake #71 (www.razorcake.org)

Kid Congo Powers has an impressive track record. With blues-punk legend Jeffrey Lee Pierce, he founded The Gun Club and later joined The Cramps and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, playing on some of their best records. Over the past several years, he’s released standout albums with his band Kid Congo Powers and the Pink Monkey Birds.

Kid Congo Powers was born Brian Tristan in La Puente, California, a child in the mid 1960s. Surrounded by hip older sisters and the sounds of East Los Angeles, Kid Congo became a music fan at a young age. In the late ‘70s, he met Jeffrey Lee Pierce at a Pere Ubu concert. Pierce convinced Powers to pick up the guitar and form a band called The Creeping Ritual (an early incarnation of The Gun Club) with him. In late 1980, Kid left The Gun Club and joined The Cramps. A trial by fire—The Cramps had already recorded a seminal debut record with Alex Chilton and were regarded as trailblazers—Kid worked hard and learned fast, immediately recording Psychedelic Jungle with the band. In 1984 Powers rejoined The Gun Club for a record (The Las Vegas Story) and moved to England. During a brief break from The Gun Club, Kid fronted a short-lived group called Fur Bible with Patricia Morrison. Just after the release of Fur Bible’s sole EP, Kid—whose intuition and sense of timing is incredible—left the U.K. for West Berlin.

Kid Congo Powers arrived in Berlin a few years before the fall of The Berlin Wall. Although the city had been divided for more than three decades, West Berlin had a vibrant arts scene. Powers jumped right in, taking part (as a member of the Bad Seeds) in Wim Wenders’ incredible film, Wings of Desire. After leaving the Bad Seeds and The Gun Club in the early 1990s, Powers formed Congo Norvell with Sally Norvell in Los Angeles. He later moved to New York and joined The Knoxville Girls. In the early 2000s, Kid established himself as a formidable front man, recording solid albums with his band The Pink Monkey Birds for In The Red Records. Kid Congo Powers’ recent material with The Pink Monkey Birds is incredibly vibrant—inspired by the sense of excitement, sound and stories of his childhood in La Puente.

Interview by Ryan Leach

Ryan: Although you were younger than most of the original LA punk crowd, you were into glam rock years before punk hit.

Kid: I was precocious. I liked records since I was a baby. Before I could read, I would go through my sisters’ record collections and pull out my favorite albums based on the colors and the designs of the labels.

Ryan: You had older sisters, correct?

Kid: Yeah. I’m the youngest in my family. My oldest sister is nine years older than me. That’s a pretty big time span. I was a little kid in the mid ‘60s.

Ryan: Being from La Puente, I imagine your sister was a fan of the music coming out of El Monte Legion Stadium.

Kid: She was. Some male cousins of mine who played in groups were into that music too. They were already teenagers then, going to dances. Their excitement about music had an influence on me. I didn’t know what they were excited about, but I knew I wanted to do whatever it was they were doing.

Ryan: You went to New York when you were a teenager. Was the no-wave scene happening yet?

Kid: The first time I went to New York was on a school trip in 1977. The original punk scene was still going on. I had coerced my family into letting me go. I told them I would graduate high school if they’d allow me to go on a school trip to Europe. On the way we stopped over in New York. Being the conman that I am, I took a GED test and got out of school early (laughs). I still got to go on the trip. I wanted to see live music. I knew there were scenes going on in London and New York. I broke off from the tourist traps the school group went on and stopped off at record stores and music clubs. I convinced a friend of mine—she was a big Bowie fan—to go with me. The two of us went to the Vortex Club in London. I saw the Slits. I remember seeing The Clash and Siouxsie Sioux hanging out. It was like I was in a magazine (laughs). That trip was a revelation to me. While in New York, I met up with some friends of mine. It was right when Elvis died (August 1977). We went to see the Heartbreakers at the Village Gate; Alex Chilton was the opening act. The entire audience at The Heartbreakers show left afterwards and walked over to CBGB’s to see the Dead Boys play. There was a deep sense of community in New York. I haven’t really felt it to that degree since. The fans built around the Ramones and Patti Smith were mobilizing. There was a transition going on from glam to punk. I was doing a Ramones fanzine in Los Angeles. I met up with the New York branch of the club on that first trip. I built friendships that have endured till today. Punk wasn’t some childish tomfoolery. Music was going to be a way of life for a lot of people.

Ryan: People were incredibly fervent at that time. Jeffrey (Lee Pierce) was doing his Blondie fan club. You were also doing a newsletter for The Screamers.

Kid: Terry Graham was doing a Weirdos fanzine. There was a lot going on. During the glam period, I’d go to Rodney’s English Disco. I actually wrote a book that deals with this period. I was on the outer fringes of things. I spent more time in the back alley of Rodney’s than inside it, drinking with the other underage kids. We’d get in occasionally. I still have no idea how fourteen year olds got into a bar. I went to Rodney’s because I had a passion for David Bowie, T. Rex, Iggy and The Sweet. Rodney’s was known for its groupie scene. Although groupies were young girls who wanted to sleep with musicians, they were totally devoted to music. It was all tied into their love of music. David Bowie was a touchstone for a lot of kids. Glam was a complete alternative to everything else that was going on. Being bisexual became okay. Bisexual kids might be gay, they might not be. That was my ticket in. Darby Crash really latched on to the glam scene for that reason. We were slightly younger, but that made you cooler at Rodney’s. You completely fit in there. It was a funny time. People were super naïve and gullible. But it was all incredibly glamorous. People from Back Door Man were around then. Don Waller had a band called The Imperial Dogs that played at Rodney’s. Rodney’s and glam were important to punk. The people in the English punk scene will probably tell you the same thing. The first time I heard a Kraftwerk record was at a David Bowie Diamond Dogs concert. It was a great time to be a teenager. In hindsight it’s easy to see the trajectory from glam to punk.

Ryan: It’s nice to hear you put a human face to the glam and punk scenes, Kid. Too often the transition is portrayed as very linear and clean.

Kid: Well wait until you read my book (laughs)!

Ryan: Do you have a publisher lined up?

Kid: No. I have an editor. He’s a friend of mine who’s helping me work on it. I just sent him a draft. I’ve been mouthing off about this book for a while in the press. I’ve had a couple of small presses approach me with offers. So something will happen.

Ryan: That’s fantastic. Alice Bag just put out a book.

Kid: I know. I saw her when she was here in Washington DC. I played with her. She did a reading too. Her book and the one I’m working on have some similarities. We’re both from the same generation. But there are some differences. My book has a lot of vignettes and stories.

Ryan: Out of everyone Jeffrey Lee Pierce (1958-1996) worked with throughout his brief life, you seemed to be his best collaborator. You had a lot in common—a love of travelling and a similar interest in music.

Kid: We shared a lot in common. Some things became apparent to me only after he died and when I started writing about the period. Jeffrey and I both had sisters and no brothers. We both grew up one suburb away from another. We bonded over our love of music and willingness to travel to find it. Our entire lives ended up being marked by wanderlust. We were constantly moving around. Being in a band, you’re always traveling on tour. But Jeffrey and I would relocate, moving to different cities in the United States and different countries. We were both adventurous with no fear of where our adventures would take us. We planted ourselves into scenes. I’ve never talked with musicians before about how they started out. But for me and Jeffrey—we just jumped into scenes with musicians. It started with hanging out on the fringes—going to Rodney’s to see if Marc Bolan would show up. Then we built up record collections and started a fan club for a band. We just wanted to get into close proximity with music. We ended up becoming musicians. It certainly wasn’t my intention. I owe Jeffrey; he figured out that my best place in music would be as a musician. He convinced me to start playing guitar and to form a band with him. Jeffrey was more musical than me. He had taken the initiative to learn how to play music. We started The Creeping Ritual on the premise of, “Well, we’ve been around and seen a lot of things. We like certain elements of bands, but there’s no one else doing things from our point of view.” We were influenced by New York more than Los Angeles. Although we loved X, The Suburban Lawns and The Blasters, New York had a way of taking different elements of music—of people pulling from their respective environments—and putting a new life to music, of creating something a little bit different. Seeing James Chance and The Cramps was such a revelation. Now it’s not such a big deal to see someone mix rockabilly with psychedelic music. But in the late ‘70s, it was unheard of. There was no one like The Cramps. Maybe Suicide, but they were slightly different. The Cramps took two different forms of music and created a whole new world with it. It was a new language for music. It spoke to people and they wanted to learn what Lux and Ivy were doing.

Ryan: Although there wasn’t a stylistic similarity, I can see where the ethos of DNA and James Chance influenced The Gun Club.

Kid: Yeah. It wasn’t like James Chance was playing music like James Brown or Albert Ayler. However you could tell that he liked both James Brown and Albert Ayler. James Chance took their music and did something completely nuts with it. He had an attitude that exuded discontent, yet his music was intoxicating at the same time. Something similar happened with The Gun Club. The Gun Club was inspired by our discontent with life and music. Jeffrey decided not to copy the blues; he went for the essence of it instead. Jeffrey was really smart in that sense. Blending blues and punk made perfect sense. Jeffrey introduced that idea to people. He taught me how to play guitar in open E tuning. John Lee Hooker played like that. Jeffrey figured it would be easier for me to learn guitar in open tuning rather than having to form chords in standard tuning. It would also give us a blues sound. We started out making a weird and horrible racket. It eventually turned into something. The Gun Club was pretty horrible at the beginning (laughs).

Ryan: I interviewed Paul Cutler a couple of months back and he said that his favorite version of The Gun Club was the first one with Brad Dunning (drums) and Don Snowden (bass).

Kid: It was a weird lineup. Brad was another untaught musician. He was just a friend who was interested in playing drums. Don liked R&B and reggae. He was actually the most accomplished musician in the group. The fact that he could play at all made us think he was a master bassist.

Ryan: By simply knowing what he was doing he was the James Jamerson of the group.

Kid: Exactly. The band was a real wreck. Someone like Paul Cutler, who has a real taste for the bizarre, might have found it interesting (laughs). And it was interesting. We could tell that it was different. We thought we were the shit. Other people caught on too. Not a lot—it was mostly just friends at the beginning. The Creeping Ritual sound had a reggae influence that disappeared when we got Rob (Ritter) and Terry (Graham) in the band and Don (Snowden) left. It’s odd: I have the distinction of playing at the first Gun Club show and the last Gun Club show. And to be honest, they were both pretty similar. We just hung on by the seat of our pants, seeing how long we could keep playing without getting kicked off stage. Our influences were a little more modern at the very beginning of the band. Jeffrey was really into blues and soul in the early days. But he was also into Blondie. Reggae was a newer idea to us at the time too. But the band was pretty terrible. I actually have or had some rehearsal tapes of the first lineup. They’re absolutely terrifying.

Ryan: I wanted to ask if any recordings exist of the first lineup. The earliest Gun Club recordings I know of are the tracks on The Birth, The Death, The Ghost (an album released in 1984 of songs recorded live in Los Angeles in 1980).

Kid: Rob and Terry were in the band then.

Ryan: Right. But you had some tapes with Don and Brad on them?

Kid: I did and we were a complete mess. I think I still have them. I might have given them to (Gun Club Fan Club President) Gene Temesy.

Ryan: That’s absolutely amazing, Kid. I want to hear those tapes.

Kid: More than anything they’ll show you that most bands start from nothing (laughs). We came a long way. It was really jangly sounding and the band was really out of tune. I should try to find those tapes and listen to them again.

Ryan: Even if those tapes are a train wreck, it’d be great to hear them.

Kid: I’m not sure if the public needs to know about them. It might ruin Jeffrey’s legacy (laughs).

Ryan: You guys got two heavy musicians in Rob and Terry. Rob is one of my all-time favorite bass players.

Kid: Rob was amazing.

#kid congo powers #jeffrey lee pierce #brad dunning #don snowden #razorcake #the gun club #la punk #cramps #bad seeds #Interviews

Jeffrey Lee Pierce mixtape notes from Brad Dunning, circa 1980

Every once in a while, someone will drop you an e-mail with something incredible attached. A couple of days ago, Brad Dunning--original drummer of The Gun Club--sent me a scanned copy of some notes Jeffrey Lee Pierce made for him that accompanied a 1980 mixtape. This is an incredible document that--as Dunning mentioned in his e-mail to me--shows you exactly were Jeffrey's head was at in The Gun Club's formative days. These notes were made pre-Fire of Love, when The Gun Club still had its original lineup of Jeffrey, Kid Congo Powers (guitar), Don Snowden (bass) and Brad Dunning (drums). This was Jeffrey's traveling preacher phase; in an interview I did with Dave Alvin, he mentioned Jeffrey being heavily influenced by Robert Mitchum's character in the film Night of the Hunter (1955) at this time. Needless to say, Jeffrey always had impeccable taste in music, although his choice of words was, uh, questionable at best and he was a long way from Leo Kottke's prowess on guitar. (Although Jeffrey did become an amazing guitarist down the line--just check the '93 WDR/German show on YouTube). These notes giveaway what a fervent fan of music Jeffrey Lee Pierce was--he's got the brass to tell Brad that Marvin Rainwater is responsible for "possibly the greatest song ever." Gotta love it! Like Peter Laughner, Jeffrey wrote about music, played it and loved it (I know, Lester Bangs, I'm borrowing from you...). Both were incredibly talented and died way too young.

Major thanks to Brad Dunning for being so generous and sharing this incredible early Gun Club document!

#gun club #jeffrey lee pierce #brad dunning #mix tape