259: Kid Congo (The Pink Monkey Birds, The Gun Club, The Cramps, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds)

Guitarist and vocalist Kid Congo Powers has been a key member of several paradigm-shifting bands such as The Gun Club, The Cramps, and The Bad Seeds. Over the past fifteen years, he’s also led his own excellent band, Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds. Kid tells Joe about: growing up in a Chicano family in Los Angeles; how he became obsessive about music before ever playing an instrument, ultimately becoming president of The Ramones Fan Club; learning to play guitar in The Gun Club; his parents’ experience at a Cramps show; “growing up” in Berlin; sobriety; how the current pandemic evokes AIDS-era PTSD; and the process of writing his memoirs.