Kid Congo And The Pink Monkey Birds (Live Review) – Pushing It To The Next Dimension
In a mind bending, blistering support slot for Kid Congo, Martin Savage and the Jiggerz raced through no less than 14 songs, pulling off a feat of which The Ramones would have been proud.
This rapid-fire delivery wasn’t the only similarity. Lead singer, Martin sported a Ramones-style long bowl cut, albeit with a slightly grown-out fringe.
With his cartoon character t-shirt, leopard print strap and red guitar, he could easily have stepped out of CBGBs if it hadn’t been cleared to make way for gentrification, or indeed the old 12 Bar in our very own dirty old London town.
There were no such bourgeois pretensions here—why use four chords when you can use three? Why not have a rockabilly bassist playing more complex lines than the lead guitarist? As they frantically moved, shook, lunged, and high-kicked across the stage, this welcome blast of garage punk rock woke up the half-empty, half-asleep Highbury Garage, just down the road from Kier Starmer’s corporate box, on a work-weary Friday night.
The sawdust of the support band gave way to the stardust of the headliners: the suited and most resplendent Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds. Surely, it’s only a matter of time before they get the call from David Lynch himself—beckoned to play the house band in a rundown casino, frequented by a collection of weathered, deformed, yet sharply dressed psychopaths. Perhaps plotting their next move, shuffling a deck of cards in the flickering neon glow of The Shelter Cocktail Lounge, as Bob Log’s blues guitar echoes from the shadows in the corner…
..this soft-spoken yet spookily charismatic queer Mexican American is the very epitome of vintage cool."
Housekeeping for the uninitiated: Kid Congo Powers is a veteran of the punk, garage rock, and psychobilly scenes, most notably as a member of The Cramps, The Gun Club, and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. An authentic eccentric with the timeless glamour of a 1950s cocktail club, this soft-spoken yet spookily charismatic queer Mexican American is the very epitome of vintage cool. He’s perhaps the person with whom you’d most like to share a Ouija board session, and with the spirits he could raise, it would be a party to end all parties.
Bessenhoffer emphasized that the Pink Monkey Birds are always pushing it to the next dimension."
The set opened with ‘The Boy Had It All’ and ‘Silver For My Sister,’ two tracks from the new album That Delicious Vice. The two new band members displayed exceptional musicianship and stage presence: no less than the mighty Gabriel Naïm Amor on guitar, and the illustrious Dave Bessenhoffer, sporting a six-string bass and strutting around in a powder blue lounge suit and Cuban heels. Bessenhoffer emphasized that the Pink Monkey Birds are always pushing it to the next dimension.
...the most badass band we've seen all year."
With his chunky specs and sparkly southern necktie, Gabriel initially looked like the high school bully’s next victim, but he played his Gretsch with a ferocious energy that hinted at an underlying steely strength. In all honesty, this is probably the most badass band we’ve seen all year.
There were songs for the dearly departed, Goo Goo Muck and You Got Good Taste from The Cramps repertoire and She’s Like Heroin to Me, which he dedicated to the Gun Club’s Jeffrey Lee Pierce.
Kid Congo tried his very best to get the crowd to sing along in Spanish during ‘Ese Vicio Delicioso’ (an intoxicating new favorite of ours), which met with limited success. However, everyone jumped along uncontrollably to Ron’s faultless cowbell beat as if they had St. Vitus’ dance.
Wicked World, another song from the new album about a female serial killer penned by feminist activist punk vocalist, Alice Bag, cleaned up with its sliding guitar and catchy bass lines giving way to nails on chalk board screechy notes and an intense wall of sound.
The tracks included earlier moments in the Pink Monkey Birds’ career, such as At The Ruins of Others from Gorilla Rose; and Killer Diller and Haunted Head from the Haunted Head album. There were further tracks from the new album too – The Smoke is The Ghost, with Kid’s spoken word over a lounge tune building up to a hypnotic psychedelic crescendo (pure classic Congo), and A Beast, A Priest, with its syncopated rhythms.
As the thoughtful and well-structured set ended with the full-on assault of the Gun Club’s ‘Sex Beat,’ there was never any doubt that an encore was on the cards. The guitars were down-tuned before they launched headfirst into ‘Primitive,’ with its utterly filthy, sleazy riff.
La Araña was, according to Kid Congo, the tale of a spider who was queen of the underworld, living beneath the pyramids of Mexico City before rising to the surface of the Earth. She attended a party at his house, where she drank all the booze, fucked everyone, and made a huge mess—you know the type! Regardless of the story’s veracity, it was a catchy, 1960s-style number that had even the quiet kids bouncing by the end.
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The night concluded with “Never Said” from That Delicious Vice, a slower piece featuring appropriately delectable, twangy chords and chiming notes that resonated across the strange and unusual Garage crowd. Although modest in number, the audience was entranced and appreciative, including one Bobby Gillespie, who wore an oversized hat to remain inconspicuous.
When the world falls apart, follow Kid Congo through the chaos and embrace the otherworldly.
KID CONGO AND THE PINK MONKEY BIRDS + SUPPORT FROM MARTIN SAVAGE AND THE JIGGERZ – THE GARAGE, HIGHBURY, FRIDAY 20 SEPTEMBER 2024
