jyuenger » 2016

I have a thing about Kid Congo Powers, who was a founding member of the Gun Club, played guitar in the Cramps, was in the Bad Seeds with Nick Cave for 10 years. Right place at the right time, always, that guy.

I was reading this interview today, where he says, “I have gone through my entire conscious life thinking I’m going to be killed because I’m gay”, which is a heavy-as-fuck statement, but not unfamiliar to anyone who is gay or who knows someone who is.

I also have a thing about Ibanez lawsuit guitars, which were the first halfway-decent electrical instruments I was able to touch with my own hands, because they were affordable enough that I knew a couple of kids who had one. These same guitars featured heavily on one of the very first “cool” records I ever got (the polka-dot-customized Rocket Roll flying V played by Bryan Gregory, Congo’s Cramps predecessor, on Songs The Lord Taught Us), and the first punk gig I ever went to, where another Rocket Roll was handled thoroughly by Hüsker Dü‘s Bob Mould – and if you want to know what that sounded like, here.

Anyway, here’s a photo from Congo’s tenure in the Cramps – he’s playing an Ibanez Destroyer Explorer copy (I don’t have the numbers, but in my experience these are less common than the flying V copies), which I assume is the same one played by Julien “Grindsnatch” Hechtlinger (Powers’ short-lived successor) in this clip from Urgh! A Music War.