Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds

Gorilla Rose

In The Red

LP $16.00

05/17/2011 759718520712

ITR 207

CD $12.00

05/17/2011 759718520729

ITR 207 CD

MP3 $9.90

05/17/2011 759718520729

Gun Club co-founder. Gunslinger for The Cramps. Six-string stylist for Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. The legendary Kid Congo Powers named his new album Gorilla Rose after the artist / performer. As a teenage boy, Powers met Gorilla Rose in the emerging LA punk scene of the ’70s through seminal weirdo band The Screamers. He recalls, “Gorilla was a close and constant presence and influence on The Screamers and me as a young pup. He was to The Screamers like Bobby Neuwirth was to Dylan—a jester of sorts, sparking many of their great lyric ideas. I still think Gorilla Rose is the most fabulous nom de plume in history. His unsung specter was in my mind a lot last year so I decided to title the album Gorilla Rose to honor his name and bring him into rock ’n’ roll’s ongoing conversation.” While editing his fan club newsletters at a haunted Hollywood house, a teenage Powers was also exposed to the sounds of Neu, Nico, Billie Holiday and Goblin’s soundtrack to the film Susperia, and along with Gorilla Rose, these past influences found their way into the Kid’s new full-length. To record the album, Kid Congo and The Pink Monkey Birds grabbed producer Jason Ward and hightailed it back to the magik gymnasium at The Harveyville Project, a high school in Kansas and also the scene of the crime of their much acclaimed 2009 release Dracula Boots. Kiki “El Coyote” Solis on bass and Ron “The Cap’n” Miller on drums, along with new Pink Monkey Bird Jesse “The Candyman” Roberts (from Seattle’s The Ruby Doe) on guitar, keys and vocals, firms up Kid Congo’s squawking flock. Brandishing thirteen all-original, glam-tastic compositions, Gorilla Rose blasts off with the ’60s Chicano rock influences of explosive dance anthem “Bo Bo Boogaloo.” Shake it, don’t break it! That’s just the start of a wild ride through funky but chic decadence, slip sliding rockabilly, teenage punkdom, mystic krautrock, baby-making sleaze, the best bad peyote trip you ever took and even a velvety call from the beyond. Finding inspiration in the past is what Kid Congo and The Pink Monkey Birds do best. On this 2011 sonic trip, the Kid brings his past into the present and names it after someone flamboyant and inspired: Gorilla Rose.