Brian Tristan would have a place in the annals of rock ‘n’ roll if starting the West Coast chapter of the unofficial Ramones Fan Club back in 1976 was the only thing he ever did. Many books have been written about less.
The same is true of Tristan’s experience as an outsider among outsiders, cutting his teeth as a queer Chicano teenager, carving out his own identity in lockstep with LA’s budding glitter-come-punk scenes, both of which were vastly homogeneous: straight and white.
The same goes for the time Tristan formed the legendary band, The Gun Club, upon meeting Jeffery Lee Pierce — another early LA punk accolade and fan club president (Blondie, in his case) — while in line to see Peru Ubu at the Whiskey a Go Go. But these are just the beginnings of his real-life picaresque adventures. Had they ended there, the world would never know Kid Congo Powers, as Tristan came to be known after joining The Cramps, an already legendary band, in 1980.
But even before he was Kid Congo Powers — the name adorning all of the beloved record sleeves that would follow — his life was marked by a magic-like serendipity despite its hurdles and uncertain direction, as if destined by the freaky gods of — as Powers puts it — the “morally degraded popular culture” he was captivated by in film and music as a youth. Powers characterizes himself as a wanderer and life as chaos theory. In the spirit of those guiding principles, “Some New Kind of Kick,” Power’s new memoir, chronicles his (mis)adventures and travels in three of the most remarkable underground bands of the day –add Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds to his not-so-humble-beginnings – through the end of the last century and beyond.
The first half of the book chronicles earlier epochs in Power’s life — the making of Kid Congo — from the ‘burbs to city haunts, populated by his multi-generational family, friends and show-going milieu he came to know (and readers may too: The Screamers’ Tomata du Plenty, Lydia Lunch and Joan Jett, to name drop a few).
Los Angeles comes to life in houses with names of their own, like Wilton Hilton and Disgraceland, populated with characters to match, all delivered with a highly readable nonchalance. This anecdotal approach allows for a riveting acceleration of events and accretion of notorious characters with a matter-of-factness that, in lesser hands could come across as braggadocious, or worse, unlikely. As such, it’s only natural when our protagonist catches a ride with the Dils after witnessing the last ever Sex Pistols concert before finding themselves in the midst of a real-life natural disaster (and that’s not even a spoiler!) or later spends the night in an L.A. holding cell with another punk acquaintance who, by coincidence, just so happens to be Pat Smear, then of The Germs; later of Nirvana and Foo Fighters. Or in what ranks memorably among Powers’ more harrowing dramas brought to comedic effect, when he manages to scare producer Kim Fowley, a real-life monster, away from his apartment one afternoon in the midst of an epic acid trip with his roommates. That Powers crams so much action into his story before even entertaining the idea of playing guitar or being in bands, exhibits his depth of character (which, importantly, he grows into) and the vitality of this memoir.
A fan first
Powers was a fan of music before he made music for fans. His first ambition was to write about music, not perform it, and early publications like Creem, Circus and Rock Scene were as inspirational to him as the performers they covered. In similar fandom osmosis, Patti Smith was a conduit for Powers to discover the French symbolists and Beat writers. There’s something gratifying in clocking all the influences commingling in Powers personal formation up through his firsthand account of punk rock’s first wave. Indebted to this facet of Powers makeup, readers are treated to his authentic reverence and passion for the material that’s experiential, not nostalgic. This first half of Powers’ creation story is so rich and propulsive — in the spirit of the times and youthful enthusiasm it enshrines — that it comes as no surprise when his own career takes shape as if fully formed by all the experience and influences detailed. It takes off with a fierce force, orbiting in a gravitational pull like only The Gun Club, Cramps and the Bad Seeds could send one spinning in.
Powers could fill a separate book with his first three bands, if given to pandering. Instead he captures the uncertainty of this period as a pendulum of highs and lows which bring the artist back and forth across the globe on tour, and to and from struggles and personal triumphs that follow in the second half of the book. Powers’ oeuvre is stacked, marked with a serendipity that is at once uncanny, but equally epitomizes the punk rock ethos of inclusivity and wild, devil-may-care abandon. It’s hard to read and not be swept up by DIY dreams of your own making. If it’s now a foregone conclusion that everyone can be a self-realized musician, back then it was a revelation:
“If you can understand, go and join a band – it was easy, it was cheap, go and do it!” — Desperate Bicycles’ “The Medium Was Tedium” (1977).
Powers did it, and continues to do it still. Half-a-dozen albums have followed from his band, Kid Congo & the Pink Monkey Birds, over the better part of the last two decades, easily exceeding the span of his career covered in the bulk of “Some New Kind of Kick.” It all goes to show you never know what the hand of fate holds. This piece is no exception.
Originally intended to double as previews for both his memoir and a forthcoming Pink Monkey Birds concert — then scheduled for Dec. 29, 2022 in Richmond — plans were dashed after Powers shattered his leg in a bicycle accident at home in Tucson, Arizona, days before tour. I had been looking forward to opening up for Powers on his would-be D.C. date, if only to redeem myself after the time an old band of mine supported him on a bill in Baltimore a decade prior. Disastrously, I joined Powers for a rendition of “Garbage Man” and forgot every other word like a sacrilegious galoot.
No, life isn’t all eureka moments. The kismet is often matched by the kaput. Fittingly, Powers’ “Some New Kind of Kick” chronicles as many doors opened as slammed shut, or left awkwardly ajar. It’s a marvel to read him reliving the chaos now with such clarity and some new kind of perspective.
