“Well, I built me a raft and she’s ready for floatin’/Ol’ Mississippi, she’s callin’ my name”–oh shit, I’m doing it again. Growing up in a small town smack in the middle of nowhere, there was nothing for a kid to do on a Saturday night but hold up the local feed store–a popular option–or head down to the social hall of St. Aloysius Catholic Church, where one cover band or another was butchering the hits of the day.
They were invariably a lamentable lot, these bands, barely musically qualified to carry their equipment from van to stage and back, and for some reason or another every single one of them played the Doobie Brothers’ “Black Water.” Swear to God, I must have heard “Black Water” a thousand times. Even today, decades later, I find myself singing its horrid lyrics: “Catfish are jumpin’/That paddle wheel thumpin'”–Oh, fuck me like Huckleberry Finn already.
Based on my traumatic experiences at the St. Aloysius social hall, I came to the not unreasonable conclusion that cover bands were the lowest form of musical life, lower even than Nickelback or, God help us, Hoobastank. Turns out, though, I was wrong. Because on February 1 at the Black Cat I witnessed the Kid Congo Powers Hour do the unthinkable: make cover bands hip. The Kid Congo Powers Hour–which Powers calls a “genuine party band made to play at parties”–rarely plays public gigs. Powers himself conceded that the Black Cat show “was a little out of character. But really, any reason to celebrate!”
Celebrate indeed, for this was more than just a regular show. Rather, it was a unique opportunity for those us whose party invitations don’t extend to the hipster domain, but are limited to those from our Aunt Maslinka–whose sole musical fare consists of jolly Uncle Oblak singing a cheerful tune whose title translates roughly as “Slaughter the Serb Infidels to the Last Child”–to watch some crack musicians let down their hair and have some fun.
Needless to say, The Kid Congo Powers Hour isn’t your average St. Aloysius-caliber cover band. Rather, it’s a “supercovergroup” (I just made that up!) composed of a stellar cast of DC musicians including Powers on guitar and vocals; Mark Cisneros (Medications, Deathfix) on guitar and saxophone; Brendan Canty (Fugazi, Deathfix) on drums; Arthur Noll (Cane & the Sticks) on bass; and Alyssa Bell (aka DJ Baby Alcatraz) on back-up vocals, electric piano, tambourine, and harmonica.
Powers himself hardly requires an introduction. In addition to the familiar trilogy of The Gun Club, The Cramps, and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Powers has played with the likes of The Fall, Mark Eitzel, Congo Norvell–just about everybody, it seems, but the Doobie Brothers. (Come to think of it, I’m going to check the songwriting credits on “Black Water” just to make sure.) He currently fronts Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds, which put out its first album in 1995 and is preparing to release its fourth, Haunted Head, later this year. When I asked Powers to describe his band’s sound he told me, “Jeffrey Lee Pierce called The Gun Club’s music “surrealism and blues.” I would like to say I carry on in that tradition.”
According to Powers, playing covers with friends constitutes an enjoyable respite from the pressures of a musical career. “Everyone in the band is busy with other artistic pursuits, me with The Pink Monkey Birds and [Canty] and [Cisneros] with DeathFix. Both bands have albums about to come out and lots of touring ahead, so it is a joy for us to play material we don’t have to write. And for me, it is a real pleasure to play locally–all the Pink Monkey Birds live in different states, so playing DC is rarely an option unless we’re on tour–with guys and gals of great talent and taste. We laugh a lot.”
Yes, and while they were busy laughing, I was using my mad critic’s skills to get my sticky fingers on an advance set list for the show. And boy, was it a doozy. “Takin’ Care of Business” by Bachman Turner Overdrive, “Slow Ride” by Foghat, “We’re an American Band” by Grand Funk Railroad, “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas–wait a minute, wrong set list. I must have purloined that one from a St. Aloysius cover band back in the day. In reality, The Kid Congo Powers Hour played a wild array of covers–from obscure American garage to UK post-punk–ranging in time from the dawn of the sixties to the dying days of the seventies. Throw in a few Cramps and Gun Club classics, and what you got was a psychedelic-themed dance party soundtrack perfect for the town Powers calls “LSDC.”
As for the show: I’m sorry to report I missed the opening acts due to an unavoidable emergency room visit–let’s just say that’s the last time I go to a rattlesnake petting zoo–but arrived at the Black Cat just in time to see The Kid Congo Powers Hour begin its set with The Count Five classic, “Psychotic Reaction.” Bell played the familiar opening harmonica riff, Noll and Canty fell into an impressive lock groove–the band was remarkably tight, especially given its relatively short amount of practice time–and Powers and Cisneros produced a mental ward of a din on their guitars, especially during the nervous breakdowns at the song’s midsection and end.
Next up, Powers paid homage to the great Jeffrey Lee Pierce with The Gun Club’s frenetic “Sex Beat,” which featured some truly vicious guitar work by Powers and a rhythm section tighter than the vice grip Joe Pesci employed to such eye-popping effect in “Casino.” “Drop!” Powers would cry, and the band would blast off, Cisneros and Powers throwing out riffs as sharp as shards of shattered glass while Canty laid into his cymbals and Noll used his bass to keep the tune nailed to the floor. The band then went back in time to 1960 and “Gunslinger,” a hypnotic groove of a song featuring that familiar Bo Diddley beat that went on and on and on, like your mother-in-law only without the urge to shove forks into your ears. The band provided back-up vocals while Cisneros threw in a brief solo, then Powers contributed some particularly gnarly feedback and spooky hoodoo vocal gibberish before the band, much to my regret, shot Bo’s “Gunslinger” down.
The Kid Congo Powers Hour then played my evening’s personal No. 1, the 1966 anti-LSD anthem “We All Love Peanut Butter” by Zanesville, Ohio’s contribution to garage greatness, The One Way Streets. A mid-tempo number featuring some far-freaking-out lyrics (“Take a feather and fly it from a roof/Maybe do a swan dive from a roof/Some say she’s crazy and some say I’m a nut/Peanuts are nice but the acid is rare”) that make me suspect these Zanesville lads weren’t practicing what they preached, “Peanut Butter” was every bit as groove-friendly and trance-inducing as “Gunslinger,” and concluded with some acid-fried guitar by Powers followed by a tripping-balls free-for-all at the end.
Next up was a cover of the Psychedelic Furs’ first-ever single, 1979’s “We Love You,” which boasted a bass and drum intro, some fine sax work by Cisneros, a really nice electric piano figure by Bell, and crushing power chords by Powers. “I’m in love with Catholics/I’m in love with your blue cars/I’m in love with the words that scream/We are so stupid we all dream,” sang Powers, and on and on it went, no chorus, just a long stream-of-consciousness laundry list of loves that ended with the band singing “We love you” over and over while Cisneros contributed one hellacious blurt of a saxophone solo.
Powers introduced the next song by saying cryptically, “We’re gonna take a trip down my path, and I think it’s your path too,” at which point the band paid tribute to the late Lux Interior by launching into The Cramps’ psychobilly classic “Can’t Find My Mind.” A crawling kingsnake of a tune, “Can’t Find My Mind” featured an ominous guitar riff by Cisneros, nifty guitarslinging–including some insane feedback–by Powers, and a rhythm section tighter than a too-small pair of jeans. The band then went into yet another Cramps’ tune, 1981’s “I’m Cramped,” a classic slice of rock primivitivism with a riff-heavy groove that featured a sing-along chorus, caveman power chords by Powers, and some fine rhythm guitar work by Cisneros.
The band closed with “Whittier Boulevard” by pioneering Chicano band Thee Midniters, which Powers introduced by saying, “We’re going to take you way back to 1965, back to Chicanos cruising the streets on their low riders.” An uptempo instrumental featuring some barbaric drum pummel and fierce guitar work by Powers, “Whittier Boulevard” slowed down for an electric piano solo by Bell before accelerating into a low rider drag strip roar. The band then left the stage, but returned to play a 1962 obscurity by Ronnie Cook & The Gaylads called “Goo Goo Muck–later popularized by The Cramps–which set salacious lyrics (“I’m a night headhunter looking for some head/With a way-out body underneath that head”) to killer power chords. Powers talked the verses–at one point making a concession to the aging process by changing the lyrics from “I’m a teenage tiger looking for a feast” to “I’m a middle-aged tiger looking for a feast”–before delivering up a scalding guitar solo and some nonsensical goo goo muck vocals, at which point the show came to an end.
So there you have it. The Kid Congo Powers Hours kicked ass, and made me and a lot of other people really happy. But I can’t help but be a little bitter. Hell, if the bands back at the St. Aloysius social hall had been even half as cool as this one, I wouldn’t currently be undergoing intensive group therapy for post-cover-band stress syndrome. My doctor tells me I’m making progress, despite a late ’70s relapse when I actually went to see the Doobs (talk about your Stockholm Syndrome) and inadvertently ended up smoking PCP–but that’s a story for another time. Still, I don’t cry “Oh black water/Keep on rollin’!” at inappropriate times–such as while having sex–anymore. And I’m not even the worst case there. There’s the guy who has “Joy to the World” playing perpetually in his head, and can’t hear the words “Jeremiah was a bullfrog” without taking off his pants. Then there’s the poor ELP-afflicted sap with the unfortunate habit of singing, “Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends!” in crowded elevators. Seriously: it’s actually cost him jobs. I don’t know about you, but if I were him I’d start taking the stairs.
Photos: Richie Downs from an earlier date, 1/7 at the Hamilton.
