"The outfit's thunderous assault on the eardrums just feels good."
It's kind of hard to join the thematic dots between the uniquely French elegance of Degas' canvases and the good old-fashioned rock'n'roll Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds will unleash tonight. Amusingly, Degas in his later years painted a number of pictures of women 'at toilette', which are essentially nudes in bathrooms striking somewhat undignified and awkward poses.
While we exit the exhibition through the bookshop, Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds launch into a surf-rock instrumental that has the kind of twang that brings to mind his work with The Cramps. Playing tunes off Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds' albums, the outfit slide into schlocky psychobilly before settling into garage that's just a little punk in its attitude. The mix is rough and a little raw. The Pink Monkey Birds play it tight and fast. Kid Congo is as kookily eccentric as he is charismatic. There is a certain simplicity to this music, but the formula has been calculated to deal maximum damage. The outfit's thunderous assault on the eardrums just feels good. There are a lot of rock'n'roll grandpas in the crowd who understandably lose their minds when covers She's Like Heroin To Me and Sex Beat by The Gun Club are rolled out. Spencer P Jones, who played with The Gun Club on an Australian tour in the '80s, joins them for a tune. Once a Bad Seed, Kid Congo has another ex-Bad Seed, Mick Harvey, join him to deliver a banging take on The Gun Club's Thunderhead. An influential player in punk circles, Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds deal out a delightfully good time.