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12016-04-13T13:32:22-07:00Casey Diaz070c773ac008bf619142bbad2de8c516fbf3b25d679021gallery2018-02-12T17:34:36-08:00David J. Kim18075634b7f170977d77a44ac7336b0769c55211
"For us, first wave punk rock gays, we weren’t interested in being 'out' because to us, labels were strictly taboo." -Kid Congo (Huffington Post)
A member of the band The Gun Club who then joined the Cramps as a Guitarist, Kid Congo (ne Brian Tristan) performed themes of horror, garage rock, and BDSM with famous songs like Goo Goo Muck and She Said. Known specifically for his look, Kid Congo became a punk icon partly through his fashion, a notion validating Hebdige's argument that [youth] punks show revolt through style or symbolic resistance. Kid Congo made his own clothes and claims that he was attracted to the punk scene because of the look and not the music (Vogue). Rumor has it that the Cramps, sought Kid Congo out, remembering him for his 1950s thrift shop gold blazer, despite their adherence to a dangerous style filled with black clothing items.
Shortly mentioned in Gay LA as a "...male rocker who appears to have been primarily or exclusively homosexual" (25), Kid Congorejected such labeling, for he believed in a traditional notion of subcultures not needing to seek acceptance from the normative world. His separatist attitude, revolting against an imposed system, nevertheless did not ensure safety or openness. Rarely discussing his sexuality, Kid Congo insulated himself within a scene masking an authentic queerness. Punk disrupted notions of labeling for Kid Congo, as he existed as a gay Mexican man in the punk subculture, a place where everyone and anyone starts to (as the title of our book suggests) "find their tribe."
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12016-04-13T13:31:31-07:00Casey Diaz070c773ac008bf619142bbad2de8c516fbf3b25dQueer LA Punk ArchiveH. N. Lukes27plain2018-04-10T17:53:11-07:00H. N. Lukes76bfab3424b1e3a4a686ed031370b6dfac5dd2dd
12016-05-05T16:11:01-07:00Kid Congo Powers - how I joined The Cramps1Kid Congo Powers tells the story of him joining The Cramps. See more clips and read the complete interview at http://www.rockerzine.com/plain2016-05-05T16:11:01-07:00
12016-05-06T14:58:21-07:00The Cramps - She Said1Part 5.plain2016-05-06T14:58:21-07:00
