Kid Congo Honors William Burroughs with a Slinky Blues

Describing the Gun Club's 1981 Fire of Love, Jack White once asked, "Why are these songs not taught in schools?" More recently, Japandroids paid tribute by placing a cover of that album's retrobilly slammer "For the Love of Ivy" on last year's Celebration Rock. In the thirty-odd years since Fire of Love, songwriter Kid Congo Powers has kept busy playing guitar with the Cramps, Nick Cave, Mark Eitzel, and others as well as performing with his own band, the Pink Monkey Birds. Congo's heavily-vibratoed guitar dominates the slow-burning new 7" single "Conjure Man," whose video finds Congo and friends in a dark, smokey room around a rotating lampshade. The so-called "dreamachine" was designed by Genesis P-Orridge in apparent homage to William S. Burroughs, a photo of whom appears in the video's opening shots.