“Now that the years have passed, I can admit that we did make liberal use of Ry Cooder’s amps without his knowledge”: Kid Congo Powers is the journeyman guitarist who fused jazz and punk with the Bad Seeds, the Cramps and Gun Club

Kid Congo Powers performs on stage at Sala Apolo on the second day of the San Miguel Primavera Club festival at Sala Apolo on December 10, 2009 in Barcelona, Spain.

The release of 1984’s The Las Vegas Story saw the Gun Club step away from the ramshackle DIY ethic of their first two albums. 

The album saw the return to the lineup of guitarist Kid Congo Powers after three years spent touring and recording with the Cramps. The raw fervor of Fire of Love (1981) and Miami (1982) remained undimmed, but singer Jeffrey Lee Pierce, who formed the band with Powers in 1979, had decided to start playing guitar again for their third album.