Photo by Christopher Carlone
Juanita & Juan
Juanita & Juan
Even though they were part of the same small circle, when Brian Tristan first met Alicia Velasquez, he says he was very much in “admiration and fear” of her.
“What? You’ve never told me that part of it,” says Velasquez, known professionally as Alice Bag, during a Zoom interview with the two musicians.
“You were intense,” says Tristan, better known as Kid Congo Powers these days.
“I think I still am. Right?” she says.
“Fear mixed with such happiness,” adds Powers, “to see it and experience it, and such like, ‘Oh, yeah, let’s go!’”
Bag and Powers will perform as Juanita & Juan on Tuesday at the Cactus Club. The duo recently released their debut album, Jungle Cruise, on In the Red Records.
The Dawn of L.A. Punk Rock
They connected around 1977, when Bag and Powers were both part of the budding Los Angeles punk scene. Powers, who would go on to be a guitarist in bands like the Cramps, the Gun Club, the Knoxville Girls, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and his own Pink Monkey Birds, was at all the show and was president of the Ramones’ unofficial fan club – depicted wonderfully on Jungle Cruise’s “The Prez” – with the Ramones hitting L.A.: “We went to the soundcheck at the Whiskey and I felt so important/We snuck in the back door/Wow, it was so cool.”
Bag was the lead singer and founder of the legendary Bags, who appeared in Penelope Spheeris’s classic 1981 music documentary, Decline of the Western Civilization. A 1978 Los Angeles Times article written by Kristine McKenna describes Bag like this, reinforcing Powers’ “intense” description: “When Alice, lead singer of the Bags takes the stage in torn fishnet hose and micromini leopard-skin tunic, she explodes into convulsive, unintelligible vocals. The result is a raw sexuality not for the fainthearted.”
Bag would go on to play with bands like the Alice Bag Band, the Castration Squad, and Cholita. She has released three solo albums since 2016, including 2020’s Sister Dynamite for In the Red.
Together Again
Bag and Powers drifted apart for many years until they found each other again in 2011 when Bag was touring to promote her first book, Violence Girl: East L.A. Rage to Hollywood Stage, a Chicana Punk Story, published by Feral House. Powers says he followed Bag’s blog and volunteered to be a backing player when she came to Washington, D.C., where he was living at the time.
“And Kid was the really famous one,” Bag says. “He called me, and I’m like, ‘Kid Congo knows who I am and remembers me?’”
Eventually, they would become labelmates on In the Red … and then TV came calling. Representatives of The Resort, a mystery series on the Peacock Channel, contacted them to do a song for the show in a “Mexican beach lounge act” sort of way, and they wanted it in Spanish. The initial correspondence asked if either Powers or Bag would do it, but as they discussed it, Bag suggested they do the song as a duet.
Powers and Bag took inspiration from a well-regarded L.A. lounge act, Marty & Elayne, who performed in Swingers and were based at the long-running Dresden Room in Hollywood.
“You know, we were trying to think what form it would be, that would be different from what we normally do,” Powers says.
As they worked on the song from different cities, they soon realized how much fun they were having and how easy it was to collaborate. Bag would go on to also perform on Powers’ 2024 album with the Pink Monkey Birds, That Delicious Vice.
An offer for Juanita & Juan to perform a show at The Broad, a contemporary art museum in Los Angeles, was too good to pass up even though they only had one song written at the time. It pushed them toward creating more songs—quickly.
“The mother of invention was the task at hand,” Powers says, “which is how the original punk rock started.”
“Exactly,” says Bag.
“Let’s take the picture first and then make it a band,” he says.
It’s Still Us
Bag says she is finding a lot of enjoyment in performing with Powers and trying on a different persona as Juanita.
“I’m Alice Bag all the time in my other bands,” she says. “I have this one mode of like approaching my punk, and it’s usually pretty angry. Being on stage with you is always joyful. I cannot be on stage with you and not smile because you just make me happy.”
Adds Powers; “Loud lounge is our springboard, with the emphasis on loud more than the lounge. It’s still very much us, even though we are the characters of Juanita and Juan, the stories are our stories. The feelings are our feelings. Interests in the absurd are our interests in the absurd, you know. And our love of music, of the music we’re drawing upon, is very real. So, it's a win, win.”
At their concerts so far, their fans have enjoyed seeing this different side, Powers says.
“I think it’s a time to have some escapism and fun,” he says. “Because the times are so dark at the moment—can be and are. I think that we offer our community a chance for joy and to have a good time.”
If you miss Juanita & Juan, you will be able to see at least Powers again soon in the Milwaukee area. He will be playing with the Pink Monkey Birds and opener Devils Teeth at Cudahy’s X-Ray Arcade on Saturday, Sept. 13.
“Yeah, that’s going to be fun,” Powers says. “You can see two different sides of Kid, two very different experiences.”
Juanita & Juan will perform at 7 p.m. Tuesday, July 1 at the Cactus Club. Chicago’s Clickbait opens.
