Chicano punk icons Juanita y Juan keep on rocking for new generations

Los Angeles Times

4 days ago

Punk rock is not the first thing one might associate with a children's puppet show. But on Sunday morning at the Ford Theater, L.A. punk pioneers Juanita y Juan and puppeteers from the Bob Baker Marionette Theater put local kids to the test.
After a morning spent crafting their own paper marionettes in the foyer, children marched towards the stage to revel in the weirdness of Juanita y Juan's electro-cumbia guitar jams — a musical fusion they call 'loud lounge.'
The duo was accompanied by vintage marionettes and their handlers, who played backup dancers in the shapes of jellyfish, cats and aliens. Families bounced and gently moshed along to the drum machine beats as 'Juan,' also known as Kid Congo Powers, regaled them with a story about his hair catching on fire while playing a candlelit punk show with the Cramps.
And when a couple of rowdy kids started to climb onstage, bouncers swiftly intervened. 'Oh, that's very punk!' said 'Juanita,' better known as Alice Bag.
It was a familiar scenario for Bag and Powers. When the two first crossed paths in the 1970s — one being the front woman of the Bags, the other a guitarist in such bands as the Gun Club, the Cramps and later Pink Monkey Birds — they could hardly surmise how influential their scrappy community would become in its nascent years.
'We were all trying to create some kind of new subculture or protest against the bland music of the day,' said Kid in a Zoom call before the show. 'We bonded under the flag of punk rock,' added Bag.
In the storied history of the Los Angeles punk scene, Chicanos were, and remain, permanent fixtures. But after predominantly white bands like Germs, X and the Go-Go's were commemorated in countless books and documentaries as architects of the genre, Bag and Powers decided to start sharing their own perspectives as Mexican Americans who broke the mold.
First, they committed the stories of their lives to the page. In 2011, Alice Bag published a memoir titled 'Violence Girl: East L.A. Rage to Hollywood Stage, a Chicana Punk Story,' and in 2022, Kid Congo Powers followed with 'Some New Kind of Kick.'
But it was after collaborating on a song for the 2022 Peacock mystery series 'The Resort' that their duo, Juanita y Juan, was born. They spoke to De Los about their salad days, their new album, 'Jungle Cruise' and how young Latinos can navigate this time of upheaval in the U.S.
The following interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Tell me about your supergroup, Juanita y Juan. What sparked this idea for you?
Kid Congo Powers: Juanita and Juan are the alter egos of Alice and I. Our reference was Marty & Elayne, who were a cabaret covers act at the Dresden Room [in Los Feliz]. They got a huge following; they were in the movie 'Swingers.' And the songs are fun.
We first reconnected as friends after Alice [released] her book, 'Violence Girl.' Then we got asked to write a song for a [2022] TV show on Peacock called 'The Resort.' Me and Alice are on the same label, In the Red Records, out of L.A. They asked for a song by 'a beach lounge act,' and they wanted it to be in Spanish. We are both Mexican Americans, Chicanos, but I thought, 'Alice is much more fluent in Spanish.' She was like, 'Why don't we try to do it as a duet?' And they liked that idea.
Alice Bag: With 'The Resort,' we had a springboard of this 'loud lounge' idea. But it morphed into several different things that were very much our personality, and very much not something we would normally do — exploring different rhythms, like Latin rhythms and tropical rhythms. I spent a month in Tucson, and we actually wrote and recorded songs [that became the album] 'Jungle Cruise.'
So how did this puppet show come into play?
K.C.G.: The [Bob Baker] Marionette Theater heard our music and thought it would be appropriate for a kids' punk thing.
A.B.: I have actually worked with Bob Baker's Marionette Theater before. We did a video together for a song on my 'Sister Dynamite' album, which was released in 2020. Also, I'm a former teacher. I used to take my classes to the old theater, so I have a very warm association with childhood and how enchanted kids are when they see a puppet show.
You both are really inspiring to me as Latinos who helped shape punk in its very early days. Learning about you and other Latin punks like Jeffrey Lee Pierce (The Gun Club) was affirming to me as a young Latina and punk. How did you two connect over your Mexican American experience?
A.B.: There were a lot of Latinos in the early punk scene. Not just Kid and I, but like, Trudie Arguelles, who was the face of L.A. punk.
K.C.P.: Yeah, she was the it girl.
A.B.: And Margot Olavarria, who was the original bassist for the Go-Go's, was a big shot in the scene. Tito Larriva, who formed the Plugs. Robert Lopez, Hector Penalosa, all the Zeros! There were a lot of Latinos around. But I think one of the things that happened is — I'm Alice Bag, although Bag is not my last name. Our last names got lost, and people just thought of the band names as our family names, like the Ramones! We banded under the flag of punk rock.
Our ethnicity was present, but it wasn't always the first thing that you noticed about us because of how we dressed. People did not know what punk was. They would make comments like, 'Is the circus in town? Are these people in a gang? Are they they gonna beat us up?' So we bonded, and we had to hang out together as self-defense. We were the weirdos.
Alice, in your memoir ('Violence Girl') you spoke about the tension between the Mexican cultural mores that you grew up with and what you were creating anew with punk.
A.B.: I think people got the wrong idea about me very early on because they knew I was from East L.A. I grew up around gang culture and learned to stick up for myself, so people thought I was scary. Even Kid Congo Powers said I was scary.
Did you think she was scary?
K.C.P.: I thought she was intense. Anything could happen when Alice Bag got on stage. And that was what drew me to her and the band. There was a menace to them, something volatile. This could be a riot, or it could be an orgy.
And Kid knows chaos very well. You held your own in bands like the Cramps. Could you think of a Latin entertainer who helped influence your own performance?
K.C.P.: Iris Chacón.
Wow, I didn't know you got down like that!
K.C.P.: My mom watched her on TV. That was exciting.
A.B.: That's where he got his maraca work from.
K.C.P.: And my outfits. But there was Ritchie Valens, of course. I like old rock 'n' roll. And then when I met Jeffrey Lee Pierce of the Gun Club in 1978 or '79, we bonded on being Chicano. We both grew up in San Gabriel Valley — me in La Puente, Jeffrey in El Monte. We'd reference riffs coming out of a garage in La Puente, some Chicano garage band playing Santana or War. We shared the outsider-ness of being born in America, but we were in Chicano world. And throw in the fact that I knew I was queer from a young age ... I didn't know if I was in or out.
A.B.: My influences were from Spanish-language music. Raphael was a Spanish singer who's very intense and very dramatic. And I also am a big fan of José Alfredo Jiménez, who wrote all these ranchera songs that were very emotional. I think there's a connection between ranchera music and punk — it's for everybody. It's better when everybody joins in and sings along. Punk and ranchera are the people's music.
That calls to mind the resurgence of corridos among young people. Some of the songs generate controversy, but it's interesting to see a similarly rebellious spirit as punk. What do you think?
K.C.P.: People are always saying to me, 'Don't you feel sorry for young people today? They don't have what you had, this and that.' But I would never in my life underestimate younger people. There's something going on, and I don't know about it. You don't know about it, because it's not for us to know about.
You both have shown many Latinos how to live authentically to your identity, to your values. What's a quick bite of encouragement or advice for young, weird Latino kids? Especially now, when it's hard not to feel demoralized about what's happening across the country?
K.C.P.: Well, to live authentically is a path that can be lonely. But it's also very empowering. And I get to be in my 60s and say I've done music exactly as I've pleased. That is possible. I had no idea how to play guitar until Jeffrey Lee Pierce said, 'Here's a guitar. I think you can do this. And you're gonna do it.' I thought, 'If this one person believes in me, then I'm gonna try it.' You just have to say yes to yourself.
A.B.: I would also say you're not alone. Every day, there's a bombardment of things in the world and in the U.S. that you want to resist. It's very easy to become despondent and overwhelmed. But you don't have to feel like you're lifting this whole weight by yourself. It's important to know that you do have a community that stands with you. We're all working in different ways. We're all a band. We're going to make it through this together.