Juanita & Juan
Jungle Cruise
In the Red
What happens when two legends get together to write some new material? To Juanita & Juan, the answer is to continue soaring out of left field to offer us a ride on their playful Jungle Cruise.
Juanita & Juan are the Latin Pop-inflected alter egos of Alice Bag and Kid Congo Powers, two artists birthed at ground zero of L.A. Punk. Bag is the co-founder of The Bags, a Chicana blast of anger featured (in mutated form) in the seminal film Decline of Western Civilization (1980, Penelope Spheeris). Powers co-founded The Gun Club, who were no less visionary in their unique blend of punk attitude and swamp blues. Both have had long and storied careers since, and readers interested in these artists should check out both Bag’s and Powers’s excellent memoirs, Violence Girl and New Kind of Kick.
In an Instagram shout out to Bag on International Women’s Day 2025, Powers called the Juanita & Juan project a “cumbia/reggaeton cuckoo lounge act” and there truly is no better description. Given their histories, one might expect their debut to be a guitar-forward affair. Incorrect. Instead, drum machines and Bag’s synths do the heavy lifting while Powers’s guitars provide sonic texture.
The album opens with “Aftertaste,” a brooding pas-de-deux where the principals trade lyrics about a relationship gone bad. This opener, all venom and buzzsaw atmosphere, belies the vibe of the next six songs, which are fun even to the point of goofiness. The next song, “Jungle Cruise,” sets a more representative tone with its playful ’80s beat and Juan’s instructions to “shake your maracas and turn your blues into a jungle cruise.” On the next two songs, “Ven a Mi” and “El Interruptor,” Juanita gets you onto the quinces dancefloor with some slinky reggaeton beats and Spanish-language crooning. The party continues in a similar vein on the Juan-led “Crocodile.”
Two songs stand out for a Gen X listener such as myself. On “The Prez,” Juan sing-speaks his history in the early L.A. scene and as the president of the unofficial Ramones fan club. Jenny Lens, legendary punk photographer, and Ramones manager Danny Fields are folded into the tale. On “DBWMGD,” Juanita speaks for all misfits of a certain age about the power and kindred spirit we found (find!) in David Bowie. She sings, deliciously, “the alien saved the alienated.” I wonder if she and Juan know they have served the same purpose in so many other lives. Alienated from even other new wavey teens, I sat alone at a high school house party, listening to The Cramps’ Psychedelic Jungle on my Walkman and marveling at Kid Congo and Poison Ivy’s twin guitar raunch. It was revelatory. Still is.
Jungle Cruise closes with “Put Down Your Weapons,” a return to the darker feel of “Aftertaste.” However, the fight here is not between two estranged lovers but between those who work for peace and those who wage war. “Ceasefire now!” Juanita and Juan exhort. It seems these two iconoclasts don’t shy from speaking truth to power, even when they are making music that seems more akin to two old friends playing around with melodies over pina coladas in a bright LA solarium.
Jungle Cruise probably won’t bring listeners who don’t know the pair’s history into the fold. But reaching new audiences is likely not the point. Juanita & Juan are for those who like seeing our elder statespeople not resting on laurels but following their muses wherever they lead. I’ll take that cruise. You should, too.
