Mekons

With Love from ME to You

Although solo projects, art exhibitions , literary soundtracks, sideband tours, and various tribute albums of the past few years have threatened to dilute the MUSICAL energies of one of the few surviving bands from the heady late-70's punk era, The Mekons' latest release on 1/4 Stick Records, Me, is their most consistent since the early 90's, and one of the best discs so far of 1998. Dense, dancable, funny, cranky, and elusive; a vertiable stylistic triptych through the long running band's heady 20-year discography-- (see next below)--encompassing British cow-punk, anarchic art-rock, dub and dance experientation and heartfelt pop.

Grip's own Don Harrison talked with Mekons co-founder Jon Langford (also of the late, lamented Three Johns and the currently-twangin' Waco Brothers, also a talented artist, specializing in documenting on canvas the decline of country music) about their latest U.S. tour. And also about how the band's current scattered geography (Langford, singer Sally Timms and drummer Steve Goulding live in Chicago while the rest of the band founding member Tom Greenhalgh and accordionist Rico Bell reside in England) affects their working process.

Langford, who the Trouser Press Guide To Alternative Music calls "a major influence in modern-rock circles" was only too happy to ruminate over past history and new developments in all things Mekon.

P P P P

Grip Monthly How do the Mekons work now, split between the U.K. and Chicago?

Jon Langford In a way it kind of focuses things. We don't waste a lot of time when we do something. A tight ship we run now (laughs).

Grip You're touring in June. What lineup?

Langford (Laughs) A lot of people. Pretty much everyone who's on the record, I think.

Grip With that lineup, are you going to do a lot of Fear & Whiskey (1985)?

Langford Strangely, yeah. It's pretty much the same lineup that played on (Fear...). . . I dunno. We haven't had a new record of specifically "Mekon" songs out in quite a while, just reissues. And we did a lot a lot of older stuff when we did play... we did a weird little gig, just me, Tom and Sally in Chicago at the Lounge Ax when we were mixing the album. Steve didn't play the drums,he just read from the Mekons book and (the rest of us) sang. We had some backing tapes, did some new songs and half the audience walked out. . . it was cool.

Grip The new Mekons record sounds very dense and layered.

Langford We didn't start recording until September. . . but it was kind of typical the way we work (nowadays). The first thing we had was the title, Me, and then we did the cover. Slowly, we kind of put music together, we played live and let people play freely and go off and then we chose and edited on the computer. We did some amazing things (that way).

Grip Are you taking some shots at somebody with the"Me" concept?

Langford No one in particular, just "Me-ness" in general.

Grip The Me Generation?

Langford Kind of this idea in Western Society that self-expression, and the self, is the most important thing.

Grip The Mekons have always been very communal.

Langford Yeah pretty democratic.

Grip Like the paintings and fiction in the Mekons United art book. Who actually does what? Who, for instance, painted "Elvis in the Style of Jackson Pollock"?

Langford That's me and Tom. We did it together.

Grip How about something like "The Last Dance," that very Brugel-like style.

Langford That's Rico (Bell, the band's accordionist).That was totally his, even though I think I told him to do a painting called "The Last Dance" (after the Mekons song). He's a very accomplished painter.

Grip I read some reviews that had the flavor of 'well, rock 'n' roll must not be good enough for the Mekons anymore' but you and Tom had been talking about producing an art book of some kind since at least 1988.

Langford It was always in the back of our minds. Everyone was individually involved in making visual stuff. We all started out in ArtCollege. Instead of sticking with painting, though, we formed a band and traveled in a van and played music.

Grip Does Sally Timms paint?

Langford She does a little. She did less of the visual stuff in the book and quite a lot of the written stuff.

Grip How does the Mekons fiction work? Does someone do a first draft or is it more group stream-of-consciousness?

Langford Really varied. There are parts in the novel (contained in the Mekons United book), bits that are like a novel within a novel. All those bits were written in the van (on tour), passing around a book and doing it line by line.

Grip I love the letters that are spread throughout the book. Kind of a running commentary.

Langford Yeah, with the fiction and the humor, everyone kind of submitted what they wanted. It was quite open and broad. A lot of people who weren't in the band wanted to write stuff. We didn't really hone it down so that people had to write about this or about that.

Grip How was your art exhibition and the Mekons United book received in the art world?

Langford ArtForum gave it a full page and a rave review. . . it was more problematic the way (it) was received by the rock 'n' roll writers, people who have supported us in the past as a band. I was surprised about that, how conservative they were about what they thought we should be.

Grip I thought the United CD, which came with the art book, was pretty cool.Was that compiled odds and ends or did you specifically record it for the project?

Langford It was put together for the book, Most of it was new material, except for the version of "Last Dance." It wasn't just scraps. We may play a couple of songs from it on our tour.

Grip It's a strong set. Why not release it on its own?

Langford Because we'd said originally that the CD would only be available with the book. We shouldn't go back on that. It makes sense together (with the book). . . it also gave us room to roam and do things we couldn't do on a normal (Mekons) album.

Grip Parts of the United disc sound like the complicated studio stuff you are doing with Me.

Langford "Orpheus" and "Now We Have The Bomb,"especially.

Grip The new album also reminds me of Curse of the Mekons (1991). In fact, "Mirror" is very similar to that album's "Sorcerer."

Langford Yeah, that's true. I didn't think about that. I like Curse of the Mekons 'cause it was after Mekons Rock 'n' Roll (1989), which was all about replicating the live sound of the band. . . Curse was, well, we've done that. Let's do something else, something really broad.

Grip As good as Curse was, it's strange that you had such a hard time with A&M over that record.

Langford A&M thought it was a joke. We had wanted to leave them and in the end they threatened legal action so we had to give them the tapes. Then they told us after they got the tapes that they thought we'd deliberately given them a load of shit. Pretty insulting.

Grip Then you got into a long, protracted struggle with the WEA-distributed Loud label. And that held you're I ¤ Mekons up.

Langford Yeah, that dragged on for a long time. We got involved with a guy connected with WEA, but he wasn't as connected as we thought he was. That whole thing dragged on for two years.

Grip Strange, then, that you had one of your most accessible songs floating around during all that, "I Kiss Your Wicked Midnite."

Langford When we did I ¤ Mekons, we wanted to specifically write poppy songs, kind of a love album with a hard edge.

Grip Then the album finally found a home on Quarterstick. Is that when you relocated to Chicago?

Langford I moved here in 1992 in the middle of all of that Loud shit. It was when I moved that I first got in contact with the people at Touch and Go / Quarterstick.

Grip The Mekons seem to have found a home at the label.

Langford It's the longest we've been with any label (5years) and we have no complaints. It might've even taken the edge off the band with people being nice to us all the time (laughs). We were soused to having to fight and bitch with record companies. Quarterstick have been great, giving us the money to do the CD with Kathy Acker (Pussy King of the Pirates) and the Mekons United art book they sank a lot of money into that and they actually wanted to do it! They didn't make a profit.

Grip The Mekons collaborated with the late Kathy Ackeron a musical soundtrack to her book, Pussy King of the Pirates. What was it like to work with her?

Langford It was really great. She was totally fucking wild. I was looking at all the photographs where we were dressed up as pirates (for the cover) and she's dressed up as herself and she looks more like a pirate than we did. (Laughs)

Grip Did her novel, Empire of the Senseless, influence the Mekons song (from Rock 'n' Roll) or vice versa?

Langford We wrote that song and had it coming out and her book came out at the same time. She very flatteringly claimed she stole it off us but she didn't. She couldn't have.

Grip Wow. You came up with it at the same time?

Langford Yeah. We were freaked-out when we saw the book. 'Oh no, she's gonna think we're ripping her off'. . . but she said she ripped us off even though she couldn't possibly have done it. There was some weird telepathy going on, something she would definitely have believed in.

Grip You are in the middle of a lot of different scenes in Chicago. Do you soak it all in or tune it out?

Langford I hope I soak it in. And also tune out some stuff , the shit.

Grip Is it a pretty close-knit music scene?

Langford It's interesting in that there's space here for people to do a lot of different things and people are very tolerant and into what other people do. I was surprised that (Post-rock pioneer) David Grubbs came down to a Waco Brothers show the other night and I had never met him before. He said 'I like theWaco Brothers.' I know Johnny from Tortoise, who played with the Mekons at one point, and I know people in the rockabilly bands like the Riptones and people doing the Post-Rock. . . It's a funny little scene.

Speaking of which, we had a 20th Anniversary Party at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, which is a pretty cool gig, where we played mostly stuff from Curse and the Edge of the World.

Grip I hope you don't mind me asking about The Three Johns.

Langford No, of course not. (John) Hyatt the singer is coming to town in a few weeks, actually, and we might do a bit of recording. And Brennie (John Brennie) the bass player is playing lead guitar for Rico(Bell's) band. He plays lead guitar like Scotty Moore now. I was really pleased to see him playing out. One of the reasons we broke up the Three Johns (a decade ago) was that he was so destructive to himself physically while we were doing it with vicious cycles of alcoholism. But he's been teetotal for seven years now, and got himself together, gone back to college, studying politics.

Grip A newer side band of yours is the Waco Brothers.

Langford When I first came to Chicago I had nothing to do, really. I was just playing covers in bars for free beer. So it was an attempt to have a band that was all people living in one town. The geography of the Mekons can be a frustrating situation sometimes. It's nice to just get together with guys and play country covers in a bar. I always wanted to play real simple honky-tonk country music. We tried to do it in Leeds, me and Rico, and it was impossible.

Grip It was probably hard to find musicians.

Langford There's good players, but they just didn't understand it. (The Mekons) would go to America and load up on albums, but.. . hey, I didn't know about Merle Haggard or George Jones until the mid-80's.

Grip The late rock writer Lester Bangs wrote the liner notes for The Mekons Story (1983) and was an early supporter of the band. Did you know him well?

Langford I hung out with him in New York around 1981 and he sang me a load of his songs (at his apartment). We were pretty out of our minds and I got really confused because I wasn't aware of Hank Williams at the time and I thought (Lester) had written these songs whole verses and chunks of the songs were HankWilliams' but he'd have his stuff in there as well.

Grip What a place to first hear Hank Williams!

Langford Yeah, like "Rambling Man." (the Mekons sampled a tape of Lester singing this song on their Fun '90 EP-- ed.) I'd never heard it before. I thought it was Lester's.

Grip I didn't know about your solo album, Skull Orchard, before this interview. Tell me about it.

Langford It's on a label called Sugar Free out of Chicago.I never did a solo album before, as such. It's all original songs I wrote. I don't know what it is really. I got a review today from a paper in Florida that said it was somewhere between (the film) Roger & Me and Lou Reed's New York. Highly flattering. It's all songs about growing up in South Wales. I'd call it a concept album except that's a dirty word. It's all songs I wrote over here on my own, sitting around.

Grip It's great that you and Sally Timms are still collaborating. Her solo work is really strong.

Langford Yeah, I hope to work with her on a new one soon. Her husband, Fred Armisen, plays drums in the Waco Brothers when Steve can't do it. Sally and Fred are in a band together called Sarumimi Brazilianstuff.

Grip You're a founding member of The Mekons. Tom is too, correct?

Langford Me, Tom and Kevin have been doing it since the very beginning. Kevin doesn't perform live but he's always involved in helping write the lyrics. They are all written around his computer,drinking his drink (laughs).

20 Years of Cursed Wax

Jon Langford discusses the Mekons' vinyl past. . .

The Quality of Mercy is Not Strnen

(1980, available on Virgin CD w/ six bonus tracks from1977-79) Socialist punks recording on Richard Branson'sdime. "It was recorded a year too late and we were sick of those songs by that time. And we had to do it in some big posh studio in the middle of the countryside. Apart from Tom singing "After6," it's really an album I can't listen to (now). It was just recorded a year too late."

Devils, Rats and Piggies

(1982, available on Quarterstick CD w/ two bonus tracks) The Mekons' Electronic Basement Tapes until its recent reissue, a lost chapter in their saga. "Brilliant. I love (Devils, Rats & Piggies). It totally prefigures what we are doing now. It was a style of working that we kind of invented while we were doing it,very much a reaction to how boring we thought it had all got, punk rock had become such a cul de sac."

It Falleth Like Gentle Rain From The Sky The Mekons Story

(1983, available on feelgoodallover CD) A mock aural rockumentary with hilarious tongue-in-cheek liner notes by celebrated rock critic Lester Bangs. "It slimmed down to me and Tom and Kevin(Lycett) by this point. We didn't even exist (as a band), really. Lester never got to hear the record before he died."

Fear and Whiskey

(1985, available as Original Sin w/ many bonus cuts on Sin / Restless CD ) The Mekons second phase kicks in with a masterpiece-love letter to America's "dead" roots music. "(It was) a lot of work getting to it, and then a little explosion when it happened. We hadn't made a record in two years, but had some demos which we paid for ourselves and someone said,'hey, you should put this on an album' and gave us the money to go into the studio for one day and make the second side. It got a lot of that 'punk-country' press in England but in America (we) were surprised by how well that Fear and Whiskey was treated. It actually sold and it kind of gave us the will to be a real band again.

Edge of the World

(1986, available on Quarterstick CD ) The Dark, moody side of Fear & Whiskey, with husky-voiced chanteuse Sally Timms stepping out into the spotlight proper. "We went to the states for the first time(supporting) it. I had to listen to Edge of the World recently because we remastered it and I was just delighted when I heard the original tapes we've been playing quite alot of stuff from Edge of the World over the past year when we've played live."

Honky Tonkin' (1986 A&M CD)

So Good It Hurts (1987, available on A&M CD )

Watershed albums. "(I love) Honky Tonkin' less so. I think it's a very dark album. A lot of it was recorded in a basement. (So Good It Hurts) is slick but I still think it is really good."

Til Things Are Brighter

(1987 Fundamental LP, out-of-print) Mekons and pals play it loose in a slapdash tribute to Johnny Cash, with proceeds going to AIDS research. "Johnny has always been an agitator and supported so many causes and did it in such a dignified way. When we did the album, he got a lot of shit in Nashville like, 'Does Johnny know these people are making a tribute album and that the money is going to GAYS??' and he came out on television in England and held up a copy of (Til Things Are Brighter) and said how much he supported it. . . a very complicated man but I like the way he didn't just burn out and die a mess, y'know? He's done it day by day, year by year, for so long. .."

The Mekons Rock 'n' Roll

(1989 A&M CD) Arguably their most sustained effort. An engaging concept album crammed with air-guitar-ready rock riffs and enigmatic lyrics. "We gigged a lot in 1988 and I think this was a reaction to how slick-sounding So Good It Hurts was. That album didn't capture the band live. It wasn't really an attempt to do that but we'd never recorded an album that sounded like the band live. We signed with A&M and decided to do an album about a band being on a major label, and about the music industry. That's why it's called Rock 'n' Roll."

Fun 90

(1990 A&M CD EP) An aptly-titled excursion into dance music. One of the group's most underrated releases. "If you are going to do a studio thing, hey, totally be into it!

Curse of the Mekons

(1991 Blast First CD) The Mekons Exotica! "I like Curse because it came after Rock 'n Roll which was all about replicating the live sound of the band and it was like, well, we've done that. Let's do something else, something really broad."

I ¤ Mekons

(1993, 1/4 Stick 19 CD) Containing shoulda-been hits like "I Kiss Your Wicked Midnight" "We wanted to specifically write an album of pop jewels. A kind of love album with a hard edge."

Retreat From Memphis

(1994 1/4 Stick) A misstep into muddy grunge. "I don't know what Retreat From Memphis was. We were just like, 'let's do another album.' We'd had to wait so long for I (heart) the Mekons to come out that we were in a state of confusion. We had a record that was selling quite well and (Quarterstick) saying, 'When you are all together, just do another album.' I think it's a mess, but it's at least a live mess. It was also a weird band at the time, we had a drummer that hadn't played with the band before or since, and there was also a tension because we didn't know what we sounded like. There are six songs I like a lot I think it would have made a great EP."

Pussy, King of the Pirates

(1995 1/4 Stick CD, w/ Kathy Acker)

A bawdy, pottymouthed soundtrack to KathyAcker's book, with libretto by the late author. "I think (Pussy) is one of the best things we ever did. I loved it. To get the chance to collaborate with someone as fucking amazing as Kathy was great. She was brilliant. She wrote everything and told us which bits had music and which parts she was going to read. We had discussions about the music (laughs). Mostly, it was a very freeing thing for her to be doing something different. I loved doing it too."

Mekons United

(1996 1/4 Stick / Touch & Go CD / Book)

The handsome package reproduces the band's collective art, poetry, lyrics and fiction and houses a hodgepodge of an album that may be their best effort overall since Curse. "The (CD) for United was a very weird thing. It's so long. We got different people to play different things and recorded things in isolation, did things together. And as a record I think it really works. And yet, along with Pussy, it got us some of the harshest reviews of our career. A lot of people in the rock press who had been supporting us seemed to be saying, 'you shouldn't collaborate with an art museum or with an author.' I just think that's so conservative. What the hell. . . do you really need another band out there playing the game? There's so much pressure on you to be boring like that. The art world was more accepting; ArtForum gave it a full page and a rave review. The United CD was not meant to be 'together' in any way.That was the point, just kind of flying off in different tangents. Like the book.

Me

(1998 1/4 Stick / Touch & Go CD)

The Mekons show off. "Me and Tom just mixed it in November and it was a lot of mixing. I've listened to it a lot and it's unusual for me to listen to something and not want to remix it or rework it. It seems very complete to me."

(To access my review of the Mekons' Me, log onto www.amazon.com-- D.H.)