(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)

With Fall and a few other bands, John Langford’s Mekons were one of the institutions of British alternative rock in the 1980s; but, as with the Fall and many other renowned bands, the group’s moral stature did not always reflect an equal artistic level. Langford has always been an inconsistent musician, now seduced by the rock and roll of the Who, now by the folk-rock of the Fairport Convention, and ultimately by Nashville country-rock, or even techno. In no genre did he manage to create fully realized works, although every live concert is a spectacle because some twenty driving songs are easy to pick from his repertoire.

The Mekons emerged immediately after the explosion of British punk rock, at the end of the 1970s, in Leeds, one of the most prolific epicenters of the phenomenon. Of the Leeds bands that contributed to the renewal of the genre, they were from the start among the most political and absolutely the most eclectic.

With anarchist anthems like Never Been In A Riot (January 1978), Where Were You (November 1978), and Work All Week (September 1979), the Mekons positioned themselves at the forefront of politicized punk rock.

The album Quality Of Mercy Is Not Strnen (Virgin, 1979) thus became a true monument of British independent rock: it was not so much the pop melodies of Like Spoons No More and What, or the delirious musichall numbers like What Are We Going To Do Tonight and Trevira Trousers, the unworthy bacchanals like Beetroot, or the punk-rock leftovers like Dan Dare that mattered, but the spirit (amateurish and scruffy) with which they were played and recorded.

Shortly afterward, however, John Langford changed course, discovering a vocation for dance-pop, albeit in an ideologically militant and musically creative version. This second phase includes Teeth (March 1980), Snow (April 1980), the album Devils Rats And Piggies (Red Rhino), This Sporting Life (October 1981), and the third album It Falleth Like Gentle Rain From Heaven (CNT, 1982).

The band’s crisis led Langford to form the Three Johns (a trio plus a rhythm box). After the 1982 single (English White Boy Engineer, tribal and menacing, doubled by the delirious Pink Headed Bug), within a year (1983/84) three EPs were released: the dizzying disco-punk of Men Like Monkeys, doubled by the hiccupping “blues-a-billy” of Rooster Blue; the Lou Reed-style boogie of A.W.O.L.; the gothic-accented rock and roll of Do The Square Thing, a heavily industrial dance-rock with shrill garage inflections.
The 1984 album, Atom Drum Bop (Abstract), indulged in more pop-oriented impulses (Teenage Nightingales To Wax, Firepits, Do Not Cross The Line), managing to pair political bite with melodic accessibility.

At that point, the Mekons returned to the scene. The 1983 EP English Dancing Master (CNT) had already hinted at some significant novelties: Mr Confess married folk and drum machine; Ro Country Dance was a quadrille in synthpop form; Parson's Farewell was the only link to the past. The new course took its momentum from there.

The album Fear And Whiskey (Sin, 1985), one of their best, is a country-rock record, as if recorded in an Appalachian barn, with Susie Honeyman’s fiddle dancing from end to end, but above all with their usual flair of incorrigible drunks and suburban ragamuffins. Chivalry has the epic drive of proletarian anthems, Flitcraft is a ragged waltz, Country is another grotesque anthem at a galloping pow-wow pace, while Last Dance restores a touch of dignity with a relatively serious and catchy song. The best track, however, is the one that fits least: the syncopated voodoobilly of Hard To Be Human Again, sung in the usual epic/titanic choral tone and accompanied by sinister twang.

Two EPs from the same period deliver additional waltzes and ballads to punk audiences: Crime And Punishment and Slightly South Of The Border. Albums and EPs were later collected on Original Sin (Twin Tone, 1988).

Meanwhile, the Three Johns released the blues-rock Zowee (1985), reminiscent of Safe As Milk (Captain Beefheart), the existential ballad in the style of Bryan Ferry Death Of A European (1985), the punk-rock anthem Brainbox (1985), and the operatic blues-rock of Sold Down The River (1986). The album The World By Storm (Abstract) repeated the success of the first, with King Car, Demon Drink, and Torches Of Liberty and the same polemical drive.

1986 was also the year of Edge Of The World (Sin), the new Mekons album, now expanded with female singer Sally Timms (who had recorded an experimental album with Pete Shelley of the Buzzcocks), as is fitting for all Southern country bands; the sound was enriched with Tex-Mex and Cajun spices. Hello Cruel World paid homage to their past.

The following Honky Tonkin' (Sin, 1987), now in full revisionist mode, also featured keyboards by Rob Warby, giving the atmospheres a less rustic and more pathetic feel. Apart from some vaudeville sketches (I Can't Find My Money, Sympathy For The Mekons), the “serious” part of the record was structured as: country ballads with philosophical undertones (Hole In The Ground and Charlie Cake Park), solemn Dylan-like elegies (If They Hang You and Kidnapped, almost a remake of Blowin In The Wind), and depressed narratives at the crossroads of Randy Newman and Leonard Cohen (Prince Of Darkness and Gin Palace). In short, dramatic tones prevailed over comedic ones.

So Good It Hurts (Twin/Tone, 1988) steps on the rock and roll accelerator (Fantastic Voyage, Ghosts Of American Astronauts) and also absorbs Caribbean music (Johnny Miner). The Mekons thus become a more folk-oriented version of the Clash, and Dora shines with a more masculine folk-rock.

Drawing again from the Clash, Rock'N'Roll (Twin Tone, 1989), particularly Someone, marks their next phase. In fact, Memphis, Egypt is even a rock and roll in the rough Southern style, while Amnesia and Blow Your Tuneless Trumpet are two deafening hard-rock ballads in the style of Warren Zevon. Timms, representing the group’s country soul, gains confidence and spans the comedic (Club Mekon) to the tragic (I Am Crazy).

Meanwhile, the Three Johns returned, who had remained in the shadows after the singles Never And Always (1987) and Downhearted Blues (1988) and the album The Death Of Everything (Caroline), with only faint hints of Fall (King Is Dead) and glam rock (Fast Fish).

The new album by the Three Johns, Eat Your Sons (Tupelo, 1990), does not improve things, but at least adds a classic to the repertoire: the possessed Black Heart, worthy of the Sisters Of Mercy.

Langford allowed himself some vacations, including one with Brendan Croker in Dim Subbooteyo, playing world-music without head or tail.

With Curse (Blast First, 1991), the Mekons summarize the experiments (ethnic and hard-rock) of previous records. The band also absorbs techno, and emphasizes melodies. Their strength (due to a heterogeneous instrumentation played in an unorthodox way) is the fanfare, which becomes a deafening pandemonium. The march of Blue Arse is the most frenzied and deafening, with pachydermic cadence and brass as ferocious as heavy-metal guitars.
The title track gallops drunkenly in a limbo between Cajun (complete with accordion), rhythm and blues (complete with brass section and saloon piano), and Tex-Mex (complete with “ahy-ahy”). More in line with their punk past are the sounds and stance of the ska of Funeral and the reggae of 100% Song, in which traces of the Clash can still be glimpsed. In the realm of satire, the Mekons especially paint Authority, supporting a spiritual chorus with a powerful heavy-metal riff. Less successful are Timms’ ballads (including the Renaissance-like Waltz). The band now chews on almost every genre, combining eclecticism with a rare elegance of execution and production.

From Millionaire (one of their catchiest compositions ever) to Dear Sausage, the album I Love (Quarterstick, 1993) suggests that the Mekons wanted to become the Fleetwood Mac of the 1990s, with Timms in the role of Stevie Nicks and a sound leaning toward high-chart pop-rock (with only Greenhalgh and Honeyman remaining among the leaders). Langford still commands the crew in the most aggressive moments, in the rattling boogie with harmonica of Special (à la Los Lobos or Little Feat) or in the grotesque dance of Honeymoon In Hell (with echoes of the Clash); and this is the link to the past: the angry, rhythmic choral anthem of Wicked Midnight is a punk-rock bastard child.
The real achievement of the record is the rhythm, which is no longer rock, country, or reggae but a synthesis of all: exemplary is St Valentine’s Day, which alternates Timms’ folk melody with strongly syncopated, dub and funky rhythms, echoes of the Clash’s more epic side in Langford’s vocals, and guitar bursts reminiscent of Crimson And Clover.

Having lost violinist Susie Honeyman and gained a new drummer, Retreat From Memphis (Quarterstick, 1994) instead brings them back into the punk world from which they originated, with dissonant guitar noise and powerful rock and roll riffs in the foreground. Or at least, it abandons the sophisticated sound of the previous albums (Timms’ pop ambitions are here represented by Lucky Devil) and recovers the more amateurish, garage-like sound of the 1960s: in Eve Future, the choral anthem of the moment, one can hear the Tremeloes in punk version; and Soldier recalls the naïve tunes of the hippie era. There is also room for the rollicking, goliardic Never Work, always in a more pub-style than arena-style, and for the comic rap of One Bad Dream, which crowns their exploration of Black rhythms. The record, however, feels lazy and unfocused.

Meanwhile, Langford in Chicago also formed the Killer Shrews (Enemy, 1993), a lineup with bassist Tony Maimone (Pere Ubu) and guitarist Gary Lucas. For the Waco Brothers’ To The Last Dead Cowboy (Bloodshot, 1995), he brought in Dean Schalbowske of Wreck and Tom Ray of Bottle Rockets: the music is the most Nashville country (If You Don’t Change Your Mind deserves to become a classic), but the band’s strong point remains the punk-rock chaos (Too Sweet To Die, Bad Times).

The collaboration with Johnny Cash, Misery Loves Company (Scout), was released under Jonboy Langford & The Pine Valley Cosmonauts. Sally Timms, in turn, recorded Someone’s Rocking My Dreamboat (1988) and The Land Of Milk And Honey (Feel Good All Over, 1995), a collection of covers performed with Chicago musicians. With these records, Langford positioned himself at the forefront of Chicago’s “insurgent country” movement.

Confirming this period of distraction, if not outright crisis, in 1996 Pussy King Of The Pirates was released, a concept created in collaboration with novelist Kathy Acker, marking the return of Honeyman. The group was split between Chicago (Langford and Timms) and England (accordionist Rico Bell, guitarist Tom Greenhalgh, bassist Sarah Corina, violinist Susie Honeyman).

John Langford strikes back: realizing that his Mekons, as a rock and roll group, could only aspire to a minor role in the American scene, he decided to reinvent them in a more technological guise. We could call it “the Chumbawamba effect.” Me (Touch And Go, 1998) is a double album, testifying to the ambitions of this prolific man. Enter The Lists plays with sampling, drum machines, and electronic keyboards in search of a trendy sound. The pseudo-raga of Narrative and the faux “hare krishna” of Come And Have A Go simply refresh their usual sound along these coordinates. The same playful melodies and sharp guitar riffs are present; the difference is that the rhythms are danceable, the production is crystalline, and the arrangements are sprinkled with electronic oddities. The Mekons post-postmodernly reprogram 1950s rhythm and blues with Down and rap with Tourettes. But along the way, they stumble into so many mortally boring tracks that it’s hard to listen to the entire album. The result is less than decent. The Mekons of old age are savvy musicians who nonetheless retain the same flaw: for every decent song, they squeeze out another ten filler tracks.