The Mekons are a British band formed in the late 1970s as an art collective. They are one of the longest-running and most prolific of the first-wave British punk rock bands.[2][3]
The band's style has evolved over time to incorporate aspects of country music, folk music, alternative rock and occasional experiments with dub.[4] They are known for their raucous live shows.[5]
History
The band was formed in 1976 by a group of University of Leeds art students: Jon Langford, Kevin Lycett, Mark White, Andy Corrigan and Tom Greenhalgh—Gang of Four and Delta 5 formed from the same group of students.[6] They took the band's name from the Mekon, an evil, super-intelligent Venusian featured in the British 1950s–1960s comic Dan Dare (printed in the Eagle). The Mekons were described as a more chaotic version of Gang of Four; Lycett stated the band operated on the principle that "anybody could do it ... anybody could get up and join in and instruments could be swapped around; that there'd be no distance between the audience and the band."[6]
By their second show, supporting the Rezillos at the F Club, they were approached with a record deal by Bob Last of Fast Product. The Mekons were the first band signed to the label. The band's first single was "Never Been in a Riot", a satirical take on the Clash's White Riot. The release was made Single of the Week in NME.[6] Their second single, "Where Were You?" was released by the end of 1978 and sold out of its 27,500 copies. At this time, Last convinced the band to sign to a larger label—Virgin. The Mekons’ popularity peaked as they played on the same bill as other "new music" groups like Gang of Four, the Fall, the Human League, and Stiff Little Fingers.[6]
For several years the band played noisy, bare-bones post-punk, releasing singles on a number of labels. The Mekons' first album, The Quality of Mercy Is Not Strnen, was recorded using Gang of Four's instruments, and due to an error by the Virgin Records’ art department, featured pictures of Gang of Four on the back cover.[7][additional citation(s) needed] After 1982's The Mekons Story, a compilation of old recordings, the band ceased activity for a while, with Langford forming The Three Johns. Corrigan became a tour manager for many years before founding a company that provides visa and immigration services specialising in the entertainment industry. [citation needed]
The Mekons Rock 'n Roll, released by A&M Records in 1989, was the band's first (and only) album to be put out by a major label. It was not a commercial success, reportedly selling only around 23,000 albums in the U.S.,[8] but was met with critical acclaim.[9][10][11][12] It was named eighth of the top 10 albums of 1989 in the Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics poll.[13] In 1991, New York Times critic Jon Pareles called it "one of the best albums of the 1980s."[14]
Just as the Mekons began to grow in critical stature, their relationship with A&M Records became tense, and the Mekons were soon dropped by the label, unable to fulfill their commercial expectations.[11] However, they continued to record at a prolific rate, releasing such notable albums as 1991's Curse of the Mekons, 2000's Journey to the End of the Night, and 2002's OOOH! (Out of Our Heads)[15]Natural moved the band to a more folk-flavoured sound. In April 2009 the Mekons returned to the studio to complete a new collection of songs, released in 2011 as Ancient & Modern 1911–2011 on Bloodshot Records,[16] and, in a September 2010 interview, Jon Langford revealed that the band would tour the United States in 2011.[17][18][7]
In a February 2011 interview, Langford discussed the music documentary about the band, Revenge of the Mekons, directed by Joe Angio.[19] The film premiered in 2013 at the DOC NYC festival with members of the band in attendance.[20]
The band has toured and recorded with a mostly unaltered lineup (Langford, Greenhalgh, Timms, Goulding, Bell, Edmonds, Honeyman, and bassist Sarah Corina) throughout the 1990s and early 21st century, and has a highly devoted following.[21][7]Sarah Corina left in 2015, and Dave Trumfio, of Chicago and Southern California, replaced Corina on bass.[22][1]
The Mekons celebrated their 40th anniversary with the "Mekonville" festival near Ipswich, England, with both the current 2017 line-up and the re-united original 1977 lineup performing. At that festival, Mekonville, a 12-inch "split single" was released, with one new song from each of the two line-ups. The "current" line-up, still as "The Mekons", also performed several concerts in the UK and elsewhere in Europe in July and August, 2017. Jon Langford and Tom Greenhalgh are the only members common to both line-ups.[1]
They recorded their 2019 album Deserted in a studio near to Joshua Tree National Park. In an interview, they described how "the rugged landscape informed the highly diverse collection of songs they wrote".[23]
Alongside Bob Dylan and The Clash, the Mekons are the only other band or musician to make it twice onto Robert Christgau's Dean's Lists (begun in 1971), that is, Christgau selected both Fear and Whiskey (1985) and OOOH! (2002) as his album of the year. The Mekons are also one of Greil Marcus' favourite bands[25] About the Mekons Fear and Whisky Marcus said:
If Fear and Whiskey can only be heard as an aphorism, what evanescence does it consider essential? A bitter sentimentality. This is the music of a small group of people who, in a pop moment now almost a decade gone, once thought all things were possible, and who now live in a society where nothing they want is possible as more than an evanescence. They still wear the old jewelry of the punk ideology of 1976: No Future, which was somehow turned into an adventure, which got the Mekons a major-label contract. If anything, their music today is stronger than it ever was, but against the confidence of mainstream music, it carries an unmistakable undertone of self-mockery, of humiliation, of shame, because it cannot count.[26]
In 2014, some of The Mekons, dubbing themselves the "mini-Mekons", along with Robbie Fulks, went to northern Scotland to perform, sample the local whisky, and write and record an album on the island of Jura, in the studio of world and roots producer Giles Perring, a long-term collaborator with Mekon Susie Honeyman in the band Echo City. The record, named Jura, was released in November 2015 on Black Friday and is made up of original songs written on the trip, traditional songs, and a new recording of one Mekons song.[27][28]
2017: Mekonville: "How Many Stars Are Out Tonight" b/w "Still Waiting" − (Sin/Slow)
Compilations
1980: Mutant Pop (PVC/Jem), a US reissue of various early Fast Product singles, including the Mekons first 7", Never Been in a Riot b/w 32 Weeks, as well as Where Were You?, both first released in 1978.
1985: "They Shall Not Pass" CNT Miner's Strike compilation includes "Fight The Cuts" and "This Sporting Life"
1986: The Mekons Story—re-released in 1993/2008
1987: Mekons New York (ROIR) – re-released in 1990/2001 as New York: On the Road 86–87
1989: Original Sin (Rough Trade Records) – Collects together Fear and Whiskey, parts of The English Dancing Master,Crime and Punishment EP, and Slightly South of the Border EPs
1999: I Have Been to Heaven and Back: Hen's Teeth and other lost fragments of unpopular culture, Vol. 1 (Quarterstick Records)
1999: Where Were You? Hen's Teeth and other lost fragments of unpopular culture, Vol. 2 (Quarterstick Records)
^ abcdReynolds, Simon (2006). "Militant Entertainment: Gang of Four, the Mekons, and the Leeds Scene". Rip it Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978–1984. New York: Penguin Books.
