Jon Langford seems to have done it all, drummer and guitarist of the British punk band The Mekons in the 70’s, part of The Three Johns (with John Hyatt and John Brennan) in the 80’s, founder of the Chicago band the Waco Brothers in the 90’s, he is also a visual artist, involved in painting and multimedia, a comic illustrator, a radio host and contributor to the Chicago radio program This American Life. To this impressive resume he has released four solo albums, and was playing a free show at Amoeba yesterday afternoon to celebrate his last one ‘Old Devils’ released last August.
His good nature and his coolness could not be unnoticed, as he was hugging people he knew who were around, and was wanting to start the show as soon as the sound check was done. ‘Oh you mean we have to go to the dressing room and eat the M&Ms?’
They were 4 on stage, Jon and Jim Elkington on guitars, Barkley McKay on accordion and Jean Cook on violin, announcing a sort of country flavor for the show. People were curious, asking the musicians on stage. ‘Country? … Not exactly!’
Jon Langford comes from the punk-scene, this is a guy who even played with Joe Strummer a couple of times as he mentioned at one point of the show just before covering The Mescaleros’ ‘X-Ray Style’. When he talked about him, I had a sort of mini revelation as I did not know much about him before. Isn’t Langford doing the same sort of thing Joe Strummer used to do? Langford has been mixing the genres since the 80’s, incorporating folk and especially country into punk. I never saw Joe Strummer live unfortunately, but there was something of Joe in Jon Langford’s voice when he sang this song and any of the other ones as a matter of fact.
The music is straightforward and sometimes muscular in the delivery, sometimes slowing down with beautiful ballads like ‘Death Valley Day’ or ‘Luxury’ a beatlesque-harmonies-filled song about growing up in the ‘70s in South Wales, …would he also be talking about his suburbs?
‘Strange Ways to Win Wars’, the second song he sang and the last song of the album, had this delicate acoustic guitar mixed with an exotic Tex-Mex aroma because of the accordion. He went political on the subject, joking about the Tea bag party being Obama’s best chance, then, he brought out ‘Trap door’, as something as a Bruce-Springsteen-style-type-of-song and introduced ‘Getting Used to Uselessness’ as something for Dick Cheney and ‘his retirement’, making quoting marks in the air with his hands, leaving no mystery regarding his political leaning.
Under a first impression of country-folk, the songs have the aggressiveness of punk. I just wonder why this Welsh-transplant, who has absorbed American roots and mixed them with his own punk core, and who has even paired the release of his album with a series of his paintings, is not more well known.
Set list:
1234Ever
Strange Ways to Win Wars
Trap door (from his previous album ‘Skull Orchard’)
Luxury
Getting Used to Uselessness
Neglect The Mekons)
Pill Sailor (from his previous album ‘Skull Orchard’)
Death Valley Day
X-Ray Style (Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros’ cover)
Sentimental Marching Song (from his previous album Skull Orchard)
Death of European (Three Johns’ song)