July 11--The Mekons' Jon Langford looked like he was going on safari Friday night on Lincoln Avenue in his pith helmet.
"Where are you exploring tonight, Jon?" asked his bandmate and sparring partner Sally Timms with a smirk.
For the Mekons, it has been a jungle of bad record deals, improbable detours and bleary commitment to a style of music that has no home. For power-brokers in the music-industry who like rules and categories, the Mekons have been an inconvenience. They began as an art collective masquerading as a punk band out of Leeds, England, in the '70s, dabbled in the avant-garde, embraced country and played it so wrong they made it sound like they invented something new. The Mekons cranked out a handful of classic albums (underground division) and should-have-been hits that all but their diehard fans noticed.
As the headliner on the opening night of the Old Town School of Folk Music's Square Roots Festival, the Mekons were on their game and then some. In the past, caught in mid-tour and giddy with exhaustion, the octet could turn any show into a series of running jokes and wicked banter, with musical momentum sacrificed.
On this night, drummer Steve Goulding was so eager to get going that he was clicking his sticks to count off songs as if to interrupt the verbal frivolity before it could throw the set list off the rails.
"As we've gotten older, we've grown leaner and more efficient," Langford joked.
The lean efficiency could be heard from the get-go, with the clanging anti-anthem "Memphis, Egypt," in which rock 'n' roll assumes the shape of a Satanic cannibal, feasting on gullible would-be artists.
Timms was just as caustic on "Millionaire," with a voice that merged beauty and jadedness. "Everybody's so in love, but they don't touch or meet," she sang. These were the Mekons on the outside looking into corrupt penthouse bedrooms and corporate executive suites, then bringing it back to the alley, where those not quite as connected or privileged are "lying in the dirt, looking up at the twinkling stars."
Most of all, behind all the jokes and high spirits, there was a fierce intention. It was there in Langford's staccato chords and the accusing finger he pointed during "Where Were You?" It was there in the massed voices rising to command, "Lose your head!" And it was there most especially in Tom Greenhalgh's wrenching "(Sometimes I Feel Like) Fletcher Christian."
greg@gregkot.com
