OPO: Mekons

hey, I'm here, but the Mekons don't need my help in making an album. I'll go to the 'normal' show at Bowery Ballroom if I can.

hmmmmm, so this is what you folks are talking about

July 23, 2015 at Red Hook, NY, United States in Red Hook, NEW YORK.

mekonception is a once in a lifetime event for the mekons…we will record our new album in the presence of 75 audience members at a cost of $75 per person. the audience will form a mekon feral choir and participate and be featured on the final release. all attendees will also be named and thanked on the record when it is released…songs will be performed and played in real time into a solitary microphone, there will be experimentation, there will be brand new songs never before heard in public, there will be communal singing, there will be strangeness, there will be libations to keep us going at the bar…there will be no overdubs and the album will be done and finished by the time we all go home. the event will last about two hours…

Mekons - 2015 Tour Dates
05/21/2015 - Jersey City NJ - Monty Hall (Revenge of the Mekons screening)
06/02/2015 - Denver CO - Sie FilmCenter (Revenge of the Mekons screening)
07/11/2015 - Chicago IL - The Hideout
07/13/2015 - Chicago IL - The Poetry Foundation
07/14/2015 - Mineral Point WI - Mineral Point Opera House
07/16/2015 - Cleveland OH - Music Box Supper Club
07/17/2015 - Harrisburg PA - Herr Street Stage
07/18/2015 - Rehoboth Beach DE - Dogfish Head Brewing and Eats
07/20/2015 - Philadelphia PA - Boot & Saddle
07/21/2015 - New York NY - Bowery Ballroom
07/23/2015 - Brooklyn NY - Jalopy
07/24/2015 - Portsmouth NH - 3S Artspace
07/25/2015 - Cambridge MA - Middle East

Now I understand the Dogfish Brew connection

http://firstwefeast.com/drink/dogfish-beer-labels-jon-langford/

His first label for Dogfish Head was for their Olde School Barley Wine, which depicted a Woodie Guthrie-type of character brandishing some hops.

I was at one of the Dogfish restaurants in Virginia last year and almost fell out of my chair when I saw a huge Langford portrait of Johnny Cash on the wall.

That Dogfish exec loves Langford.

This looks like fun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSfWTHm7Sdc

Yeah, I was there with my daughter. Great show, great setlist. Seeing them tonight and Wednesday night, too.

Very very envious!

It was great, I'll be there tonight!

Tons of fun tonight. Played some songs I haven't heard them do for a while ("Prince of Darkness"), plus a song from "ME," which I forgot existed. Sang a belated happy birthday to Rico, then Jon's son Jimmy passed out cake to the crowd.

https://scontent-atl1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/v/t1.0-9/11539761_10153451968539935_841966120589811668_n.jpg?oh=60d5a0a6bc65a01155ca2b1c203305a1&oe=565C5557

closest shows to me are Friday night in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and Saturday night in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Not sure I will make the 2 plus hour drive for either.

Tonight in Mekons deep cuts: the male Mekons singing "Powers and Horror." Also, Lu Edmonds leading the ribald Billy Cotton novelty song "I Lost My Little Yoyo:"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGwEzgiIzDg

at the Poetry Foundation he sang "The Hole in the Elephant's Bottom"

going Tuesday

Very very envious!

― Jaq

seconded

Greatly looking forward to seeing them tomorrow night! A mere five minute walk from my apartment, too.

Funny note from Saturday's show: Sally made a Spinal Tap reference, immediately recognized her mistake and dutifully accepted what appears to be a band ritual of spinning around four times.

Did not make the several hours journey to see the closest Mekons gigs to me (as wife had made prior committments). Did see pics of the Rehoboth beach Dogfish Ale show and they made me wish I was there. Plus a pal who did go, also posted photos of hanging out the next day at the nearby place of former Maxwell's owner Steve Fallon.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/17/mekons-tour-diary-episode-one-in-which-lu-goes-awol/

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/20/mekons-tour-diary-episode-2-beached-in-rehoboth/

Writing new songs in the van...

excellent, thanks

well they are recording an album at the gig... Thursday

all those deep cuts ment'd above in the touring repertoire

from 2008

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1X8P5nZiII

a magic moment from Tuesday night

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Z0P1hu1ljM

Yeah, watch Rico tumble over the amp around a minute or so in!

"I remember when I had my first pint, Eric."

i was looking elsewhere when that happened so it's nice to have video.

Sally Timms on her Facebook page: "One of the greatest moments in mekon history at 1.40, laughing till I cried."

i havent gotten deets on recordmaking gig last Thurs

You know what I've always wondered? Why a band composed of so many visual artists and artists in general is always light on t-shirts and such. They were selling tour posters at one of the gigs I went to, and it would have sucked as an ad in a free weekly.

http://www.nyctaper.com/2015/07/mekons-july-21-2015-bowery-ballroom-flacmp3streaming/

i still have an intact white-on-black tee w/ a Langford-distressed portrait of Patsy Cline.

(20+ years old)

Yeah, I've got a couple, too - just a plain Mekons on black, as well as a I Heart Mekons shirt. But I'm afraid to wear either anymore, since they are falling apart. Langford once gave my daughter a yellow kids Mekons shirt, but dunno what became of that ...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/27/mekons-tour-diary-episode-three-where-we-please-everyone-by-playing-like-utter-bloody-garbage/

The opening band is called the UnGnomes (strangely healthy looking hardcore punks, average age 17) and they introduce their final song (possibly “Kill Rahm!”) by announcing that the old people will be up next. I accidentally channel too much punk spirit and mosh our accordion player Rico off the side of the stage during our 23rd encore. He is caught by our bass player’s wife and is undamaged, but this is a prelude of things to come!

UnGnomes is Langford's son Jimmy.

notes on the recording of the live record: http://killingthebreeze.com/mekons-this-is-what-punk-and-survival-look-like/. "The band repeatedly reminded us that they’d “never done this before,” and it soon became clear that they had never played many of the songs through before."

Nice piece. One of my favorite aspects of the Mekons is that almost every piece you read over-romaticizes and emphasizes the punk stuff so much that when neophytes finally hear the band, and hear stuff not totally unlike crossover Clash or the Pogues plus a bit of Johnny Cash (Langford's Waco Brothers were once ingeniously and accurately described as "part Cash, part Clash"), I can imagine them taken aback by the fun, hooks, relative accessibility. The pre-"Fear and Whiskey" stuff, sure, that's a mess, but almost everything since has been relatively straight forward and/or rousing.

couple of ex-ILXors were at the rekording

The pre-"Fear and Whiskey" stuff, sure, that's a messthe best

fixed this for u

It's both! A mess and ... well, I won't call it best at all, but it's great.

part the last

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/29/mekons-tour-diary-the-season-finale-mekonception-in-redhook/

man "psycho cupid" is a wholesale rip-off of "on some faraway beach" but I can find only one reference to this similarity on google??

new album on Nov. 27th RSD

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/hear-robbie-fulks-and-cowpunkers-the-mekons-wild-beaten-and-broken-20151105

So there will be two new Mekons albums then? This collaboration with Fulks plus the one they recorded live in July in NY?

as I understand it, yes - this new one is news to me