Forming almost 50 years ago, during the first wave of British punk, The Mekons have traveled a twisty musical path winding through punk, folk, alt country, electronic music and stranger places, including the bawdy, musical companion piece to experimental novelist Kathy Acker’s Pussy, King of the Pirates.
From his home in southwest England, founding member Tom Greenhalgh explains The Mekons’ restless musical journey. “The next time we do something we want to do something totally different,” he says. “We are completely not interested in just honing a sound down at all.”
The 2013 documentary Revenge of the Mekons traces the band’s history and has fans, including Santa Cruz-based author Jonathan Franzen and musicians Will Oldham and Craig Finn, explaining the unique appeal of the group. The entertaining film also tells the stories behind their classic albums, such as 1985’s Fear and Whiskey and 1989’s The Mekons Rock and Roll. Though the latter was a major label flop, it is home to some of their finest songs, from the muscular rocker “Memphis Egypt” to the woozy “Cocaine Lil.”
The Mekons Rock and Roll found the band on A&M Records and making music videos that got some play on MTV yet the release never really broke through. Part of the reason was that the A&M employee who signed them had suddenly quit. “We ended up on the label with people who basically didn’t have a clue what we were about,” Greenhalgh says.
It’s a typical story in The Mekons’ career. There was also that time that A&M refused to release their album The Curse of The Mekons for being “not up to sufficient technical standards.”
“Needless to say, this is what we call complete and utter bollocks,” Greenhalgh says.
The Mekons have persevered despite these setbacks and recorded 25 albums since their inception. Greenhalgh believes that part of the band’s longevity is because, at this point, it’s a part-time project. “Basically, especially these days, we are not a full-time band, so everyone is spread all over the world doing different stuff,” he says. “We get together to record and to play, then we disperse again.”
Released on April 4 of this year, their latest, titled Horror, was written and recorded in 2022, after the band met up in Valencia, Spain. When their previous label, Bloodshot Records, went under, they found they no longer had an outlet for the release. It eventually came out on the British indie label Fire Records. “We weren’t under pressure to finish it, but it doesn’t normally take that long,” Greenhalgh says.
While Horror might not rise to the heights of the band’s best works, a few of the songs are among the best that the band has written. “Mudcrawlers” is a jangle rock gem about Irish refugees that sounds as if it was beamed in from a 1980s-college rock station, while “War Economy,” with shouted lyrics including “physical coercion will not achieve dominance,” is straight from the Clash’s school of rhythmic political rock.
Many of the songs reflect a world in crisis. One of the slower numbers, “Fallen Leaves,” poetically references climate change with its lyrics: “Cold sweats through late summer/Blood traces on the ground/The dry earth cracks and shadows grow/A dying sun sinks down.”
Unfortunately, the problems the album addresses have gotten worse in the three years since it was written. “The whole idea of calling it [the album] Horror was basically a view of the state of the world then,” Greenhalgh says. “Since then, it’s gotten a thousand times worse.”
Following the Mekons’ tour of the United States—where they will play 30 dates in 30 days including a stop in Santa Cruz—the band will release a remix of Horror done by Tony Maimone of Pere Ubu that will draw even more of the album’s darkness to the surface. “The idea is to make it more horrible, or more horror,” Greenhalgh says. “Make it really scary.”
The Mekons with special guest Kendall Jane Meade perform at 8pm on July 29 at Moe’s Alley, 1535 Commercial Way, Santa Cruz. $32.37. moesalley.com and folkyeah.com.
More Arts & Entertainment in this issue:
Conspiratorial Futurist Author: Robert Anton Wilson
Sondheim Magic in the Grove: Into the Woods
