- Jon Langford and His Sadies
Mayors of the Moon
Bloodshot Records
- By William Michael Smith
 Jon
Langford seems to always be in a recording studio these days,
although a look at the gaunt portraits of legendary musicians
inside south Austin's Yard Dog art studio reveals that he also
paints prolifically. With an ever-changing cast of honky-punk
musical collaborators, the burly Welshman who leads the pioneering
British punk band The Mekons (whose Fear and Whiskey is
considered a milestone in both punk and the emergent alt-country
scenes) has spent much of the past 25 years celebrating country
music by interpolating, reinventing, and, most importantly, just
loudly playing the hell out of it. Long affiliated with insurgent
country label Bloodshot, Langford has been pointing out through
his art and his music for years that we Americans tend to discard
our best and elevate our worst -- and he's not just describing
the Grammys.
Rapidly following New Deal, the best record yet by
Langford's Mekons side project The Waco Brothers, Mayors of
the Moon is a delicious unholy pairing between Langford and
one of Canada's most eclectic alt-country bands, The Sadies.
Together they poke and prod at some of our national cultural
and political pretensions with songs like "What Makes Johnny
Run?" and "American Pageant." The album was completed
well before the current Iraqi situation and Langford demonstrated
considerable prescience with "Call me Abel Baker, I'm fodder
for the cause / I hang banners on the engines as they move off
to war." Charlie Daniels and Clint Black aren't likely to
cover any of Langford's pointed anti-war anthems.
Langford is at his best rocking hard on tracks like "Up
To My Neck In This" or spewing jaded commentaries like "Solitaire
Song" and "Looking Good For Radio," where he contemptuously
describes the promotional circus: "There's no good time
to talk to me / but there's a little window when I talk lucidly
/ between 2:55 and 3 / all drugged up with a posse in tow / lookin'
good for radio." His painter's eye is wide open on emotive
near-country tracks like "Last King of the Road" and
"Little Vampires," with its bubbling neo-Byrds veneer
that sounds as if it were lifted from the latest Sadies' album,
Stories Often Told.
Those who can get past a middle-aged left-leaning Welsh punk
rocker and a band of spaghetti-western-theme crazed Cannucks
doing pointed social critiques of the homeland that requires
security will find the most consistent solo record of Jon Langford's
career.
*www.bloodshotrecords.com
|
