This was Mekons weekend in New York. First they played Friday night at The Bell House in Gowanus; if it wasn't a sell out it was pretty close to that.
Then Saturday they played a sold out Mercury Lounge down on the Lower
East Side. Summing up the history of The Mekons from their founding to
the present, The Chicago Tribune noted: "the Chicago- and England-based
collective dabbled in nearly every musical possible style, writing
about topics ranging from capitalist oppression to social uprisings and
Cold War politics." And you can dance to it too. But the best way to
get a handle on this band is to see them. So here's a clip of the song
Hard to Be Human from a show few months back.
–Eliot Wagner
I was at the Mercury Lounge show and it was fantastic. As usual the band had the whole room laughing. I dug up an interview I did with them for English radio the last time they were here. They also played me a couple of songs. I’ve pasted the link below.
http://www.sittingwith.com/archive.html#c39
Boom. Boom. With lots of banter, even hostile banter at the Mercury lounge show. The Bell House show was mellow, a few lovely songs, some clunkers, cider, apparently all after a nice meal with friends at Good Fork. No Tom or Suzie at Mercury. No Tom at Bell House. (Did they really mention Throbbing Gristle in the banter at the Bell House? Who forgot the gadget batteries?) Mostly a Natural/Fear and Whiskey sound throughout.
The Bell House show:
http://www.archive.org/details/mekons2009-07-31.flac
Fleetwood Mac tendencies, art rants, and bad hippie hair are better than, oh, Jesus and telephone carrier sponsorships.