The Mekons, punk’s greatest survivors (and prosperers on their own terms) release their 26th album, Horror, and announce a tour of the UK, Europe and the USA. And yet, most people have never heard of them. How has this happened?
Born out of the belly of the Sex Pistols’ Anarchy in the UK gig at Leeds Polytechnic on 6 December 1976, the Mekons have evolved from a disparate bunch of fine art students who couldn’t play musical instruments, to a group who are critically acclaimed. They may be almost universally ignored and misunderstood, but they are cultishly adored, and are still writing new music, still touring, and still kicking against the sticks with a self-deprecating joie-de-vivre. If the only song you know is Where Were You?, their second, 1978, single, then read on. There are 26 albums waiting for you, from rock to reggae to folk to alt-country – but all ‘punk’.
The Sex Pistols influence
When the Sex Pistols toured the UK in 1976, they stirred the musical pot wherever they went and in different ways, depending on who happened to be in the audience. In Manchester, The Smiths and Joy Division emerged in the aftermath of the gig – gloomy Mancunians through and through. In Leeds, the audience had a healthy number of the city’s fine art students in attendance and, as detailed in Gavin Butt’s meticulously researched No Machos or Pop Stars, the peculiar combination of avant-garde art, left-wing politics and fairly basic musical ability spawned a plethora of bands with one thing in common: not to do things in the usual way.
As well as the Mekons, the gig led to the emergence of The Gang of Four, Scritti Politti, Soft Cell, Fad Gadget, Household Name, and The Shee Hees. This initial musical explosion then acted as a catalyst for other bands, such as Delta 5 who formed a close network with the Mekons and The Gang of Four – sharing rehearsal space, living quarters and instruments. So close was this relationship, that the Mekons first album consciously featured a photo of The Gang of Four on its back cover.
Success, right-wing run-ins and disappearance
New bands were being snapped up almost as soon as they were formed, as the music industry, and music press, pounced on the ‘punk phenomenon’. The Mekons got plentiful John Peel time, and were taken on by Edinburgh’s Fast Records to record their first two singles.
Immediately, it was obvious that they were different: odd, defiant, sarcastic even. Never Been in a Riot was a sardonic rejoinder to The Clash’s White Riot and related how the Mekons hid in the toilet of Terry’s All Time 24-hour café to escape from fascists (quite a threat in Leeds at the time) and the police.
The second single, Where Were You (still the only Mekons song semi-regularly on radio playlists), is voiced by a wimpish, creepy bloke moaning about his (imagined?) girlfriend having stood him up. An album followed: the marvellously named The Quality of Mercy is not Strnen, featuring a photo of a monkey seated at a typewriter and obviously failing to write the complete works of Shakespeare.
Rock Against Racism gigs and a second album kept the band going, as did sheltering from more right-wing attacks in the bands’ home-from-home, the Fenton pub on Woodhouse Lane. But, eventually, as band members began to move away from Leeds, the Mekons withered away.
The miners’ strike sparks a second coming
The world might well have remained Mekon-less were it not for the 1984 miners’ strike, which prompted two of the original Mekons – Jon Langford and Tom Greenhalgh – who were still based in Leeds, to gather other musicians together and reform the group to play at miners’ benefit gigs. The Mekons re-emerged in musical territory that no one else would have touched with a bargepole; their remarkable 1985 album, Fear & Whiskey, revealing them as an angry, insurgent country band.
They gigged up and down the country, supporting a variety of good causes and earning themselves a reputation as great live performers. Further albums on their own Sin record label, and then on trending label of the day, Cooking Vinyl, saw them touring across Europe and the States. At this time they were experimenting with rock, reggae, folk, country, electronica, rap, a cappella and all stations in between: whatever best suited the song.
A&M calling – and hanging up
Their potential ‘big break’ came in 1989 when they signed to major label A&M records, and released what many see as their finest hour, or at least one of them, Rock ‘n’ Roll. With its copyright-teasing front cover of a Jackson Pollocked Elvis Presley, and its succession of tuneful blasts against the rock and roll industry –“Destroy your safe and happy lives before it is too late” being the opening song’s opening refrain – it proved a difficult piece of merchandise for A&M to promote. Or possibly they couldn’t be bothered.
The band were soon off-label, although not before releasing the equally brilliant The Curse Of the Mekons. A pattern of moving from minor label to minor label began, including Quarterstick, Touch and Go, Bloodshot, Slow Things, Glitterbeat, NotOnLabel and Fire.
Everyone loves the Mekons
Consider this: alongside Bob Dylan and The Clash, the Mekons are the only other band or musician to twice make it onto Robert Christgau‘s Dean’s Lists (begun in 1971). Christgau, the much-respected chief music critic for The Village Voice, selected both Fear and Whiskey (1985) and OOOH! (2002) as his album of the year.
The Mekons are also one of author and music critic Greil Marcus‘ favourite bands. About the Mekons, Marcus said: “If anything, their music today is stronger than it ever was, but against the confidence of mainstream music, it carries an unmistakable undertone of self-mockery, of humiliation, of shame, because it cannot count”.
Lester Bangs, music critic for The Rolling Stone, who coined the term ‘punk rock’, wrote: “The Mekons are the most revolutionary group in the history of rock ‘n’ roll”.
Author Jonathan Franzen, writer of The Corrections, said: “The Mekons. Always the Mekons. The Mekons were kind of like the background music of my life. They consistently resolve despair and rage into humour, without losing the despair or the rage”.
It’s 2025. Where were you?
The Mekons are still recording and touring 49 years after a few Leeds fine art students had a mad idea after a Sex Pistols gig. They play the Brudenell Social Club on Saturday 10th May – and their first words on stage (as always) will be “We’re the Mekons and we’re from Leeds”.
I will be there.
The gig is promoted by John Keenan, who arranged the Mekons’ first ever gig.
If this article has sparked your interest in finding out more about one of Yorkshire’s great bands, here are a few starting points. All of these songs are on YouTube at the moment. After that, Bandcamp is the place to go for a deeper dive.
- The Building from The Mekons Story, 1979. Possibly the most punk rock song ever. It has particular resonance in today’s world of Trump and his billionnaire broligarchs, but sing-a-long it ain’t.
- Chivalry from Fear and Whiskey, 1985. Alt-country was born here. That fiddle!
- Ghosts of American Astronauts from So Good It Hurts, 1988. A pop song (of sorts).
- Memphis, Egypt from Rock ‘n’ Roll, 1989. The Mekons hate rock ‘n’ roll: in a rock song.
- Millionaire from I (Heart) Mekons,1993. Another pop song (of sorts).
- Orpheus from United, 1996. My favourite.
- Last Weeks of the War from Journey to the End of the Night, 2000. A breakup song.
- Dark Dark Dark from Natural, 2007. Existential dread.
