INDY'S WEEKLY ALTERNATIVE NEWSPAPER HIGHLIGHTING ARTS, ENTERTAINMENT AND SOCIAL JUSTICE
The Mekons, Horse’s Ha, James Elkington
Saturday, Oct. 13, 6 p.m. doors, $10/$15, 21+
After 30 years and nearly as many albums, Leeds, England’s The Mekons have left an indelible mark on just about every music genre under the sun. Their earliest forays explored angular post-punk territory; Fear & Whiskey and Honky Tonkin’ combined punk rock and country a full two years before Uncle Tupelo, while Mekons Rock ’N’ Roll may be the most under-rated and best straight-up rock album of the ’80s. Since then, they’ve kept it up, exploring genres from reggae to techno to dance pop to punk.
Now on tour celebrating their 30th anniversary, The Mekons will bring a show that will undoubtedly travel the gamut of their many sounds. Put on by Friends of Bob, the Lafayette-based collective that has pretty much single-handedly made Lafayette one of the Midwest’s coolest undiscovered music scenes, the gig will take place at the Lafayette Brewing Company, 622 Main St. in Lafayette, ending a 14-city tour of mostly larger markets.
During a tour for their last album, 2004’s Punk Rock, the band took a two-week retreat in the northern English highlands. While surrounded by castles, moors and spirits of druids, The Mekons knocked out their latest offering, Natural. “We just kinda came together in the middle of a tour, we were just very relaxed and we spent our time picking up instruments and messing around,” founder Jon Langford says. “What came out wasn’t anything that we recognized [as a Mekons sound], and that was kind of interesting to us. So we went with it.”
What came out is an album that is as quiet as it is intense. It simmers and sparks, holding a British flavor that sounds like Led Zeppelin III as filtered through the ghost of Joe Strummer. Great tunes like “Dark Dark Dark” and “Burning in the Desert Burning” stick to the ribs, satisfying and good for the soul. Natural proves you may not always know what to expect from a Mekons record, but you can always count on it being one of the best of its kind.