Mekons Tour Diary, the Season Finale, Mekonception in Redhook

This will be the final episode of our tour diary and while only Rico is still officially on tour (whizzing west above the clouds) I have decided to write it on my phone strapped in a chair sleep deprived and urgently in need of urination. Such was our world for the last few weeks.

The MEKONCEPTION event in Redhook was a uniquely difficult and exhausting marathon. The premise was to perform an album full of new songs in real time in front of an audience of 80 MEKoristers who would be wrangled by mighty Dave Nagler into a feral choir. These good people paid good money for a cramped spot on a pew at the tiny Jalopy Theater and a new business model was birthed! The Mekons next album was showing a profit before a note was recorded!

Our only problem was a shocking lack of time and collective willingness to get these new songs together. But we did (by the skin of our panties) and although we haven’t heard the finished thing (Tony Maimone is busy sifting through the debris) it’s a safe bet it won’t sound much like anything else we’ve ever done.

12 new tunes in various forms of raggedness are graced with doomy singalongs siren noises whooshing etc. all courtesy of the nice folks who paid nice money to help us make another masterpiece… we thank you. Two more gigs in Portsmouth and Cambridge, Mass. and the tour was done and an album in the can. Mekons retreat to 4 corners. Boo hoo…

“It all feels like it never happened today, like an odd dream, always the way, eternal while you’re in it and then gone in a puff of smoke,” Sally said, after returning to Chicago.”But lovely memories, best tour we’ve done in years musically by miles!”

This really is the best job in the world.

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Jon Langford is a musician, painter and founding member of the Mekons. His most recent record is Here Be Monsters (Bloodshot).