From last night at the Ford Center on the University of Mississippi campus, here's a live performance of "Blue Magic," I song I wrote that was used in the Adventure Time episode "Winter Light." The tiny, blurry figure on the right of the screen is me playing accordion. Featuring Jon Langford (whose band the Mekons made an appearance in Distant Lands: Wizard City) and Kelly Hogan, the singer you may know as the blue ice fox with a string of pearls. The guitarist is Taylor... whose last name I will supply later. I'm old and can't remember! Kelly met him while mentoring a group (along with Jenny Conlee of the Decemberists, who played my accordion!) in the artists residency a few years ago for the Sarah Isom Center at the University of Mississippi. Masterful video by Ace Atkins.
The Mekons — Horrorble (Mekons vs Tony Maimone In Dub Conference) (Fire)
Photo by Gabi Rojas
The Mekons’ Horror, released earlier this year, was already pretty frightening, concerned with colonialism, economic inequality, climate change and other catastrophes. This dub version, mixed by Pere Ubu’s Tony Maimone, plays up the unease with cavernous echo and ghostly keening. Maimone finds the surreal core of these songs, paring down the rock instruments to build shadowy, skeletal architectures. “A Horse Has Escaped,” for example, strands Sally Timms in a haunted house of mirrors, her tremulous soprano wandering through fever-dream snare cadences and synth flourishes. “You’re Not Singing Anymore” transforms itself from a reassuring sing-along to an empty room’s echo of long-ago communal music. “Surrender”’s deathly pale celebration of love and dissolution rambles forward on a clip-clopping rhythm, surely sourced from a horse who has passed on from this world.
Horrorble arises out of a four-decade collaboration with Maimone; he and the Mekons met on a 1988 UK tour and he played bass for the band on another 1991 European tour. In 2015, Maimone was mixing a batch of live tunes that later turned up on Horror. A statement from the Mekons explained, “We had a feeling they might have some sort of secret double life. So much potential and split decisions that could’ve gone either way. Tony was the man to get his tools out and see what lurked beneath to make it truly Horrorble.”
These are all ghost stories at heart, none more so than the closer, “Before the Ice Age” which takes shape like an ectoplasm out of the thump of drum, a languid guitar, a trembling organ tone. Sally Timms’ whispery voice, high and sing-song, makes a tentative path through ominous, unreal landscape. “All the lies I’ve been told come around to taunt, shapeless ghosts coil, writhe and creep, frozen with a fear that will never learn to speak,” she intimates in a sonic landscape that dwarfs her tiny form. It’s chilling and beautiful.
The dub element is subtle and atmospheric mostly, a matter of echoing bass lines and vaulting sonic space, but it takes a more literal form in Maimone’s version of “Mudcrawlers.” The song includes a raspy, impassioned cameo from Benji Webbe of the UK dancehall band Skindred, which connects the Mekons’ memorialization of the Irish Potato Famine to the ravages of third-world oppression. It’s one of the best of the re-imaginations, worth the cost of the ticket all on its own.
You might have your doubts about whether you need a song-by-song dub remix of the last Mekons’ album, whose acerbic poetry and untethered rock energy stood on its own. And possibly need is a strong word. You don’t really. But you might enjoy this anyway, regardless of whether you heard the source material a lot or not at all.
It’s like something walking around
When I know I’m all alone
All the lies I’ve told coming back to taunt
Shapeless ghosts coil writhe and creep
Frozen with a fear that will never learn to speak
Sweat turns to ice on my face
I age a thousand years
(Before the ice age)
Sweat turns to ice on my face
I age a thousand years
(Before the ice age)
A few from tonight, the Mekons at Union Stage, Washington DC. Wish Lou had been with them, but i guess getting ready for the P.I.L. tour. Still a fun night.
I've never done a top 10 list, and I didn't intend to this year. Really, I just wanted to remind people how amazing the Charlie Ivan Band LP is. A top 10 list seemed to be the ideal way to accomplish this task. I wanted only to review 2024 on this blog - not necessarily just 2024 releases. I decided the actual top number would be whatever I came up with after looking over every post of 2024. I actually assumed it would be more than 10, but my fairly cursory review led me to exactly 10, so I'm sticking with the first run through.
You can review the year by clicking "ARCHIVE" on the left. Here we go:
10. Love Banana 7". "Get In" sucked me in with its Clean-like sound.
9. theCatherines "If I Had Known Then". "Minigolf" might be the sweetest childhood song I've ever heard.
8. fantasy of a broken heart "Feats of Engineering". I immediately thought of Frog, but what kept me coming back was all the unexpected musical directions with still great melodies.
7. Maple Fyshh, "You Are Leaving My Mind: The "Mariko" and "Dokitto Station!!" Era". Sometimes surfy, always poppy. I spent November listening to this over and over.
6. Balloon "Gas 'n' Air". There's definitely a bit of recency bias here, but "Hooligan" and "There Is Love" are really two of my favorite songs of the year.
5. Mekons "Fear and Whiskey". Any band that simultaneously can make me think of The Pogues and The Go-Betweens moves to the front of the class. I can't believe I waited this long in life to give into the magic of Mekons.
4. BMX Bandits "Dreamers On The Run". I bought two BMX Bandits LPs this year, but "Dreamers On The Run" gets the nod as the 2024 release. "Setting Sun" is just amazing. "Bee Stings" was also reissued in 2024.
3. Beachwood Sparks "Across The River Of Stars". Probably my most listened to LP from the 2024 posts. "Torn In Two" is beautiful as are many songs off this album. I also saw them play at The Great American Music Hall.
2. Charlie Ivan Band "Where The Dogs Go To Die". This one just won't let go. I can't help but think of fellow Aussie Michael Beach, but there are just so many good songs here. "Sky's Bleeding" into "I'll Take You Down" was my favorite one-two punch of the year.
1.cpnpc "XLEP". One of the vehicles for the work of Cas Halliwell, cpnpc's "XLEP" has at least 5 songs that bear repeated listenings and my full attention: "Two Soldiers", "Allison", "Pissing Into Water" and "Erased?" and "Wars". That's just amazing to me.
