The world is doomed, however no less than we have got the Mekons. For almost 50 years, the British punk band has all the time executed issues its personal approach — out of stubbornness, survival or perhaps a little bit little bit of each. That snaggled-toothed sneer and smile, with some bittersweet sentimentality swirled in, can soundtrack any second, however particularly when all the pieces feels fraught.
On the opening of this Tiny Desk live performance, we’re taken again 40 years to one of many band’s many crossroads. Mekons’ 1985 album Concern and Whiskey acknowledged that conventional nation music was simply as rowdy, randy and wayward as punk, and inadvertently pioneered the alt-country phenomenon. The joyous and determined “Final Dance” is a tune about falling in love throughout wartime — on the Tiny Desk, its previous themes reverberate into the current. The center of the set options two songs from this 12 months’s Horror: “Struggle Financial system,” a post-punk-y throwback to the times when the Mekons would borrow Gang of 4‘s devices to write down and rehearse, after which “Sanctuary,” which, as my colleague Ann Powers wrote, is “a youngsters’s rhyme that reveals itself as an elegy.” Susie Honeyman, whose violin steadies the storm of Mekons, takes a uncommon vocal lead, her sing-songy voice like a wisp in a billowing wind.
One other basic from Concern and Whiskey bookends the Mekons’ Tiny Desk. “Arduous to Be Human Once more” is a down-but-not-defeated barn burner that nonetheless must be sung loudly and within the firm of fellow comrades who’ve additionally been “punched and overwhelmed” by life or in any other case. And so long as Sally Timms, Jon Langford, Tom Greenhalgh, Rico Bell, Susie Honeyman, Dave Trumfio and Steve Goulding are round, I will be there “looking for existence with my pink, pink wine.”
SET LIST
- “Final Dance”
- “Struggle Financial system”
- “Sanctuary”
- “Arduous to Be Human Once more”
MUSICIANS
- Sally Timms: vocals
- Susie Honeyman: violin, vocals
- Jon Langford: guitar, vocals
- Tom Greenhalgh: guitar, vocals
- Rico Bell: accordion, keys, harmonica, vocals
- Dave Trumfio: bass, background vocals
- Steve Goulding: drums
TINY DESK TEAM
- Producer: Lars Gotrich
- Director/Editor: Maia Stern
- Audio Technical Director: Josh Newell
- Host/Collection Producer: Bobby Carter
- Videographers: Maia Stern, Joshua Bryant, Sofia Seidel
- Audio Engineer: Josephine Nyounai
- Manufacturing Assistant: Dhanika Pineda
- Photographer: Alanté Serene
- Copy Editor: Hazel Cills
- Tiny Desk Workforce: Kara Body, Ashley Pointer
- Government Producer: Suraya Mohamed
- Collection Creators: Bob Boilen, Stephen Thompson, Robin Hilton
