The Mekons: Punk Rock

Now if only somebody would reissue *Atom Drum Bop* by the Three Johns.

What don't you lovers of rock and roll get????

I admit this initially was crossing my mind as well. Does anyone remember how Option magazine was bizarrely obsessed with them? Their Mekons Watch and all that. I will say that Jon Langford's work with Great Pop Things justifies everything he does.

(Not that this matters, just for fun):
Who would win in a fight...Sally Timms or Neko Case?

Nothing of theirs that I've ever heard has ever come close to those first couple of singles on Fast Product - although a CD reissue of "The Quality Of Mercy...." wouldn't be unwelcome too.

I believe they released this same deal on vinyl many years ago because I'm sure I have it somewhere.

(If nothing else, Quarterstick/Touch and Go put out a couple real good live compilations of early stuff -- *Where Were You?* and *I Have Been to Heaven and Back* -- maybe four years ago, and I'll take them over *Rock and Roll* or *OOOH* or *I Love Mekons* any day.)

signed,
Chuck Eddy who has only written liner notes once in his life I'll have you know and it was for the Mekons ROIR live in NY tape so there.

p.s.) Lester Bangs's liner notes on the very long-forgotten but still wonderful *The Mekons Story* blow mine out of the water, however.

I still prefer the studio versions of almost all of these songs, though.

Is this new stuff better or worse or the same as The Mekons' Story? Cuz I found that pretty boring.

False! My wife, who is both 1) young and 2) not a rock critic just discovered the Mekons last year (see, I told you she was young) and has been going ape over them ever since.

http://www.visi.com/fall/discography.html

Those were indeed the respective dates of the first Fall single and comp appearances.

but maybe they saw the fall live and ripped them off that way! the mekons did play coupla gigs with them, but as far as i can tell the first gigs they played together were in 1979 (including the '79 gig at the Lyceum where the night's lineup was Good Missionaries/Mekons/The Fall/Human League/Gang of Four/Stiff Little Fingers)

a band's influence is not measured by the day their debut single/record is released (cf: nitsuh and my stupid lengthy argument regarding updike's emergence on one of the worthless eminem threads).

go to the timeline on that fall site. the fall recorded a peel session before their first single was released. cross-pollination does not occur when a given band sits down and listens to a fellow band's single.

What does this mean? That bands never get ideas from other bands? That's silly. They don't get ideas from every record they hear, and obviously every idea they get doesn't affect their music, but SOME do. And nobody said chronology PROVES influence. But it can disprove it -- if the Fall hadn't existed before the Mekons put out "32 Weeks," the Fall could not have influenced the sound of that song. They did, though, so they might have. But they might not have, too.

* - yes, I know *The Mekons* is not a "debut" album. But whatever.

no silly, as this board widely demonstrates, most rock writing/criticism focuses on the tangible - record releases - which absolutely underestimates the degree of which performance bears on a certain scene/sound/"influence", especially in the early days of a band's career.

what is the percentage of rock bands that began their career with a record rather than a performance? yes, in the early 90s when USA major labels capitalized on USA "indie" this was arguably more prevalent (smashing pumpkings, weezer, et al) but in a scene like manchester/leeds circa 1977, there is no doubt that these bands were widely familiar with each other months prior to the release of their first recordings. for example, as stated above, john peel hosted the fall on one of his sessions months before their debut single.

so i'll go back to my point... judging the mekons and the fall's impact on the other's earlier careers by which band's single came out first is a bit arbitrary. go ahead and cite your books and websites with release dates and catalog #s, but how relevant is that?

i see your points more or less, but more importantly if anything thank you for letting me vent openly that i think that online rock writing/criticism (on this board and others) is (1)release-centric, (2)heavily under the influence of google (cue that one thread/article talking about rates of google plagiary in USA schools on the rise).