The world is doomed, however not less than we have got the Mekons. For practically 50 years, the British punk band has all the time performed issues its personal approach — out of stubbornness, survival or possibly a bit little bit of each. That snaggled-toothed sneer and smile, with some bittersweet sentimentality swirled in, can soundtrack any second, however particularly when every little thing 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 Worry 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 music 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 yr’s Horror: “Battle Economic system,” a post-punk-y throwback to the times when the Mekons would borrow Gang of 4‘s devices to jot 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 traditional from Worry and Whiskey bookends the Mekons’ Tiny Desk. “Exhausting 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 purple, purple wine.”
SET LIST
- “Final Dance”
- “Battle Economic system”
- “Sanctuary”
- “Exhausting 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/Sequence 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 Staff: Kara Body, Ashley Pointer
- Government Producer: Suraya Mohamed
- Sequence Creators: Bob Boilen, Stephen Thompson, Robin Hilton
