Ancient and Modern: Sally Timms Talks New Mekons Album

By Chuck Sudo in Arts & Entertainment on Oct 5, 2011 4:00PM

If Mekons were still churning out the same bare bones post-punk that informed their beginnings in Leeds nearly 40 years ago, they may have lost our attention. But the band's sound has been constantly evolving ever since the mid-80s, with the band incorporating more and more elements of English folk and Americana into their repertoire.

Today Mekons is more Americana than punk, but the members of the band still wear their activist roots proudly on their sleeves, the music serving to bait the listener with sweet melodies. Their newest long player, Ancient & Modern (Sin Record Company/Bloodshot Records), finds the band digging deeper musical and cultural wells than they have before. The inspiration for the songs songs on Ancient & Modern is Edwardian era England, but the lyrics on songs like "Geeshie," "Calling All Demons" and the title track prove the old adage "the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Mekons tour in support of Ancient & Modern came to Space in Evanston last night. Tonight, they play Lincoln Hall. The band's instrumentation and vocal harmonies couldn't find a more perfect venue than Lincoln Hall's acoustics. We had some time to ask vocalist Sally Timms some questions about the new record

Chicagoist: After 26 albums how does the process begin for rounding up the band for another one?

Sally Timms: The band are rather spread out geographically. Jon (Langford) and I are in Chicago: Rico (Bell), Susie Honeyman) and Sarah (Corina) in London, Steve (Goulding) in New York, Tom (Greenhalgh) in the countryside in Devon, Lu (Edmonds) sometimes in Siberia... so we just block book time and try to get together in different locations. This record was made in Devon, North Wales, Chicago and London. We used to just record in a studio in one place for about ten days and have to finish everything, but digital technology has meant that we can move around and take the sessions anywhere we congregate.

C: what were the influences for the songwriting process this time? Was it a collaborative process? Did one or two members come in with some song ideas that the band fleshed out?

ST: Usually there is an idea or concept and that theme guides the recording. Of course it mutates over the course of making the record but we have always worked in that way, conversations begin with various members, we bring in books or materials that help with ideas. No-one ever brings in a song really, we try to make it all when we are in the same room but within that people have roles, not everyone writes lyrics and of course, not everyone plays violin.

C: It's been four years between 2007's Natural and Ancient & Modern. Why the long time between albums?

ST: I don't see it as a long time unless you view it by the industry standard of an album every one or two years...I'm not sure if our audience would want to be subjected to that much Mekons material. And we are confined by how available everyone is and how much money we've squirreled away...I think about every four years is the right gestation period for the Mekon animal.

C: How is working with Bloodshot as the distributor for the album?

ST: We know them pretty well already so it really made sense. Not that anyone was bashing our door down to release our next cd, but we had such a long and peaceful time on Touch and Go so to go to a label we didn't know and who didn't know us might have ended up badly. We don't tour often, we don't sell a lot of cd's so it's best to go with a label who understands that and likes us rather than a label that might want us to conform more to what's expected of a working band.

C: The melodies and musical styles on Ancient & Modern dig deeper into the Americana and British folk songbooks, almost as though the intention were to sugarcoat the messages in the songs for consumption. Was that the case?

ST: I think there was some occasional desire to capture a period of time musically, "Geeshie" definitely has that. Nothing the Mekons do is intentional, everything is improved, plucked from thin air so if that's how it turned out we are happy. Lots of influences that are drawn upon are so much part of the band's make-up that it's hard to know at this point.

C: After all these years, does looking at the world around you take a toll on the band's musical inspiration? It seems as though we live in a "the more things change, the more the stay the same" society.

ST: I suppose that is somewhat the theme of this record. That if we look back 100 years are we really that different, or do things move cyclically? We seem to be living in an age of superficial consumerism and so were the Edwardians just before the fall.

C: How long is the tour expected to last?

ST: Till exactly midnight on October 8 in New York...assuming nothing goes amiss.

C: How has the new material translated to the live stage so far?

ST: Really well, we are doing five songs from the new cd already and we hope to have another one added by tonight, rehearsal today!! And in some ways those songs are mutating into different and possibly better versions of the originals.

Mekons play Lincoln Hall tonight at 9 p.m. with opening act Brokeback. Tickets ($20) are available for purchase online.