He Knows Whereof He Speaks

From an interview with Jon Langford by Hays Davis on April 13 at Richmond.com:


9X: You've covered a staggering amount of ground
between the different bands and albums and project
over the past 30 years. What are two or three things
that come to mind that you've been involved with that
you'd most prefer to be put in a Jon Langford time
capsule and checked out in 100 years?

JL: There's an album called 'The Curse Of The Mekons'
we recorded for A&M and they haven't released it,
which is pretty hard to get a hold of, but I always
thought that was one of the best things we ever did.
Some of the stuff I did with The Three Johns as well,
which was this other band, sort of heavy metal/hard
rock/disco band in the mid-'80s. There's a few songs
that The Three Johns did; there's one called 'Death Of
The European,' and one called 'Torches Of Liberty,'
and one called 'AWOL.' I don't know. I always liked
them. Seeing that band live, that was a really
exciting live band when the band was on form, which
didn't last very long on form, basically. Descended
into Got-knows-what. A lot of that was really good for
me. I'm really pleased with this 'Executioner's' show
now. I think that's really great. And the 'Gold Brick'
record. A lot of people I know who've always expressed
interest in what I'm doing are really, really happy
with this record. It's been really encouraging that
people see it as a departure and something different.
I like that. I wouldn't just like to be churning stuff
out for the sake of it.

9X: I've got an old cassette copy of The Three Johns.
I'll have to dig that out.

JL: I started playing 'Death Of The European' again.
It's just a great song. I really like it. I can't even
remember how it came about. It seems to fit as well.
There's a sort of anger and horror in some of that
stuff of The Three Johns which is quite extreme.
Seems to fit the times quite well.

Indeed. Anger and Horror. But Laughter too.

Plus ça change