Waco Brothers and Rico Bell: Ghost Writers In Disguise

Following Karl Marx's lead, the Mekons have time and again composed socialist-tinged elegies for America in particular and for capitalism in general, from "Ghosts of American Astronauts" to "Funeral." "There's a mighty crisis coming," they sang 10 years ago, "Reagan Thatcher dead and gone." Of course, none of these prophecies has come true. (Yet.) What matters is that the Mekons have fulfilled the mission of the radical artist: imagining new possibilities for the world's transformation. And they set that vision to powerful, innovative music.

Now the Waco Brothers, led by the Mekons' Jon Langford, have taken up the same mission. On their uneven first album, To the Last Dead Cowboy, Langford hailed "$Bill the Cowboy" as "the last president of the United States." They outdo themselves on the follow-up, Cowboy in Flames (both on Bloodshot Records). Here Langford holds court at a riotous wake for "The Death of Country Music," in which the band gleefully cannibalize country's history and wring passion out of its faded myths. "We'll spill some blood on the ashes/On the bones of the Jones and the Cashes," sings Langford, hot on the heels of punk versions of George Jones's "White Lightning" and Johnny Cash's "Big River." Even with this death fixation, the album is full of life, and the Waco Brothers convey the contagious ardor of a man diving headfirst into the pits of Hell ("Take Me to the Fires").

Actually the Wacos are serious country devotees. It doesn't show in their roots: most of this line-up is from England: mandolin player Tracey Dear, bass player Alan Doughty (of Jesus Jones), guitarist Langford, and drummer Steve Goulding (also a Mekon). But their background doesn't prevent them from getting it right. Even Chicagoan Dean Schlabowske (of Wax Trax's token punk band Wreck) can sing country heartbreak with conviction, and Mark Durante's pedal-steel playing is so dead-on smooth, it's hard to believe he came from the abrasive industrial groups KMFDM and the Revolting Cocks.

Somewhere along the line the band members went back to their real roots. For all its country trappings, Cowboy in Flames is a fierce rock album. The sloppy exuberance is reminiscent of the Pogues, only much tighter -- in both senses of the word. This album is on par with the Mekons' best recent work.

Side-project supergroups rarely tour (too many other commitments), so the upcoming Wacos show at T.T. the Bear's Place should be a treat. Along for the ride is the Mekons' accordionist, who recently stepped out with his first solo album, The Return of Rico Bell (also Bloodshot). Produced by Langford, the album indulges Bell's boozy, melancholy, streak. Shedding tears for old haunts and lost companions, he romanticizes life on the run and in the shadows. These disenchanted fantasies are standard barfly dreams, though in Bell's hands they can take on an epic quality. Between Bell's reverie and the Waco Brothers' revelry, this double bill offers a precariously tipsy ideal of balance.

-- Dan Booth

(The Waco Brothers and Rico Bell play T.T. the Bear's this Saturday, February 8.)