Overview:
Two of the UK's leading punk/postpunk bands will visit the area this month.
Established in 1874 as the Yorkshire College of Science, Leeds University, located in the English city for which it’s named, has produced state (current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer), astronauts (Piers Sellers), and Nobel Prize winners (X-ray developer Sir William Henry Bragg). It’s also the breeding place of two of the most influential bands of the punk/postpunk period, the Mekons and Gang of Four, who will perform at the Bearsville Theater on, respectively, June 9 and June 25.
“It was this crazy, second-hand mishmash of music, art, political theory, and extremely heavy drinking,” recalls singer Sally Timms, who didn’t join the Mekons until 1986, a decade after their formation, but was a member of the circle they sprang from. “It was an art-school scene, but people were reading and talking about ideas a lot, not just doing their paintings or whatever art students were supposed to do. And everyone slept with each other. [Laughs].”
The artistic connection, anyway, was certainly close between the two bands, both of whom arre known for their songs’ leftist political themes. Founded by guitarists Jon Langford and Tom Greenhalgh in 1976, the Mekons borrowed Gang of Four’s equipment to record their first album, 1979’s shambolic The Quality of Mercy is Not Strnen. After 1982’s archival The Mekons Story, the group went on hiatus, re-emerging mid-decade with Timms, ex-Damned (and current Public Image Limited) guitarist Lu Edmonds, ex-Graham Parker and the Rumour drummer Stephen Goulding, and violinist Susie Honeyman in their ranks and a new sound that incorporated English folk and American country elements. A string of acclaimed albums that includes 1985’s Fear and Whiskey, 1986’s The Edge of The World, 1987’s The Mekons Honky Tonkin’, and 1989’s The Mekons Rock ’n’ Roll came next and cemented the band’s dedicated following. The Mekons’ newest offering is 2025’s timely-titled Horror.
Likewise launched in 1976, Gang of Four, in its breakthrough lineup, consisted of singer Jon King, guitarist Andy Gill, drummer Hugo Burnham, and bassist Dave Allen. Their volatile formula of angular art-punk, rumbling funk/dub, and abstract socialist lyrics hit vinyl with their 1978 debut single “Damaged Goods.” Their epochal 1979 debut album, Entertainment! and the rest of their catalog has inspired the likes of Fugazi, the Jesus Lizard, Rage Against the Machine, Mission of Burma, the Minutemen, Big Black, Nirvana, R.E.M., the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Franz Ferdinand, Protomartyr, and numerous contemporary acts.
Allen left the group not long after the recording of their 1981 sophomore album, Solid Gold, with future Shady resident and B-52s bassist Sara Lee taking his slot for the next three years (another future local, David Bowie bassist Gail Ann Dorsey, would record 1991’s Mall with the band). The outfit would be active via several lineups in the ensuing decades, with Gill leading an incarnation with no other original members under the Gang of Four name from 2012 until his death from suspected Covid-related pneumonia in 2020 (his last performance was at Colony in Woodstock). In 2021 King, Burnham, and Lee reunited the group to wide acclaim with ex-Slint and Tortoise member; David Pajo on guitar. Gang of Four’s current lineup includes King, Burnham, ex-Belly and L7 bassist Gail Greenwood and Pharmacists’ leader Ted Leo on guitar.
Thus, Leeds’s intellectual-punk torch continues to burn bright as the Mekons and Gang of Four set their sights on the Hudson Valley this month. But despite the often-serious lyrical matter of her band’s songs, Timms maintains that the Mekons’ shows are consistently uplifting. “Playing music is something we do because we want to make people feel alive and joyful,” she says. “For us and our audiences, we do our best to make it a jolly affair.”
The Mekons will perform at the Bearsville Theater on June 9 at 7pm. The Sadies will open. Tickets are $46.65 to $80.15. Gang of Four will perform at the Bearsville Theater on June 25 at 7pm. Downtown Boys will open. Tickets are $45.15 to $71.15.
