Mayors Of The Moon

Jon Langford and his Sadies

An intoxicating collaboration betwixt JON LANGFORD and the SADIES

Takes the punk chutzpah of Langford and meshes it with the garage savvy of the Sadies, busting out 12 tracks to rattle the cage of genre purists. Bawdy, exuberant and, at times, full of surprising pop smarts.

Full Description

Talk about a match made in the nether parts a bit below heaven!!! Who better to combine forces and arrive at a whole new turn in American music than a Welsh lefty and fleet-fingered Canadians so attuned in all things surfy, westerny, and lysergically twangy?

Mayors of the Moon takes the punk chutzpah of Langford and meshes it with the garage/roots savvy of the Sadies and busts out 12 tracks that rattle the cage of genre purists. From the Band-like "Drugstore" to the garage punk of "Up To My Neck in This" or the mellow country rock of "Looking Good for Radio," Jon's lyrical tension between the angry and the resigned gets juiced as never before with The Sadies' chameleon-like ability to play it all. And don't miss the somewhat lurid, but thoroughly catchy tale of the road "Are You An Entertainer?"

Features guests Bob Egan (Freakwater, Wilco) on pedal steel and Sally Timms' vocals on "Shipwrecked."

CHOICE CUTS:
Drugstore
Up To My Neck In This
Last King of the Road
Are You an Entertainer?

Here is how Jon describes the experience of recording with the Sadies:

"I have only to gaze down at my stubby, Anglo-Welsh, peasant fingers to see all my musical shortcomings manifested in flesh. I have seen the Sadies hands! With chilled admiration I gaped at the smooth white palms and firm elegant knuckles, the flurry of ringmasters and pointers, each one precision engineered for speed with extra joints and bonus inches added, as they reached down to pull me gently, higher up the evolutionary ladder.

Some pointed out, unkindly I'm sure, that had I really wished to present myself as older, grayer, stockier, and less talented than I already am, the dramatic relief into which this collaboration would throw me could not have been more perfect. I agreed.

Through clouds of choking smoke and ash, fine mists of piss and Molson, they strung my bloated carcass high up in the twisted, twining branches of some evil fucking oak trees where roots, thorns and vines scagged at my neck and eyes, and ripped my clenched jaws asunder, tugging my tongue out from behind my teeth and forced me to sing like I'd never sung before. Then we went to Blue Rodeo's excellent new studio in Toronto's Greektown, drank Greg Keelor'sfinest port and bashed around for a couple of days, sharing jokes, responsibilities and mutual admiration for free medical care for all. Here's the result! Jon Langford and His Sadies! The Mayors Of The Moon!"

Short Description

It's Langford and the Sadies, in remarkable cohesion, who drive this record convincingly into our millennial malaise, and ultimately bivouac substantially closer to Steve Earle than either the rowdy Wacos or the venerable Mekons.

— No Depression
Lyrics that despair of politics, find true pain in true love, unhinge from terra firma, and gripe about the road are delivered with country plainness, glimmers of spirituality, plenty of rolled r's, and the sense that by singing reality you can make it mean something.

— Robert Christgau, Village Voice
Biting criticism thinly veiled as barrelhouse country tunes cuts to the heart of the matter. Who knew that such rhetoric could make such exhilarating music?

— Stereo-Type
The Sadies' instinctive sympathy for Langford's voice and lyrics shine in these 12 songs, making the songs seem informal while songcraft proves otherwise.

— Harp Magazine
I'm less touched by single tracks than by the way he unfurls song after song, abstract but urgent, inked up with tattoos and bruises. What raises [these songs] up isn't the particulars of his politics so much as the way Langford body-Englishes principle into passion, and integrates humour with a snort of disgust.

— The Globe and Mail
The best album of Americana I've heard in some time -- and it took a Welshman and a bunch of Canadians to make it.

— Chicago Reader