Jon Langford has been a constant fixture on the fringes of the music industry and art world for the last three decades, irons in the fire, plates in the air, occasionally, accidentally in tune with current fads and phases but happier charting his own course through the choppy waters of popular culture.

The Welsh born artist and musician, who relocated to Chicago in 1992, has a degree in fine art from the University of Leeds, where in Great British art school tradition he downed brushes to co-found that seminal punk rock band, The Mekons in 1977.

"The Mekons have perhaps the most devoted fans of any band even remotely connected to punk rock," writes All Music Guide, "[In 1985 they] released the startling Fear and Whiskey, a ragged country album influenced by the ghosts of Hank Williams and Gram Parsons that was unlike anything they'd ever recorded. Thus began the second coming of the Mekons". Rock critic Lester Bangs once called them "the most revolutionary group in the history of rock n' roll".

Jon only returned to making art when he arrived in America, after the Mekons were used up and spat out after a hellacious stint on A&M. Consciously side-stepping all his fine art insider baggage, he steeped himself in printmaking, folk and tattoo art, choosing the careers and power struggles of the country musicians he loved as his initial (quasi-autobiographical) subject. The paintings (acrylic paint, pencil and marker on plywood) depicted images of Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Hank Williams and other country music icons.

"Like rabbits frozen in history's headlights, they are trapped beneath layers of nicotine and neglect. Pearl buttons still gleam as they sign their contracts and stare out of the honky-tonk shadows with glazed promo-shot grins. I just thought of the paintings as songs, to me there was no difference."

Langford currently divides his time between painting & exhibiting his art, playing loud obnoxious rock n' roll with Chicago honky-tonk militants The Waco Brothers and a multitude of other job-descriptions that include, cartoonist, raconteur, political activist, low-rent record mogul, soccer Dad and co-host of a revolutionary free-form radio show called The Eclectic Company on 93XRT, Chicago's Finest Rock!

He's also a founding member of Country roots archeologists The Pine Valley Cosmonauts (with whom he recorded three volumes of The Executioner's Last) and British art-metal power trio The Three Johns. In 2003 he recorded an album with Toronto's Sadies called Jon Langford & His Sadies: The Mayors Of The Moon for Bloodshot Records.