'Great Pop Things', about David Bowie. As a gag, Bowie's brother Terry Jones is depicted as Monty Python member Terry Jones, in his iconic "naked man at the piano" persona.
Chuck Death is the pen name of Jon Langford, a Welsh rock guitarist, best-known as a member of the British-American punk band The Mekons. Also active as a painter, Langford created the satirical comic series 'Great Pop Things' (1987-2000), in collaboration with Colin B. Mortin. 'Great Pop Things' is a nonsense-oriented biographical series about rock artists and musicians. It ridicules all the pretentiousness and self-mythology of the pop industry. The series enjoyed a cult following and has been reprinted in various music magazines. Along with Peter Blegvad, Herman Brood, Kurt Cobain, Yamatsuka Eye, Daniel Johnston, Tuli Kupferberg, John Lennon, Bent Van Looy and Charlie Watts, Langford is one of the few rock musicians who once drew comics.
Early life and career
Jonathan Denis Langford was born in 1957 in Newport, Wales. His father was an accountant for Lloyd's Brewery. Langford's older brother, David Langford, gained fame in adulthood as a science fiction novelist. Jon Langford studied painting at the University Leeds, dropping out to focus on his musical career, but later returned to college and graduated in 1981. Langford's favorite comics are satirical in nature, like the ones in the comic magazine 2.000 A.D.
Langford has painted several portraits of country musicians (Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline) and rock stars (Elvis Presley). His images have been reproduced on bottles and other items of the Dogfish Head Brewery in Milton, Delaware. Since 1993, Langford's paintings and other artwork have been exhibited in art galleries in Chicago, New York, Austin (Texas), New Orleans, New York and Nashville.
The Mekons
Langford was in his late teens when punk rock broke out. In 1976, he and a group of fellow enthusiasts, Ros Allen, Andy Corrigan, Tom Greenhalgh, Kevin Lycett and Mark White, soon established their own band: The Mekons. Their name was based on the antagonist The Mekon from Frank Hampson's comic series 'Dan Dare'. Like many other punk bands at the time, The Mekons combined political consciousness with individualism and non-conformist attitude. Langford was originally drummer, but later switched to guitar. He also designed some of their records, singles, T-shirts and other merchandise.
By the turn of the 1970s into the 1980s, The Mekons' rivals either split or evolved into post-punk or new wave. The group started experimenting with folk and country, strongly influenced by the old country swing band Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys, who had a similar genreblending sound. Through Wills, Langford also became a fan of other country legends, like Hank Williams, George Jones and Merle Haggard. Interviewed by Terry Gross on 'Fresh Air' (17 December 1998), Langford described punk's appeal as showing people you could make music any way you wanted. In his opinion, there is a correlation between punk and country, in the sense that his favorite artists in both genres deal with rawfelt emotions about real-life topics.
Langford has also released solo recordings and collaborated with other musical acts, like The Three Johns (1981-1987). Since 1992, he has lived in Chicago, Illinois, where he formed alternative country ensembles, like The Waco Brothers (1994) and Pine Valley Cosmonauts (1995).
Great Pop Things
In 1987, Langford and Colin B. Morton (who also publishes under the name Carlton B. Morgan) launched a comic strip together: 'Great Pop Things'. Langford used the pseudonym 'Chuck Death', based on a real-life person with that name. Interviewed by Matt Chrystal for Cool Dad Music (July 2018), Langford explained: " (...) That came from a Mekons subgroup. Sally (Timms) and Tom (Greenhalgh) had some names made up, and somebody else was actually called Chuck Death. I don't really know. I just needed a pseudonym fast because I didn't want Robert Plant to know it was me!"
'Great Pop Things' is a parody of biographical comics. Each entry focuses on real-life rock musicians or artists, but twists facts from their respective lives and careers into humorous retellings. Among the ridiculed stars are The Beatles, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Brian Eno, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Frank Zappa, and bands like Led Zeppelin, Oasis, The Rolling Stones, The Sex Pistols and U2. In their quest to present completely inaccurate "facts", Langford and Morton don't even try to be consistent. Each episode therefore features its own unique brand of witty nonsense.
The project was largely inspired by Langford's punk attitude towards the pomposity of many mainstream rock and pop acts. In the aforementioned 'Fresh Air' interview, he explained: "All that progressive rock stuff. I just couldn't stand it. Most of my friends really liked The Who. The Who did a kind of four album rock opera, and everyone would run out and buy it. I just thought that was the most depressing thing imaginable. I really didn't like that. I thought -- I thought, mostly, they were very pompous. And I thought most pop stars were hilarious. I mean, "Dark Side of the Moon" by Pink Floyd. I mean, it still cracks me up now if I hear that. I just think it's like ludicrous megalomania." Though Langford admitted that he observed punk falling in the same trap. After a few years, many punk groups were more concerned with trends and image. If you didn't "dress like a punk", one apparently wasn't punk. The Clash, a group he liked, also got carried away with "changing the world". The event that triggered Langford and Morton the most was Live-Aid (1985), when pop and rock stars joined forces to help starving people in Ethiopia. The mainstream now embraced rock stars for their humanitarian deeds instead of despising them for "corrupting the youth". To Langford, Live-Aid was just ludicrously pretentious. In 1986, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted its first members, another warning sign.
From this perspective, 'Great Pop Things' is a welcome deconstruction of the "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll" mythos. It ridicules musicians, producers, groupies and fans. It derides the pointlessness of many facts about pop musicians, from "how they became stars" to their opinions on the real-life world. The authors laugh at all the PR talk that markets musicians as "dangerous rebels" or announces how they "changed their style". Musicians, producers, managers, groupies, music videos, album covers,... they all get a well-deserved mockery. Interviewed by Neil Strauss (2000), Langford claimed: “Just when we think we’ve run out of ideas, David Bowie will say he’s going to relaunch ‘Ziggy Stardust'. Or the Sex Pistols will reform and we’ll go, ‘Wow, we can get five strips out of that; that’s like 500 bucks.’ There’s no bounds to the ridiculousness of pop people. They’ve got more money than me, but they’re not as good-looking or talented, so I should ridicule them. So it was partially inspired out of greed and hatred.”
In the United Kingdom, 'Great Pop Things' was published in the music magazine Record Mirror, until being transferred to the New Musical Express in 1991, where it ran for the remainder of the decade. In the United States, 'Great Pop Things' was reprinted in weekly newspapers like the L.A. Weekly, Chicago's New City and the satirical magazine The Onion. Book collections were published by Penguin Books ('Great Pop Things', 1992) and Verse Chorus Press ('Great Pop Things: The Real History Of Rock And Roll From Elvis To Oasis', 1998). Ironically, the book had a foreword by rock critic Greil Marcus, who has spent a large part of his career documenting and correcting inaccuracies in rock history. In 2018, 'Great Pop Things' was also made available as an e-book.
Interviewed by The Floydian Device (2003), Langford revealed that Morrisey, lead singer of The Smiths, had picked up a copy of the Record Mirror, with the 'Great Pop Things' episode mocking The Smiths' biography. According to him, Morrisey threw the issue across the room in anger, "because his chin was drawn too big." Langford therefore drew Morrisey with an even larger chin in other episodes. Most other artists had more a sense of humor about it. P.J. Harvey revealed that she had the comic that mocked her "up on my fridge." Langford also showed self-parody: in one episode, she skewered his own group, The Mekons.
The British TV series 'Star Stories' (2008) bears a striking resemblance to 'Great Pop Things'. 'Nashville Radio', a collection of Langford's other artwork and writings, was published in 2006.
'Great Pop Things' about Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart.