Jon Langford is an old punk rocker from Newport who founded a band called the Mekons while studying at the University of Leeds Fine Art department in 1977. In the 80s he formed the Three Johns and both bands pursued parallel paths that landed them critical attention and record deals in the USA. Hectic times were indeed complicated further by production gigs with bands like The Ex, Membranes, Ralph & the Ponytails, Senseless Things, Gaye Bykers on Acid, Cud, 60 Foot Dolls and the legendary Til Things Are Brighter Johnny Cash tribute album involving various Mekons, Marc Riley, Marc Almond, Michelle Shocked and more. Jon’s visual output at this time was limited to record sleeves and a comic strip called Great Pop Things co-written by Newport chum Carlton B. Morgan which appeared in the NME and other publications.

Relocating to Chicago in 1992 Jon pursued a frantic double life burrowing on the fringes of popular culture with a huge number of collaborative musical ventures like the Waco Brothers, Four Lost Souls, Pine Valley Cosmonauts while reinventing himself as a full-time visual artist

Songs and paintings seem to emerge from the same part of his brain as words and images cross-pollinate to produce work that is poetic, political and still very punk rock. He has shown his artwork and performed at Yard Dog Folk Art in Austin Texas every year since 1996. In 2015 Jon was an artist in residence at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville and worked with Hatch Showprint master printer Jim Sherraden on a series of collaborative works called COMPLICATED CHARACTERS.

Nashville Radio a book of artwork and writings was published by Verse Chorus Press in 2006 and was followed in 2011 by Skull Orchard Revisited, a book and CD about his roots in Newport. 

Jon illustrated Arthur Machen’s Chronicle of Clemendy for The Three Imposters. He was delighted to work with them again on 2024’s timely rediscovery of The Terror, a Machen classic well suited to our times.