Chicago Musician and Artist, Jon Langford At The Next Creative Salon

Energy BBDO's next Creative Salon is next Thursday March 8th at 4. Be sure toRSVP, this should be a great Salon. Lanford is a very interesting guy.

Jon Langford was an art student in Leeds in the late 1970s when he and some likeminded friends founded the Mekons, an avant-garde group exploring sounds from post-punk to folk. Today credited as the father of alt-country, he continues in that irreverent and collaborative spirit—musically, in his paintings, and as a champion of fellow artists in a range of disciplines.

Since moving to Chicago in 1992, Langford has become an integral part of the local music scene, cofounding the Waco Brothers, signing with Bloodshot Records, and contributing to the city’s reputation as a global arts center, recording with everyone from Austin’s Alejandro Escovedo to Dutch punk pioneers The Ex. Last year’s Skull Orchard Revisited, a reworking of his solo debut, packaged with original short fiction and paintings inspired by his native Wales, was named by Paste magazine as one of the Top 11 books of 2011, placing Langford alongside the likes of Haruki Murakami.

An accomplished visual artist, Langford has developed a distinct style of multilayered paintings featuring dreamlike visions often incorporating text. Like his music, these works reveal the strong influence of the American West, most evidently in his portraits of country music icons including Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley. (You may recognize Langford’s hand in some of the label art for the local Dogfish Head Brewery.)