The Art of Multitasking

Despite Langford's protestations, there's a good amount of politics on the Waco Brothers' new "Freedom and Weep," the group's seventh album. Songs include Bush-focused government critiques ("Chosen One," "The Rest of the World," "Missing Link") and blue-collar woes ("Join the Club") and familiar complaints about the sad state of country music ("Drinkin' & Cheatin' & Death"). In the album's liner notes, the group's other main writer, Schlabowske, offers "thanks to W for all the material."

The Waco brothers, incidentally, will be touring this fall, but Mekons fans shouldn't hold their breath.

"We appear to be hibernating at the moment," Langford says, sighing. "It has happened in the past but not for as long -- we haven't done anything for about 16 months. There's reasons for that, like people having kids and living in distant parts of the planet and dropping a lot of other things on their plates. People always assume that the Mekons will get back together, but I keep calling people and no one's very interested at the moment. And I'm not sure I've got time."

Maybe because his own plate is full. Besides "Freedom and Weep," Langford has recently released a pair of collaborations on his own label, Buried Treasures: "Sir Dark Invader vs. the Fanglord" with singer-songwriter Richard Buckner ("We did it a couple of years ago, but it's just now coming out") and "One Day In Chicago," the last recordings by Kevin Coyne, who died in December. Langford calls the British singer-songwriter-painter "hugely influential. He was with Virgin Records when that label was actually vital and interesting," in the '70s. The Mekons were on Virgin, too.

"He was punk rock in content before there was punk," Langford suggests. "There was a lot that channeled down through football and hooliganism and politics into punk rock, and Kevin Coyne was definitely doing something unusual that really resonated with people like John Lydon" of the Sex Pistols. Coyne famously refused to write lyrics for Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" (the album that "made" Virgin) and turned down an invitation to join the Doors after Jim Morrison's death, insisting the band's music was "rubbish."

Meanwhile, the peripatetic Langford has formed yet another band, Ship & Pilot, with violinist Jean Cook, bassist Tony Maimone (Pere Ubu) and drummer Dan Massey (Robbie Fulks). Frequent collaboration, Langford says, is the key. "I find it very difficult to just sit on my own and do things -- it's not much fun, I think. I do a lot of that with the painting and I've tried to find ways to make that into a more communal activity, but it's difficult, whereas music, by its nature, you just do it with other people."

JON LANGFORD -- Appearing Friday at the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage (free; with a webcast athttp://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/millennium) and Saturday at Iota.

FUTURE OF MUSIC POLICY SUMMIT

The fifth annual Future of Music Policy Summit is being presented at George Washington University's Lisner Auditorium Sunday through Tuesday by the Washington-based Future of Music Coalition, a national nonprofit education, research and advocacy organization that identifies, examines, interprets and translates challenging issues of music, law, technology and policy. The conference brings together key figures in those fields to discuss such issues as emerging technologies meeting traditional music industry structures, federal legislation and copyright law, digital distribution, licensing challenges associated with sampling and intellectual property matters post-Grokster. More than 500 participants and 100 expert panelists will take part in panel discussions at Lisner (730 21st St. NW). Among them: Jonathan Adelstein, commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission; Marybeth Peters, register of the U.S. Copyright Office; Recording Industry Association of America chief executive Mitch Bainwol and President Cary Sherman; Napster inventor Shawn Fanning, co-founder of Snocap; Mia Garlick, general counsel for Creative Commons; Rebecca Greenberg, national director of the Recording Artists' Coalition; REM bassist Mike Mills and group manager Bertis Downs; and such artists and producers as George Clinton, Hank Shocklee, Melissa Ferrick and Joe Henry. A complete list of panelists is available at http://www.futureofmusic.org//events/summit05/panelists.cfm . Registration for the conference is $149 for a three-day pass, $99 for a one-day pass. Student and musician discounts and scholarships are available. For more information, visit http://www.futureofmusic.org .