Jon Langford

Langford and Sally Timms, the other Chicago-based member of the Mekons, continue to collaborate on various recording and performance projects, as of 2020.

In 2018, Langford designed the cover for "Commercial Suicide Man", a collaborative single by the Nightingales and Vic Godard.

Four Lost Souls is a collaboration between Langford, John Szymanski, Tawny Newsome and Bethany Thomas. Their eponymous debut album was produced by Norbert Putnam and released in 2017.

In 2015, Langford was commissioned by the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum to paint a series of portraits for its "Dylan, Cash, and the Nashville Cats: A New Music City" exhibition, which opened on March 27, 2015. That commission lead to a collaboration between Langford and Hatch Showprint Master Printer Jim Sherraden. Out of this collaboration, their artwork was adapted for the album cover of the 2016 double-LP Trio: Farther Along by Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris.

Since 2015, Langford has designed covers for a series of novels by author Jay Spencer Green, including Breakfast at Cannibal Joe's and Ivy Feckett is Looking for Love.

At the 2014 Hideout Block Party in Chicago, Langford debuted the band Bad Luck Jonathan (a name likely inspired by that of then-president of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan). The band, described as "socialist voodoo space boogie", featured Alan Doughty and Joe Camarillo from the Waco Brothers, Phil Wandscher from Whiskeytown, and Martin Billheimer from Chicago's Pritzker Military Museum and Library.

In the late 2000s Langford came into contact with the Burlington Welsh Male Chorus based near Toronto. He invited them first to accompany him at a CeltFest in Chicago in 2007, and then to re-record the whole of the Skull Orchard. The album Skull Orchard Revisited (credited to Jon Langford and the Burlington Welsh Male Chorus) was released on 3 June 2011 by Bloodshot Records.

In a 2010 interview, Langford said his earliest influences were Tom Jones, Slade, T. Rex, The Kinks, Johnny Cash, Man and Black Sabbath.

2010's Old Devils is a follow up to the first Skull Orchard album.

Langford is married to architect and jewelry designer, Helen Tsatsos. Tsatsos' jewelry was awarded Macy's "Designer of Distinction" award in 2010 and has a line of pieces that incorporate Langford's artwork. Langford met his wife in 1986 at a party after a gig in her home town of Chicago. They currently live in Chicago and have two children, Jame and Tommy. Jame Langford is a clothing designer and, while in high school, was in a band called the Ungnomes; Tommy is a songwriter and lead singer in a band called Mock Nine.

Are a group of mainly Newport-based musicians, including members of Give Me Memphis and The Darling Buds. Previously known as LL, the group have written and recorded intermittently for over 20 years, and have been playing live since 2007. As LL, their only release was a demo track ("Rechem") on the 1999 compilation Fear of a Red Planet. Debut album The Legend of LL was released on Country Mile Records in 2015 and included reworkings of several songs from the same LL demos, as well as a new version of "Pill Sailor", first released on Skull Orchard in 1998. Second album President of Wales was released in November 2019.

Wee Hairy Beasties were a children's music group based in Chicago, composed of Jon Langford, Sally Timms, Kelly Hogan, and Devil in a Woodpile. They played their first gig together at the Brookfield Zoo near Chicago, and released two albums in 2006 and 2008.

Nashville Radio, a collection of his artwork and writings, was published in 2006.

Langford produced The Executioner's Last Songs, Vols. 1, 2, & 3 record compilations to benefit charitable organizations working to end the death penalty (Artists Against the Death Penalty, the Illinois Death Penalty Moratorium Project, and the National Coalition To Abolish the Death Penalty). In 2006, Langford was commissioned to develop a performance based on the compilations for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago; the show was also performed at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

Circa 2003, Langford started the band "Ship & Pilot", to perform his songs. It continued to perform into 2006, and very occasionally since. Ship & Pilot also included Sally Timms, Tony Maimone, Jean Cook, and on drums variously Steve Goulding or Dan Massey.

Langford's first official solo album, Skull Orchard, a look back at his hometown of Newport, Wales, was released in 1998. He followed it with All the Fame of Lofty Deeds, in 2004, Gold Brick in 2006, Old Devils in 2010 and Here Be Monsters in 2014.

The Waco Brothers make country-punk music, and are a Chicago-based amalgam of players from the Pine Valley Cosmonauts family and others, who have been recording since 1995. For their first albums, they included Dean Schlabowske (guitar/vocal), Tracey Dear (mandolin/vocal), Alan Doughty (bass/vocal), Mark Durante (pedal steel guitar), and Mekons drummer Steve Goulding) By 2015, Goulding, now based in New York City, had been replaced by Joe Camarillo (drums), and Durante had left.

The Killer Shrews were a group composed of Langford (lead vocals), Gary Lucas, and Tony Maimone. They released one self-titled album on Enemy Records in 1993.

In 1988, Langford co-produced (with Mark Riley) a Johnny Cash tribute album, 'Til Things are Brighter..., to raise funds for the Terrence Higgins Trust. The album was endorsed and admired by Cash himself who is featured alongside Langford and Riley on its cover.

With John Hyatt and Phillip Brennan, Langford released several albums of drum-machine-fueled punk between 1982 and 1987. A retrospective box set was released in August 2015.

Since the mid-1980s, Langford has been one of the leaders in incorporating folk and country music into punk rock. He has released a number of solo recordings as well as recordings with other bands outside of The Mekons, most notably the Waco Brothers, which he co-founded after moving to Chicago in the early 1990s. He is involved with the Chicago-based independent record label Bloodshot.

Langford was originally the drummer for the punk band The Mekons when it formed at the University of Leeds in 1977, but he later took up the guitar as other band members left. The Mekons were signed to Virgin Records but according to Langford they "got fired." They played their first US appearance on New Year's Eve in 1980, gave up live performances for a while, and released 1982's The Mekons Story. They began performing again in public in 1984, playing their first shows as benefits for the British miners' union. After being signed by major American label A&M Records in the late 1980s, label shuffling resulted in the band trying to leave the label. In response, they gave the label, The Curse of the Mekons, which became only available overseas as an import. A documentary called The Revenge of the Mekons was released in 2014 by director Joe Angio. The Mekons continue to record and perform live, as of 2019.

When he was young, Langford would visit his grandparents in Croesyceiliog, whose family friend ran two pubs, the Cambrian Arms and The Six In Hand. He attended Gaer Infants School and Gaer Junior School, then Brynglas Primary School, the Newport High School middle school, before Queen's Hill. In 1972-1973, after playing rugby and football, at the age of 15 Langford decided he liked playing music better. He played a lot of David Bowie and was listening to a lot of Man.

Jonathan Denis Langford (born 11 October 1957) is a Welsh musician and artist based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. He is one of the founders of punk band The Mekons, post-punk group The Three Johns, and alternative country ensembles The Waco Brothers and Pine Valley Cosmonauts. He has worked to campaign against the death penalty in Illinois.