Consumer Guide Album

The Mekons: F.U.N. '90 [A&M EP, 1990]
Such traditionalists yet such parodists, such idealists yet such cynics--such pomo conflaters. Their latest interim EP is another all-cover job: Robbie Robertson as Gram Parsons, Kevin Coyne as Sally Timms, the supposedly trad. arr. "Sheffield Park," and a hotel-room vocal by Lester Bangs turned muffled centerpiece of . . . what have we here? A dance record, maybe they think--except for the "country" song, every track motorvates off an atypically insistent and/or electronic riff or obbligato. So maybe it isn't interim after all--maybe it marks one of their big transitions. And maybe it's a goof. A-