It’s written right here in subsection 218 of the “Sacred British Cows” chapter of the (Semi)Professional Rock Critics’ Catechism and Field Manual that any discussion of former Jam and Style Council frontman and prolific rock-folk-soul journeyman Paul Weller must mention that he’s Huge in the U.K. and more of an Anglophile footnote in the U.S. So did y’alls hear that? In the mother country, he’s a Hyde Park-filling megastar; here in the colonies, he’s…

Hard-rocking renaissance man Jon Langford tears it up. Photo courtesy Bloodshot Records. In a fairer, better world, Jon Langford would need no introduction; in a world that makes Kenny Chesney a country star, he probably does. (Unless, of course, you read our interview with Langford last fall.) So: Since founding the protean punk outfit the Mekons in Leeds, England, three decades or so ago, he’s become that Godfather of the Chicago alt-country scene that…