Deaglan
New Member
Antifolk tragi-comic singer/songwriter and graphic storytelling aficionado from New York City.
Jeffrey Lewis began his career in the 90s playing open mic events and antifolk festivals at New York’s Sidewalk Cafe along with the likes of Kimya Dawson and Major Matt Mason USA.
Since then he has released four extraordinary albums on Rough Trade Records. Recently he has been writing for the New York Times online Op-Ed page Measure for Measure and lecturing on his senior thesis subject of the Alan Moore graphic novel “Watchmen”.
His new album Em Are I is out 20th April.
POD Concerts presents
JEFFREY LEWIS & THE JUNKYARD
Support: Don't Move!
Wednesday April 29th
CrawDaddy – Harcourt St – Dublin 2.
Doors – 8pm
Tickets €14/17 available from Ticketmaster, City Discs, Sound Cellar and usual outlets. www.ticketmaster.ie
www.thejeffreylewissite.com
www.myspace.com/jefflewisband
Born Jeffrey Lightning Lewis in New York City, November 1975, Jeff grew up with loving beatnik parents in an East 9th St tenement. Having no television in the household, young Jeff became a comic book fanatic before he even knew how to read. His brother Jack was born in 1980. After graduating New York State University at Purchase in 1997 (with a Literature degree and a senior thesis written on the comic book "Watchmen") Jeff spent the lonely winter of 97/98 starving in a 150$ a month illegal co-op sublet, listening to lots of scratchy Pearls Before Swine and Donovan records, and making up some musically minimalist songs on an old guitar belonging to his dad.
Subsequently, spring of 1998 found Jeff playing at Lach's Monday night Anti-hoot open mics, and that summer friend/mentor Whip (of Timesbold) assisted the recording of 11 of Jeff's solo acoustic songs onto a 4-track tape, to which Jeff added two bedroom-recordings of songs sung by brother Jack, who had recently picked up playing electric bass. The resulting 13-song cassette "Indie-Rock Fortune Cookie" (the title a spin-off of the 1960s Blues Magoos records "Psychedelic Lollipop" and "Electric Comic Book") was packaged with a photocopied miniature comic book and sold for $3 at Jeff's soon semi-monthly gigs at the Sidewalk Cafe.
In 2001 Adam Green and Kimya Dawson of the Moldy Peaches made a CD of 8 songs selected from Jeff's first two cassette albums and passed it along to Geoff Travis at Rough Trade Records in England, beginning a chain of events which lead to the September 2001 UK release of "The Last Time I Did Acid I Went Insane and other favorites" a 10-song CD culled from 2 years of Jeff (and Jack) Lewis' DIY recordings. Jeff has since released three further albums on Rough Trade.
With brother Jack on bass and David Beauchamp on drums, the Jeffrey Lewis Band mixes 60s acoustic psychedelia like Pearls Before Swine with the experimental art-punk of the Fall and the urban lyricism of Lou Reed, sounding a bit like if Woody Guthrie fronted Sonic Youth. Live shows also incorporate "low budget videos", Jeff’s large illustrations displayed to accompany certain songs
The Jeffrey Lewis Band has toured the US, UK and Europe, sharing bills with Steven Malkmus & the Jicks, Devendra Banhart, Black Dice, Thurston Moore, the Fall, Beth Orton, Frank Black, the Fiery Furnaces, Daniel Johnston, Scout Niblett, the Mountain Goats, the Moldy Peaches, Cornershop, the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, Wooden Wand, the Cribs, the Danielson Famile, Dr. Dog and others.
Their last album Jeffrey Lewis: 12 Crass Songs, released by Rough Trade in late 2007, is a collection of songs by the legendary anarchist punk band Crass, reworked by Jeffrey into glorious folk, rock, psychedelic, orchestral and electronica productions which dazzle the ear while losing none of the political power of the originals. For the recording of 12 Crass Songs Lewis was joined by Helen Schreiner on back up vocals.
12 Crass Songs follows in the footsteps of the critically acclaimed Jeffrey & Jack Lewis: City & Eastern Songs, which was produced by Kramer (Galaxie 500, Butthole Surfers, Low, Daniel Johnston, etc) and was selected as one of 2006's best albums in Time Out NY, the Boston Globe, CMJ Monthly and elsewhere. Jeffrey's most recent comic book series Fuff is currently up to issue seven.
Praise for "Jeffrey Lewis: 12 Crass Songs”
"Weird? Very... [...] but it's also downright inspiring" (4 of 5 stars) - Rolling Stone
"The record presents Crass’s lyrics calmly, often demonstrating how sane and practical they are; it proves once again, and kind of thrillingly this time, that no music is immune to interpretation" - The New York Times
"Jeffrey Lewis retunes [Crass'] vituperative, cats-and-gravel-in-a-blender sound into something approaching sunny-side-up genius... [and] Crass' lyrical, ultrapolitical vitriol is, if anything, more relevant than ever. It's the most astonishing cover album of the last 10 years, bar none." (4 of 5 stars) - Austin Chronicle
“Folk maverick raids anarchist commune and finds catchy tunes… Works wonderfully” - Spin
"Jeffrey Lewis’ talents appear without end… (on 12 Crass Songs he) magically makes the anarcho-rockers’ anti-establishment savagery his own, by wrapping their barbed sentiments in his trademark mottled tea-towel warmth” - NME
"12 Crass Songs succeeds utterly... eerily beautiful and strangely affecting" - Plan B Magazine
"He’s taken hold of any number of my old stormy favorites and breathed fresh life and fire into them. . . Man, I’m in awe of Jeffrey right now. Who’d have thought he could have done that?" - Everett True/ Village Voice
"Quite brilliant" - (4 of 5 stars) MOJO
“What could be sacrilege is actually a small epiphany: the gorgeous instrumentation…proves a deft counterpoint to the lyrical rage. The Man probably said it would never work but The Man was wrong” - (4 of 5 stars) UNCUT
4 of 5 stars – The Sun
9 of 10 stars – Vice
“It's no mean feat to transform such abrasive harangues into lush, tuneful folk… without defusing their righteous anger… but Crass's intelligent and indignant screeds could not hope for a more sympathetic translator.” (4 of 5 stars) - THE GUARDIAN
Jeffrey Lewis began his career in the 90s playing open mic events and antifolk festivals at New York’s Sidewalk Cafe along with the likes of Kimya Dawson and Major Matt Mason USA.
Since then he has released four extraordinary albums on Rough Trade Records. Recently he has been writing for the New York Times online Op-Ed page Measure for Measure and lecturing on his senior thesis subject of the Alan Moore graphic novel “Watchmen”.
His new album Em Are I is out 20th April.
POD Concerts presents
JEFFREY LEWIS & THE JUNKYARD
Support: Don't Move!
Wednesday April 29th
CrawDaddy – Harcourt St – Dublin 2.
Doors – 8pm
Tickets €14/17 available from Ticketmaster, City Discs, Sound Cellar and usual outlets. www.ticketmaster.ie
www.thejeffreylewissite.com
www.myspace.com/jefflewisband
Born Jeffrey Lightning Lewis in New York City, November 1975, Jeff grew up with loving beatnik parents in an East 9th St tenement. Having no television in the household, young Jeff became a comic book fanatic before he even knew how to read. His brother Jack was born in 1980. After graduating New York State University at Purchase in 1997 (with a Literature degree and a senior thesis written on the comic book "Watchmen") Jeff spent the lonely winter of 97/98 starving in a 150$ a month illegal co-op sublet, listening to lots of scratchy Pearls Before Swine and Donovan records, and making up some musically minimalist songs on an old guitar belonging to his dad.
Subsequently, spring of 1998 found Jeff playing at Lach's Monday night Anti-hoot open mics, and that summer friend/mentor Whip (of Timesbold) assisted the recording of 11 of Jeff's solo acoustic songs onto a 4-track tape, to which Jeff added two bedroom-recordings of songs sung by brother Jack, who had recently picked up playing electric bass. The resulting 13-song cassette "Indie-Rock Fortune Cookie" (the title a spin-off of the 1960s Blues Magoos records "Psychedelic Lollipop" and "Electric Comic Book") was packaged with a photocopied miniature comic book and sold for $3 at Jeff's soon semi-monthly gigs at the Sidewalk Cafe.
In 2001 Adam Green and Kimya Dawson of the Moldy Peaches made a CD of 8 songs selected from Jeff's first two cassette albums and passed it along to Geoff Travis at Rough Trade Records in England, beginning a chain of events which lead to the September 2001 UK release of "The Last Time I Did Acid I Went Insane and other favorites" a 10-song CD culled from 2 years of Jeff (and Jack) Lewis' DIY recordings. Jeff has since released three further albums on Rough Trade.
With brother Jack on bass and David Beauchamp on drums, the Jeffrey Lewis Band mixes 60s acoustic psychedelia like Pearls Before Swine with the experimental art-punk of the Fall and the urban lyricism of Lou Reed, sounding a bit like if Woody Guthrie fronted Sonic Youth. Live shows also incorporate "low budget videos", Jeff’s large illustrations displayed to accompany certain songs
The Jeffrey Lewis Band has toured the US, UK and Europe, sharing bills with Steven Malkmus & the Jicks, Devendra Banhart, Black Dice, Thurston Moore, the Fall, Beth Orton, Frank Black, the Fiery Furnaces, Daniel Johnston, Scout Niblett, the Mountain Goats, the Moldy Peaches, Cornershop, the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, Wooden Wand, the Cribs, the Danielson Famile, Dr. Dog and others.
Their last album Jeffrey Lewis: 12 Crass Songs, released by Rough Trade in late 2007, is a collection of songs by the legendary anarchist punk band Crass, reworked by Jeffrey into glorious folk, rock, psychedelic, orchestral and electronica productions which dazzle the ear while losing none of the political power of the originals. For the recording of 12 Crass Songs Lewis was joined by Helen Schreiner on back up vocals.
12 Crass Songs follows in the footsteps of the critically acclaimed Jeffrey & Jack Lewis: City & Eastern Songs, which was produced by Kramer (Galaxie 500, Butthole Surfers, Low, Daniel Johnston, etc) and was selected as one of 2006's best albums in Time Out NY, the Boston Globe, CMJ Monthly and elsewhere. Jeffrey's most recent comic book series Fuff is currently up to issue seven.
Praise for "Jeffrey Lewis: 12 Crass Songs”
"Weird? Very... [...] but it's also downright inspiring" (4 of 5 stars) - Rolling Stone
"The record presents Crass’s lyrics calmly, often demonstrating how sane and practical they are; it proves once again, and kind of thrillingly this time, that no music is immune to interpretation" - The New York Times
"Jeffrey Lewis retunes [Crass'] vituperative, cats-and-gravel-in-a-blender sound into something approaching sunny-side-up genius... [and] Crass' lyrical, ultrapolitical vitriol is, if anything, more relevant than ever. It's the most astonishing cover album of the last 10 years, bar none." (4 of 5 stars) - Austin Chronicle
“Folk maverick raids anarchist commune and finds catchy tunes… Works wonderfully” - Spin
"Jeffrey Lewis’ talents appear without end… (on 12 Crass Songs he) magically makes the anarcho-rockers’ anti-establishment savagery his own, by wrapping their barbed sentiments in his trademark mottled tea-towel warmth” - NME
"12 Crass Songs succeeds utterly... eerily beautiful and strangely affecting" - Plan B Magazine
"He’s taken hold of any number of my old stormy favorites and breathed fresh life and fire into them. . . Man, I’m in awe of Jeffrey right now. Who’d have thought he could have done that?" - Everett True/ Village Voice
"Quite brilliant" - (4 of 5 stars) MOJO
“What could be sacrilege is actually a small epiphany: the gorgeous instrumentation…proves a deft counterpoint to the lyrical rage. The Man probably said it would never work but The Man was wrong” - (4 of 5 stars) UNCUT
4 of 5 stars – The Sun
9 of 10 stars – Vice
“It's no mean feat to transform such abrasive harangues into lush, tuneful folk… without defusing their righteous anger… but Crass's intelligent and indignant screeds could not hope for a more sympathetic translator.” (4 of 5 stars) - THE GUARDIAN
