Astonishment is the emotion that creeps up most often when watching 36-year-old New York singer-songwriter Jeffrey Lewis. The term singer-songwriter does him an injustice, in fact, for these days it summons notions of strummed predictability, opaquely emotive lyrics and vulnerable falsetto-flecked whining, whereas he’s a whole different ball game. Take his history of the Cuban Missile Crisis, for instance. Behind him and his band, The Junkyard - featuring his brother Jack on bass – there’s a screen upon which Lewis’s comic illustrations are projected, Robert Crumb-esque cartoons of Kennedy and Kruschev illustrating a wryly sung history lesson on how the world reached the brink of nuclear war in 1962. It’s hugely unlikely as entertainment, yet utterly gripping.
At the back, on the merchandise stall, are a selection of Lewis’s comic books, a sideline which he is talented enough to make more of should he choose. Instead, he is touring the UK, playing a small basement venue next to Brighton’s coach station. He looks very different from when I last saw him, now sporting a shaved head and straggly beard. As a stage presence, however, he has gone from strength to strength. He starts the show with a purposefully waffly intro, comparing himself to a particular Donovan live album that rambles on for far too long at the start. “We’ll create as much anticipation as we can before we burst the bubble,” he threatens amiably. Like Donovan, there is something lysergic about Lewis, but it’s tempered with precise countercultural knowledge and a dry raconteur’s wit.
It’s a startling end to an evening that has been brain entertainment delivered from the heart
This isn’t to say he is all poise and distance. His songs can are also be warm and observant. The opening number, possibly called “Reaching for a Way Out”, features a sweet jazz keyboard motif and poignant lines such as “We’re animals who die when we’re alone”. More typical, however, is “Anxiety Attack”, pin-point assessing a mind in panic – “What if I go insane and this time it’s permanent?” The music, fronted by Lewis’s punky, precise nasal tones, veers between slightly goofy indie-folk and power-pop punk. It is the latter that features on the bouncy “The Man with the Golden Arm”, sung mostly by his brother, and then he’s onto a crowd favourite, the self-explanatory “Don’t Let the Record Label Take You Out to Lunch” which comes from the superbly titled 2003 album It’s The Ones Who’ve Cracked That The Light Shines Through.
The centrepiece of the set is another Lewis lesson with slide show, a quarter hour “History of the Development of Punk on the Lower East Side 1950-1975”. It’s truly fantastic, amusing and informative, punctuated by song snippets as the band swiftly runs the gamut through David Peel and the Lower East Side, the Holy Modal Rounders, The Velvet Underground, Patti Smith, and many more. What’s more he follows it with a random poem about a pigeon, written and delivered in perfect New York Jewish argot. You don’t get that with Newton Faulkner. At some point he also plays “To Be Objectified”, a song that is at once oddball, existential and cosmically poetic – “Looking forth and looking back, our vision can’t extend beyond the quaint vanishing point our bodies recommend”.
For the final streak at the end of the set, the band punk out and have fun, giving a flavour of Richard Hell and the Voidoids (who featured in the earlier history lesson). Then, to a solo drum beat, Lewis closes with a rap, “Mosquito Mass Murderer”, which plays out swatting insects as macho hip hop – “Now you’re on the wall it’s all over for you – I’ll leave you as a warning for the rest of your crew.” It’s a startling end to an evening that has been brain entertainment delivered from the heart. Like Jonathan Richman, although less naïf and more intellectually analytical, Lewis is a rare treasure, an artist whose mind fascinates and who enchants with his worldview.
Watch the lovely video for "To Be Objectified", featuring Lewis's comic art
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