Jeffrey Lewis ist seit gut 20 Jahren ein Fixstern in der New Yorker Anti-Folk-Szene und veröffentlicht in verschiedensten Kollaborationen neue Alben. Neben seinen regulären Platten sind auch Lewis’ “History”-Songs bemerkenswert. Live besingt er vor dem Backdrop eigener Comiczeichnungen so zum Beispiel die Geschichte des Kommunismus oder der New Yorker Punk-Bewegung:

Aber auch das reguläre letzte Album ist sehr empfehlenswert und hatte mit “LPs”, einer schönen Geschichte über das Vinyl-Digging und dessen Hipsterisierung, sogar einen richtigen Hit.

Noch besser gefällt mir aber “My Girlfriend Doesn’t Worry”, das mehrere schöne Gedankenkaskaden bereithält und damit so etwas wie Jeffrey Lewis in a nutshell ist:

My girlfriend doesn’t wonder while driving about the emptiness of human existence
How can we make any decision if it’s only arbitrary opinion?
And why should anyone have a baby?
Create another brain of dissatisfaction?
If we’re only biological robots
With a program that is mostly feel anxious
Except for moments of brief distraction
While fulfilling simple functions like eating
While being ordered to enjoy reproducing
But how can doing what you’re told be fulfilling?
All is misery or patent delusions
To just fill ourselves with comforting nonsense
All terrified of seeing it clearly
And then dying out with no revolution
All tumbling down a mountain to nothing
While feeling greedy and mean and unhappy
Basically a meaningless fungus
Obviously boring and pointless
And we’ll probably have a baby despite this
And be responsible for someone’s confusion
Why subject them to a long life of work?
Or feel horrible if they should die young?
Or feel horrible if we die and leave them?
The only happiness is if something’s funny
But what does funniness even mean?

These are massive, giant, troubling, consuming burdens weighing on my thinking
But I think she’ll just think I’m annoying and I don’t want to lose her

She says “why are you talking so much, how come you never talk about us? Let’s just think quiet and nice thoughts and about our relationship”

* Your three favourite Punk singles/songs?

** Systematic Death by Crass,
** Dice Man by The Fall,
** Gilligan’s Island by Husker Du

* A record that will make you dance?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eBHzUz8sGA

Back From the Grave volume 2

* Your favourite song lyrics?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-oJt_5JvV4

“Bleating and babbling we fell on his neck with a scream / Wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream”

* Your opinion on Morrissey?

Very good songwriter.

* Your favourite song about rebellion/revolution?

“It Isn’t Nice” by Malvina Reynolds

* Your favourite movie about music?

Rainbow Bridge

* Your favourite book about music?

Our Band Could Be Your Life

* Conor Oberst, Will Oldham or Adam Green – which one do you prefer and why?

Adam Green is certainly the best, the most original visionary songwriter there. It’s not just that he’s excellent at crafting a lyric, with wit and invention and meter and rhyme and conviction and humor and tragedy and desire, but also that he’s writing from a unique moral perspective, which has profound implications about 21st Century culture and technology and ethics and identity. All of this, plus it’s significantly fun material to listen to, really fun, which is more than you can say of most songwriters, other than the true greats. The true greats are profound, but they don’t forget that fun is profound too.

* Your favourite song in 2019?

“Favorite” is the wrong word, because I don’t enjoy listening to it, but I could call “Nights That Won’t Happen” by Purple Mountains the “best” song of 2019.

* The best song you’ve ever written / recorded?

I think “Not Supposed to be Wise” on my new album is one of my best.

* Your favourite german song/record?

It’s hard to beat albums like Black Monk Time or Ege Bamyasi. Of course if I had to pick my one ultimate favorite German song then everybody already knows that Hallogallo is the ur-song.

* Your favourite record of all time?

Let it Bleed

Das neue Album von Jeffrey Lewis & The Voltage ist bereits erschienen.

Auf der Bühne:
14. Februar – Augsburg | Brechtfest
15. Februar – Schaffhausen (CH) | Tab Tap
16. Februar – Lausanne (CH) | Le Bourg
06. März – Barenbach | Shorty’s
07. März – Darmstadt | 806qm