JEFFREY LEWIS - singer, songwriter, lyricist, artist, storyteller, comic book creator, and personification of indie-rock, makes a welcome and long overdue return to Galway in 2018.
Jeffrey plays Monroe's Live on Wednesday May 9 at 8.30pm. This will be his first Galway show in almost four years. “I love Galway but I’ve never spent more than a day or two maximum,” he told me on his last visit here in 2014. “In 1996 I hitch-hiked around Ireland and Galway was a special part of that trip.”
Born into a countercultural family with Jewish roots in New York’s Lower East Side, Jeffrey began recording and releasing his own music in the late 1990s via cassette, before signing with Rough Trade and in 2001 he released his debut proper - The Last Time I Did Acid I Went Insane, the start of a run of excellent albums (2009’s ‘Em Are I in particular ) which have embraced folk, country, indie-rock, psychedelia, and punk, with a quirky, infectious, melodic sense.
He is currently promoting his latest album, Works by Tuli Kupferberg (1923-2010 ), Interpreted (and/or misinterpreted ) by Jeffrey Lewis & The Deposit Returners, released via Don Giovanni Records. The album is Lewis’ take on a songs by Kupferberg, best known for his 1960s work with the protest/folk-rock/proto-punk band The Fugs. Peter Stampfel, another original member of The Fugs, features as part of Lewis’ band on the album.
A new Jeffrey Lewis & Los Bolts album, recorded in Nashville by Roger Moutenot (Yo La Tengo ), is awaiting a release date. Will Oldham (aka Bonny Prince Billy ) has called him "Really great and impressive and inspiring and exciting"; Jarvis Cocker has declared him "The best lyricist working in the US today"; while Louder Than War has described him as "Lou Reed’s natural successor as punk poet of the New York streets”.
Tickets are €12 from www.monroes.ie
