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Thursday, September 2, 2010
D.I.Y. Or Die
The comics and music of Jeffrey Lewis
If you came to the Sidewalk Cafe in New York's East Village this past Halloween to see Jeffrey Lewis, you would've been hard pressed to find him at first. Sitting in the audience, wearing a motorcycle helmet, shades, and a white Santa Claus beard, he would not have seemed too out of place, given the fact that a number of patrons in the cozy restaurant/nightclub came in costume. Once he and his similarly-outfitted bandmates took the stage, however, his identity became plain enough. Lewis was part of a multiple-act acoustic bill on October 31, appearing next to last, and those unfamiliar with him might have been pleasantly surprised to see included with his music another side to his act- his comics. Lewis, a fixture in the East Village musical scene and beyond since 1998, is known for bringing giant-sized display comics, which illustrate songs of his, on stage and singing the lyrics as he turns the pages. They're good for a laugh, and they provide easy promotion for his other, smaller, self-published comics, which he sells at his shows. Though art is his first love, he enjoys balancing both art and music and weaving them into each other. "I've been drawing since before I could read," says Lewis. "There wasn't a TV in my parents' apartment till I was about 12, so I just entertained myself reading and drawing comics. I only started writing songs to play at the open mic at Sidewalk after I got out of college... I used to do sort of elaborate comic book flyers for my shows, wanting the show to advertise the flyer as much as the other way around- in other words, music seemed like a good way for people to be introduced to my artwork. Then I started doing the "low budget videos," which are sort of like giant comic books that I show to go along with certain songs I sing, and incorporating that into the sets. And the newest comic I've published comes with a companion CD. [These are] just various things that I can do to involve all my activities, rather than segregate them into separate spheres of my life." Lewis' comics material consists primarily of autobiographical stories, a number of which are travelogue diaries, such as "Jeff's Austin Diary," "Jeff's European Travel Diary 1999" and "Trip to Key West." His current release, Guff, includes fictional and autobiographical stories. He works in a cartoonish style that, though somewhat unsteady in linework, is rich in detail and texture, reminiscent of autobio artists Ellen Forney and Josh Neufeld. His fictional stories are often set in a surreal bizarro-world of irony and absurdity, where things like stream-of-consciousness poker games and philosophical zombies seem perfectly natural. His music takes the loud-fast-hard punk rock aesthetic to extremes. Along with his brother Jack, he has recorded two CDs with the record label Rough Trade, It's The Ones Who’ve Cracked That the Light Shines Through and The Last Time I Did Acid I Went Insane, which the New York Daily News named Best Indie Album of 2002. Included with his comic Guff is a CD called The History of Punk on New York’s Lower East Side, 1950-1975, a combination music/spoken word performance. His CDs have been distributed both in the States and in Europe, and he has toured both sides of the Atlantic on bills with, among others, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth and Frank Black of the Pixies. How different is his approach to making comics and songs? "The comics take a lot more time to do, and require more of what I'd call skill. The music is more intuitive. But often either one will start with a scrap of an idea jotted down in my sketchbook or on a bit of paper in my pocket." Lewis considers himself part of what is known in the East Village as the "antifolk" scene, a kind of punk-folk hybrid spearheaded by Sidewalk emcee Lach. In the mid-80’s, Lach opened his first club on the Lower East Side as a response to what he perceived as the snobbishness of other folk clubs. When the police closed it down, he moved to Avenue A and began booking acts in clubs all over the East Village, including future stars Michelle Shocked and Beck. After detours in San Francisco and Europe, Lach came back to Avenue A and settled in at Sidewalk, continuing to book acts and record music of his own. How does Lewis define the antifolk movement? "It's basically whoever hangs out at the Sidewalk Cafe, although such a wide definition allows too much uninteresting music to be associated with it. Another definition is that it's "punk-folk" or "acoustic punk," but that is too narrow to include people like Major Matt Mason or Diane Cluck or Kimya Dawson who are certainly associated with Antifolk. It doesn't really make much sense, and I don't think any of the people who are considered to be involved in it would have intended to be corralled under the title, but as for myself, I do think "antifolk" is a much better and more interesting word to toss around than having to call myself a "singer-songwriter"- yeechh! And for some people the title really makes more sense - Joie Dead Blonde Girlfriend, or Prewar Yardsale for example, who really do make otherwise-undefinable hybrids of folk and punk. Basically it is a title foisted on us, which nobody intended to be called, but now that it has turned out this way, there are some performers who hate the association and some who like it, and I'm one of the ones who likes it." Because of his integration of his comics work into his live concerts, Lewis has been able to turn his music fans into comics fans. "Because I have no contact with the 'official' comics world, my comics audience really IS my music audience. There's no other way for people to come in contact with my comics than to buy through me personally, like at shows, or mail order from my website, but because of music, that has amounted to a much wider audience for my comics than I would have if I were to put my comics in stores on consignment. Currently I'm working on a distribution deal for my new comic series, so if that works out it'll kick my whole little operation up a notch." In the meantime, he has benefited from going the self-publishing route. "So far nobody's jumped forward to pick up the tab on putting my stuff out, but because I do have an audience, it certainly behooves me to self-publish. And it's only recently that my print runs for each comic have moved up from the dozens to the hundreds and now to 1,000, with color cover for the first time. And hopefully every comic that I do will continue to be better than the previous one. I do fully imagine that my trajectory will collide with the 'real' comics world of the direct market, etc, at SOME point. But I make more of a profit on my stuff currently than I would in that case, because there is no middle-man. The more people involved, the more you gotta hustle just to survive at the same level you were surviving at when the operation was small and simple, it seems." Current projects for Lewis include a recently-released box set containing music, comics, art and a DVD released with British label Hallso; a short story for an anthology about unions that includes Harvey Pekar, Peter Kuper, and Joe Sacco; and a day-after-Christmas show at Sidewalk.
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April 22, 2008:
February 4, 2008:
November 20, 2006:
A Comic-Con without the Captain
