From Anti-Folk to Uncle Crass:
An Interview with Jeffrey Lewis
Allan MacInnis

Anti-folk music began in New York in the 1980’s, fucking up folk music (in a good way) by adding humour, derangement, and discordancy; though the most famous names currently associated with the genre are likely Jeffrey Lewis and the band the Moldy Peaches, one early proponent of the form was actually a Vancouverite, Tim Ray, who - after fronting Tim Ray and AV and playing alongside Alex Varty and Bill Napier-Hemy - moved to New York in the 1980’s and formed Big Yank, putting out some very strange music indeed. I’m working on getting Tim to come see Jeffrey Lewis and his brother Jack when they play the Media Club on October 23rd. (I think I’ve already converted Nardwuar). Jeffrey is one of the wittiest, smartest, most engaging performers I’ve encountered in recent years; those of you who haven’t heard his songs are encouraged to look up videos of him on Youtube (Try “The Last Time I Did Acid I Went Insane,” or any of his animated videos of folked-up, bizarrely beautiful covers of Crass songs).


Allan: I’m not sure I got this right - you met Peter Stampfel (of the Holy Modal Rounders) and Ed Sanders (of the Fugs) through Kramer (of Bongwater and Shockabilly)?

Jeffrey: No, I had already known them because I had been asked to do a performance at Ed Sanders’ birthday party. By total coincidence, I had just written my “History of the Development of Punk on the Lower East Side,” which is a ten-minute performance piece where I go through from the folk scene from the Fugs and the Holy Modal Rounders to the Velvet Underground, and David Peel up through Patti Smith, et cetera, sort of explaining in this rhyming musical lecture. Attending that birthday party were all these people that happened to be in the piece that I was performing, so that was where I met Peter Stampfel and Ed Sanders. Tuli Kupferberg was there, but I had already met him at a comic book art gallery, and I’d done a comic book about him...

Allan: Ooh. Tell me about that.

Jeffrey: It was just a comic I did in, I guess it was 1999 - it wasn’t specifically about him, it was about a particularly weird evening that I had where it sorta seemed like, everywhere I went, I bumped into people like that. After bumping into Tuli Kupferberg, I bumped into Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo... I’ve actually more recently done a full comic about Tuli Kupferberg - like, the whole story of his life - that’s going to be published in a book called The Beats, which is all going to be comics about the lives of different beat poets.

Allan: Tuli was always my favourite Fug.

Jeffrey: Aw, yeah, he’s the greatest. He just turned 85, like, two days ago.

Allan: Wow. And he’s in good health?

Jeffrey: Well, he’s been very frail the last bunch of years, but he’s still sharp as a tack. You call him up and he’s full of jokes - he’s really a character, he’s great.

Allan: Were you nervous performing your song with all these guys in the same room?

Jeffrey: Well, partially, but at the same time, even though all these guys are like, people whose music I love, they’re totally still around, you know? You walk around the streets and see them, and even though they’re favourites of mine, they’re not big famous stars in the eyes of most of the world, so they’re very approachable and just great folks. It’s been awesome to do some music with them - I did a bunch of shows with Peter Stampfel. He’s a big comic book fan, so we hang out and talk about comic books and stuff. He’s just such a wonderful person - you can’t help having a good time hanging out with him.

Allan: I bet! (A portion of my interview with Stampfel is viewable online in the final issue of the Nerve Magazine; it was actually Stampfel who enthusiastically recommended I check out Jeffrey’s music). So... let me ask, will you be doing stuff off 12 Crass Songs when you play Vancouver?

Jeffrey: Probably not so much. I mean, when I was playing those songs live, it was with myself and Helen Schreiner sharing a lot of the vocals and music, and Helen is back at university now, so she’s not going to be on this tour, so there’s only probably a handful of those songs that I feel like I can properly perform without her. I mean, our usual tours, we weren’t playing all Crass songs every night anyway - it was kind of a mix of some of our old stuff, some of our brand new stuff, some of the Crass stuff, and some of what I call my “low budget videos” - songs that I do illustrations to go along with. (The most recent is “The Complete History of Communism in North Korea”). Every night’s still kind of a mixed bag...
Allan: Have members of Crass and Crass fans responded well to it?
Jeffrey: Members of Crass have been really friendly and warm and a few have come to our shows in various places, and a couple of times, Crass members actually got on stage with us. Eve Libertine got on stage with us in London, and Joy De Vivre got onstage with us in New York. We also met Phil Free in New York and Steve Ignorant came to a show in Cambridge. Penny Rimbaud, who was one of the main songwriters, I haven’t had any contact with yet, but the whole Crass camp has been great. As far as Crass fans, some have been coming to shows and really liked it, and some have really been against the idea of the project...

Allan: In a way it seems like a really “savvy business move,” so to speak, because it potentially exposes your material to a spectrum of Crass fans across the world...

Jeffrey: I kind of felt it was more of a way to introduce my fans to Crass’ stuff, which people might not have heard before, or understood what it was about, more than I thought it was a way to introduce my stuff to Crass fans. But yeah, it’s had an interesting sort of ripple effect, and probably has gotten the attentions of some people who might not have listened to me or Crass, maybe... It’s gotten a wide range of response. It’s ironic that it came out kind of simultaneously with that Dirty Projectors’ album that’s all covers of Black Flag songs. We’re on the same label, but I didn’t know that project had been in the pipeline, and I kind of wish I’d gotten mine out earlier, because I really took my time working on that album - I sort of putzed around with it for over a year, and then doing the artwork took a really long time also. If I’d gotten it out a little earlier, I could have gotten the scoop on the Dirty Projectors. But hanging out with Dave from the Dirty Projectors and talking to him about this stuff, he was saying that they tried to contact the members of Black Flag, and haven’t heard back from any of them, haven’t had any kind of welcoming reception. Which has just been the absolute opposite of the Crass people.

Allan: That somehow makes sense to me...

(I hope to have more of my interview with Jeffrey on my blog, Alienated in Vancouver, as the show approaches!) Posted: Oct 27, 2008