Jeffrey Lewis Runs Down the History of Punk in New York City up to 1975 for you...

...in case you were wondering about such things;

I'm not sure I share Jeffrey's admiration for the second David Peel & The Lower East Side album (it's pretty bad), but otherwise, spot on. Clinton Heylin and Griel Marcus must be kicking themselves.

I found this great video a couple of weeks ago, following some Youtube links after some nice person doing publicity for Rough Trade thought to email me a video for a song off Jeffrey's new album, which I am looking forward to venturing forth at the weekend to buy a copy of.

I realised a while back that I must have seen Jeffrey Lewis play more times than any other artist/band ever - perhaps on about 12 to 15 seperate occasions over the years? And because he kinda seems to always be around, always seems to have loads of great new songs to play, fun new stuff to do on stage etc., it's easy to start to take his overall greatness for granted.

I've recently found myself listening back to all Jeffrey's Rough Trade albums for the first time in a while though. That is, actually listening to them all the way through whilst I mooch about doing other stuff, rather than just picking out and obsessing over my favourite songs, like I usually do. And, damn me if they don't all really stand up as GREAT albums. Real satisfying, self-contained listening experiences in the classic vein, to enthral, educate and entertain in timeless notice-something-new-every-listen type fashion. For all his lo-fi self-deprecating humour and such, let us not forget that this guy is the real deal.

Labels: Jeffrey Lewis, punk, videos