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[ELLIOT]

West Hampstead Arts Centre (Friday 14/09/24)

Night two in this venue and my fourth Jeffrey gig in seven days (and by far the hottest). Once again lots of different songs not played on previous nights. ‘Things That People Give Me’ gets better every time I hear it just like ‘My Girlfriend Doesn’t Worry’.

Like in my write up of last night I have marked the Open Mic night songs with a * and made up the titles using lyrics that seemed to repeat to help reference then in future (since I couldn’t read Jeff’s notes with the actual titles). The Q&A is roughly summarised from memory (so will not be fully accurate especially since there were far more questions tonight and many were done quickly, especially when time was running out). Will also note that clearly (as Jeff sings on ‘We Fight When We Text’) tone extra can be lost when things are written down like this (especially when it’s my recollections and not direct quotes!) so sorry the humour does not come across.

If Life Exists?
Things That People Give Me
My Girlfriend Doesn’t Worry
Question (Q). What is a good dating app? Answer (A). None of them.
Q. Everyone’s perished in a frozen apocalypse what do you do? A. Do what I do anyway - drag on day after day until death.
Q. How much of ‘Back When I Was 4’ has come true? A. Nearly at the half way point in the song where Jeff finds true love, gets a dog, re-release records extra so too early to say. Song was written before his musical career started (21-22 years old) so didn’t predict all the touring and gigs.
We Fight When We Text*
I’m So Bored With The USA (political song from back February about Biden and Trump)*
(In the intro to the next song Jeff said it was the first song he ever wrote and is what started everything. It came to him out of no where when he was walking down the street)
The Chelsea Hotel Oral Sex Song
A Creature Of Routine* (maybe my favourite of the open mic selections)
How Can Jesus Play Guitar So Good?*
Q. Are we the good guys? A. “We” is a very abstract word which could mean you (the audience) or audience plus Jeff or the British or all human kind. Example of a lexicon gap - a flaw in the English language.
The Tick Tock Poka (A 1920s song with one verse that Jeff added additional verses to for an assignment from Peter Stampfel).
Q. What is your main trade? A. This [singer songwriter and comic book artist]. Question could be a reference to the Time Trades song (confirmed by audience member) so the skill Jeff’s built up the most is doing comics and drawings which have got better over time. Joked on the music side things have got worse (from Chelsea Hotel in 1998 to the Tick Tock song in 2023)
You Shouldn’t Stay* (Ends with a nice pay off line - no spoiler)
(Before the next song Jeff shared that in 2014 he realised that he could work on songs to improve them rather than them falling out of the sky and not being edited. The next song is a good example of this revision process working well)
Sad Screaming Old Man
Tylenol PM (Jeff explained this excellent unreleased song is about sleeping pills that are widely available in the USA)
Q. Is Sabrina Carpenter evil? A. Question prompted by her using Jeff’s vinyl heart artwork uncredited (see reviews of previous gigs on this tour). He has a scheme to sell tote bags with this image on outside her New York concert:
Q. When will you play Germany? A. Jeff uses a booking agent at the moment (so joked he is building up his career by not playing to increase demand) but will play there again.
Q Favourite UK town? A. Diplomatically mentioned he had a lovely morning in London and the UK was full of beautiful places he visited on tour like St Leonard’s, Hebden Bridge and north Wales where he recently played a wedding [this must be the mysterious empty tour date that led to lots of speculation at The End of the Road Festival that Jeff maybe playing a secret set there]
Catastrophic Rainy Day*
(Jeff announced that the debut screening of the film about him [Roll Bus Roll] will be in London on Weds 6th November so coincides with the US election aftermath. It includes scenes from a solo tour (including in Germany) and band footage too).
Karma Karma Kamela Harris* (another political song for the pre-election USA tour)
Q. Is ‘Exactly What Nobody Wanted’ about David Berman? A. No [I think Jeff mentioned at the Roughtrade Instore in 2020 it was inspired by Mike Rechner]
Q. Have you hooked up with a fan? A. Everyone should be a fan otherwise what kind of music taste do they have?
Q. Worst opening act? A. Loud heavy metal band that opened for them in Texas.
(Before the next song Jeff noted that the band Extradition Order had asked him to play guitar on a track on their new album)
We’re Just Dregs* (song about dating)
People Were Morons
Q. Favourite drummer? A. Drummers who’ve played in his band.
Q Have you updated The Fall track? A. Not updated yet.
Q Why do you think you’re bigger in the UK than USA? A. Doing better in the USA now than the old days due to hard touring. UK is easier than the US since it’s so small in comparison - if you get a play by Marc Riley on his radio show everyone hears it (while in the States there are multiple alternative stations serving different areas), magazines like Uncut also have readership throughout the UK if you get a mention, it’s easy easier to get around and brits are smart too.
Q. What was David Berman’s favourite Jeffrey Lewis song? A. Sad Screaming Old Man
Q. What is Krongu? A. It’s a fictional brand of green slime - the name came to Jeff in a daze.
Q. Does the Singing Tree still call? A. No only had the landline.
Q. What’s your take on HBO’s Watchmen series? A. Only saw one episode with his brother a while ago.
Q. Will you set up a UK retail store? A. Working on a way to do this since shipping costs are so high.
Q, Did you ever see The Girl In The Chelsea Hotel Oral Sex Song again? A. [not really answered since already covered earlier when Jeff spoke about the song coming to him while walking down the street rather than it being an actual encounter]
Don’t Get Upset


Assume the next UK tour in 2025 will coincide with a new full band album being released. Hopefully, the now traditional matinee and evening show in Brighton West Hill Hall will happen along with more than one London show.

I also wonder from his response about a UK store if Jeff is consider partnering with someone like Norman Records (a great independent online record shop in Leeds) to sell his merch and LPs over here.

[misshelenc]

Another thorough review, thank you! It was almost like I was there. It made me even more mad I didn’t go to this tour but next time I will! Moving from the city to a village means these things are more complicated.
I offered to do the uk mailing at one point but the issue is getting the stuff over here when it’s printed in america since it’s not like you get a big discount shipping loads at once because it all weighs so much. Still up for it or organising it or whatever is a help really. I guess it makes the products all a lot more cost ineffective.
_________________
Never trust a heart so bent it won’t break.

[ELLIOT]

I suspect the best answer is to have items printed and manufactured in the UK/Europe and sold via an outlet here since the shipping costs will otherwise remain a huge issue.

[jefflewis]

Wow, thank you so much for the detailed run-down and documentation! Great journalism, especially since there's no other way any of this stuff with the new songs and Q & A would have been remembered.
One correction that I noticed:
when you say about the Chelsea Hotel Song "Jeff spoke about the song coming to him while walking down the street rather than it being an actual encounter" yeah, the song did come to me while walking down the street but I guess I should have made clearer that it came to me like a minute after the actual encounter - Like, the encounter all really did happen as described in the song, and it was really just within the next few minutes of walking away from that encounter that the first few words of the song started to come to me and I started to write it down on some piece of paper in my pocket as I was walking. By the time I got home I had quite a bit of the song already written! Then i finished writing it at home. So the whole song was written within a few minutes of the real events it describes!