What a fabulous thing QUIMS is. Without it I wouldn’t have heard of the Lodger and so Lee and I wouldn’t have gone to see them support the Wave Pictures, who we enjoyed so much that we got a babysitter when we found out they were supporting Jeffrey Lewis who I also first heard at a QUIMS meeting. So we went, mainly for the Wave Pictures and hoping that Jeffrey Lewis would be goodand………..he was……….very, VERY GOOD!
The WPs did a great set including ‘Love you like a madman’. Chatting to them afterwards it turns out that the song listing the fridge contents will be out CD after next and the one about Johnny Cash is called ‘Now that you’re pregnant’ and Lee is now the proud owner of a WP T-shirt. These guys are prolific, evolving before our eyes – go support them!
Some bands (like the Phantom Surfers) can get away with Lo-Fi recordings, but mostly, things sound better when not recorded in your bedroom. The Jeffrey Lewis tracks I’d heard before were good but I wondered if he would be little to ‘Twee’ for my taste…….but let me tell you people, live he is fantastic! A revelation!! Imagine Jonathan Richman but with the Rockier Roadrunner bits thrown in too.
The first track he did was backed by the Wave pictures. “We did this on Marc Rileys show last night and it worked so well, were doing it again”. Were 90% water which flows according to nature but its that other 10% that keeps going up hill was the basic premise.
photo:6Music
He did solo songs about bad trips on acid, how Herman Dune were better with 2 brothers in the band and also had his band with him featuring his WILD brother Jack doing ‘Crass’ covers, really tight interchange of vocals on ‘shoot the head, kill the ghoul’ and a song about the man with golden arm “You said my arm was made out of shit” what a line! There was even room for a bit of education with ‘The history of Communism in Korea’ sung with the aid of one of his self illustrated large comic books. An encore of The Chelsea Hotel oral sex song had us in stitches what a joy what a joy!
Either of these acts would be well worth the entrance fee but together – an absolute bargain!
Bob the Chiropodist