JEFFREY LEWIS & THE VOLTAGE / QUIET MARAUDER | LIVE REVIEW
Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff, Thurs 26 Sept
Quiet Marauder’s latest album, narrated by Mathias Korn of The Burning Hell and released on the local Bubblewrap label, tells of a near-future in which a rip in the fabric of space/time is discovered in Kent by a dog walker called Jeff. Weighing in at 30 songs, The Crack And What It Meant can only be accommodated on CD – though it’s a mere slip of a thing compared to its 111-track predecessor. In case you were still in any doubt whatsoever, they’re neither a Stereophonics covers band nor especially good at self-editing and quality control.
While ambition should always be applauded, the samples aired tonight don’t really stand up to scrutiny and suggest that the record is more indulgent ramble than gripping narrative. The final two songs of the set, which find frontman Simon Read singing about being spied on by animals before removing his jacket for an air-punching anthem in praise of eggs, have greater energy and focus, but also corroborate the view that the band deal in forced zaniness rather than the natural eccentricity of their influences.
Playing for a 21st consecutive night to wrap up his tour, Jeffrey Lewis would have every right to feel jaded: indeed, he begins by telling us that we could be forgiven for suspecting as much. Au contraire, he insists – not only are he and his accomplices full of pep, but the previous 20 nights of practising and experimenting are about to bear fruit. “After all that, I’d better not fuck up,” he smiles.
Since his early days as a poster boy for antifolk, Lewis has gravitated gradually away from his roots towards a more full-band indie-rock sound. Unfortunately the results of the transition have been largely forgettable, exposing his limitations as a songwriter – with the undoubted exception of LPs from forthcoming album Bad Wiring, an expression of his love for collecting records that has the infectious effervescence of Eels’ Mr E’s Beautiful Blues or I Like Birds (ironic, given that he also performs not one but two songs about his dislike for our feathered friends).
Strip back the instrumentation to just a couple of bare chords and focus on the lyrics, however, and Lewis comes into his own as a wordsmith of richly deserved renown, a master of self-deprecating drollery who casually throws out lines as brilliant as “Going bald is the most manly thing that I’m ever gonna do” (To Be Objectified). He has an uncanny knack of taking an apparently insignificant incident or observation and investing it with meaning in a way that doesn’t seem either contrived or mawkish.
Hence the fact that the first song Movies, ostensibly about his girlfriend being unable to stay awake through a film, conveys the inevitable cooling of passion, the settling into habit and the distancing that occur in most relationships. Hence the genius of The Chelsea Hotel Oral Sex Song, which recounts a fleeting encounter in Lewis’ native New York and passes wry yet rueful comment on missed opportunities and his own naivety: “If I was Leonard Cohen or some songwriting master / I’d know you first get the oral sex then write the song after.”
And then there are the short films that punctuate the set: a rapid-fire precis of the French Revolution; a farcical tale featuring a severed hand, a bus-load of nuns and an angry monster; and, best of all, The Complete History Of The Development Of Lower East Side Punk, 1950–1975, in which Lewis moves seamlessly from Harry Smith to CBGB, champions the roles of lesser lights like The Fugs and David Peel, points out the critical connection that the Velvet Underground made between folk and punk, and concludes by pointing out that us Brits breezed in late and stole all the credit – all the while performing snippets of songs by way of illustration.
The night ends in poignant fashion with a Daniel Johnston cover – one genuine maverick’s tribute to another.
words BEN WOOLHEAD