jeffrey lewis and the mountain goats in pop-art collabo triumph

here's some fun: inter-textual fun, that is!

cartoonist, troubadour and indie-rock historian jeffrey lewis is currently touring with rap-loving blogger john darnielle's illustrious lo-fi outfit the mountain goats. a profitable relationship in itself, but jeffrey has also drawn a cartoon accompaniment to the goats' new album, heretic pride. above is one page, but it's too small, so you need to go here and ch-ch-check it out. here.

did you do that? right. jeffrey and the goats recently got two of the lousiest, stupidest album reviews i've seen of late on the web 2.0. this account of heretic pride by the NME is about the least informative nincompoopery i've ever read, and that includes max gogarty's blog (i'm not sure whether this review on DiS is intended as an arch rebuttal - i'd like to think so). and this onslaught on jeffrey's clever, witty, enjoyable 12 crass songs by pitchfork makes me want to pen a privately-published pamphlet exposing the fallacious logic of its author.

far be it from me to ruin the credibility of two promising young websites like NME and pitchfork by unleashing the full wrath and cultural authority of GMS upon them. i know the awesome power this blog has. it gets comments and everything, occasionally. with great blog comes great responsibility, etc. etc. reader, pitchfork and NME are sometimes okay, and they like indie rock. groovy times! but hear ye, hear ye: jeffrey and the mountain goats are good, as are the albums what they make. get it? got it? good. now for some fun: PAY ATTENTION.


here's 'sax rohmer part 1' by the mountain goats, from heretic pride. as jeffrey explains, sax rohmer was the pulp author who invented fu manchu. not the band, though! the chinese fellow.



here is jeffrey lewis telling the legend of the fall. not the season or the film or the albert camus book, though! the manchester band.

ian svenonius meets mark e. smith

former make-up / nation of ulysses / weird war frontman and pop-marxist ian svenonius is two episodes into his second vbs.tv soft focus interview series, which looks at british musicians. this week's kevin shields interview has caused a bit of a stir, as shields promises a new my bloody valentine album, and reckons it will sound like my bloody valentine. shields seems like a pretty normal, grounded bloke, which is interesting in itself, but that doesn't make the interview particularly thrilling.

soft focus works best when svenonius' interview technique - a mixture of louis theroux-style naivete and slightly-distracted ponderousness - comes up against someone equally odd, creating an unsettling, borderline hostile atmosphere that turns a muso chat into something altogether different.

will oldham was certainly up to the task in series one, but last week's mark e. smith interview took that 'ish to the next level. smith necks pints throughout, pulls his rubbery face into strange, childlike gurns, and airs his casual but sincere contempt for sonic youth, talking heads, bob dylan, neil young, all other manchester bands, british musicians, gene simmons, british tv, the irish, svenonius' teeth, clothes, private life and personal hygiene. he's like a weirdo in a pub who insists on sparking up a conversation and then seems to resent it. but he's also hilarious and generally spot-on. svenonius does a decent job of coaxing gems out of smith without getting outraged, intimidated or upset, though he cracks up when smith starts in on kurt cobain and courtney love.

the fall - 'a day in the life' (beatles cover)

part 1


part 2


part 3


part 4


buy the fall