Jeffrey Lewis and a ridiculous friday night

I went to see The Mountain Goats with Jeffrey Lewis on friday. I'd already seen The Mountain Goats, which was awesome. But the real attraction was getting to see Jeffrey Lewis, as I've loved his albums from the start. I found him through a connection to Moldy Peaches, as he was a big part of the New York anti-folk scene.

Anyway, both in person, and on stage, Jeffrey Lewis is the real deal. I feel sort of the same way that I did when I first saw The Fiery Furnaces, in that this is a band who could do anything they wanted. In this case, they basically played a set of punk songs. In fact, they did a pretty poor job of selection from their 5 albums worth of material, and still blew a lot of people away. They even played one of the most annoying songs, "another girl", and turned it into one of the highlights of the show. Although anything with a chorus as awesome as this....

"Now I've found another girl,
and she's cuter and younger than you ever were.
She could kick your ass if you fucked with her.
And she's good in bed, and she calls me sir."

... is bound to slay an unsuspecting audience.

I was excited to see the Mountain Goats again, but 2 songs into the set, something in me snapped and I had an anxiety attack. I had to leave immediately, and went to find something to drink, to calm my nerves. I cracked the bottle while waiting for the train. I was immediately busted by the cops for drinking in public. $115 fine. Brutal.

Anyway, the kicker is that one of the triggers that probably set me off was seeing Dan Bejar (Destroyer, member of New Pornographers) show up after Jeffrey Lewis' set, walk directly backstage, and come back out with beers in his hands. It was pathetic. Clearly, he doesn't give a shit about music at this point. He's just showing up to shmooze. This is an artist that's produced some amazing material, including one of my all-time favourite songs "This Night." In fact, he's so prolific that I even referenced him in a previous blog post! But that's all over now. Fuck Dan Bejar.

Oh, and fuck the cops too. I peeled the label off, and went over to a corner to drink. They're just drumming up funds, I guess. But they could've at least let me keep the bottle I'd taken 3 swigs of.