Former Rants & Obits from the website front page.

Fellow downtown NYC performer "Touching You", AKA NY Mayoral candidate Christopher X. Brodeur, served a 6 month jail sentence in 2006, a harsh penalty for a man whose most dangerous crime was talking - for more about this case see here. I have now added an article to this link, explaining more details about the case.

John Peel - 1939-2004. "You get a lot of credit for putting these bands on the radio, but the fact is that it's like being the editor of a newspaper - you don't claim credit for the news." Humble words from a cultural Prometheus.

America - 1776 - 2004. "Whoever trades freedom for security deserves neither freedom nor security." At least with the high voter turn-out, it can be said that more people voted AGAINST Bush than for any president in decades. Take heart! These vast displeased millions, along with most of the rest of the civilized world, must now stand together in opposition to this irresponsible, hypocritical and heartless regime.

We are sad to report the passing of Kevin Coyne, who died peacefully on Thursday, Dec 2, 2004 at his home in Nurnberg, Germany. He was an irrepressible creative spirit and improviser of lyrics and songs, with over 40 albums recorded since 1969, plus artwork and books and stage plays etc… my favorite one out of the 4 or 5 albums that I’ve heard is the very strange and unsettling solo acoustic “Case History” from 1972, originally on John Peel’s Dandelion label. The Jeffrey Lewis Band had the honor of performing with Kevin in Paris in February 2004. For more about Kevin and his life’s work see www.KevinCoyne.de and the chapter on Kevin in Rich Unterberger’s book Unknown Legends of Rock & Roll.

And we are ANGRY at the destruction of the Casa Del Sol long-lived squat/community center in the Bronx - for more information on this outrageous injustice see here.

I am disgusted with the media coverage I have seen of the (NYC 2005) transit strike. Has anyone else noticed the tremendous imbalance between the media presentation of endless anti- transit worker comments and few-to-none pro- transit worker comments? And I’m quite sick of hearing our billionaire mayor talk trash about men and women who spend their lives working in underground booths or glued to bus seats - what gives HIM the right to call THEM “selfish” for wanting to retire at 55 instead of 62?! Makes me wanna puke. I support the transit workers and holy cow do I hope they win. Does anyone need any more proof of how important the transit workers are to our lives? Give them their props – and if you are ever in a job situation in which you deserve a better deal I hope YOU have the self-respect to strike too. For some facts you are not seeing in the news, go here.

2006:

R.I.P. Ivor Cutler.

R.I.P. Syd Barrett.

R.I.P. Arthur Lee.

Ironic that Arthur's recording of "My Little Red Book", the 1966 hit single from the first Love album, mutated in Syd Barrett's hands into Interstellar Overdrive, the centerpiece of the early Pink Floyd, 6,000 miles away. Syd and Arthur were just about the same age, and both lived exactly 40 years more - connected at the beginning and at the end. Two emmissaries of dimensions slightly removed from our own.

FORMER FRONT PAGE ITEMS:

There are 500 hand-made drawings, one of which is included in each copy of the limited edition Jeffrey Lewis "Four Seasons" Box Set, and just for fun a number of these drawings are going up on this site before the boxes sell out and the drawings all disappear into private ownership. See the "Box Set News" section below for info and the link to the online "gallery" selection of box set drawings, or just link directly to the drawings here. (NOTE: All of these drawings have already been sold - the only remaining unsold drawings are part of a short animation piece, which will be posted on this site soon!)

Jeffrey finished working on a comic book job for a video game called "Pre-Thing", actually an enhanced-CD suppliment to an album by an LA band of the same name; then as soon as the artwork and the game were finished, Pre-Thing's lead singer Rust Epique was found dead of a heart attack in Las Vegas! Regardless, Rolling Stone magazine featured the Pre-Thing album as its number one pick for upcoming release, and the album was released to Virgin Megastores nationwide (worldwide?) with a big sticker on it saying "Includes Ultraviolent Video Game". If you pick one up you'll see Jeffrey Lewis credited in the liner with doing the illustration sequences for the video game, which are mini comic book interludes.

Relegated to out-of-print collector status is the Jeffrey Lewis 4-page comic about the history of Rough Trade Records, printed in large newspaper format by Rough Trade America and used for promotional purposes.