When: 7pm on Saturday 23 August 2014
Where: The Deaf Institute, 135 Grosvenor Street, Manchester M1 7HE

We’re delighted to welcome Jeffrey Lewis back to Manchester – his first show here in three years – with new band The Jrams.

Born and raised New Yorker Jeffrey Lewis leads a double-life, as both a comic book artist and an indie-rock musician. Beginning with homemade cassettes in the late 90s, and moving on to touring the world and releasing ‘proper’ albums since 2001, Jeffrey’s now 15-year career has included sharing bills and tours with the likes of The Vaselines, The Fall, Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, Roky Erickson, The Mountain Goats, Daniel Johnston, Devo, Pulp and many other luminaries. In between his contemplative folk narratives and bashed-out indie-punk songs, Jeffrey is known for often including a couple of his illustrated songs in each concert (what he calls ‘low budget videos’) sometimes covering historical topics (like The History of Communism), biographies (like The Life of Barack Obama) or strange flights of fancy (like The Creeping Brain).

Appearing in the past as Jeffrey Lewis & The Jitters, Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard and other touring ensembles, his newest band incarnation is Jeffrey Lewis & The Jrams (pronounced “drams”) featuring Caitlin Gray on bass and Heather Wagner on drums.

Rough Trade Records (label of The Smiths, The Strokes, etc.) has released six Jeffrey Lewis albums to date; Jeffrey has self-published ten issues of his comic book series Fuff, and Jeffrey’s writing, illustrations, comic books and music have been featured by the Guardian, The History Channel and The New York Times (among other places).

‘Hands down my favorite contemporary songwriter’ – Ben Gibbard (Death Cab For Cutie)

‘Jeffrey is the only artist I’ve sent fan mail to’ – Jens Lekman

Main support comes from Onions. Simply put, Onions are Manchester based trio and are named Martin, Jim and Chris. Weaving mutual influences such as Talking Heads, Hefner, Sparks and 60s girl groups together to create a sound described as ‘muscular twee’. Typically, the songs are a cynical and/or self-deprecating take on sex, history or whatever rhymes at the given moment (but mostly about sex). After gigging extensively and an unprecedented amount of airplay, debut album Pleasure Blast sold out in its first week. Onions will be returning fresh as daisies from a windowless studio after a six month hiatus with the release of the Here Comes the Rage EP in August and a second album scheduled for later in the year.

Opening the show is Seth Faergolzia (formerly of Dufus). His new album, Doubting Won’t Do, includes solo acoustic songs and new loop material, both personal and complex in production, and includes artwork by friend and collaborator Adam Green of the Moldy Peaches.

This show is sold out! Join our mailing list, at the top of this page, for updates about future Jeffrey Lewis shows.

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