The Mountain Goats, Jeffrey Lewis & The Jitters
This is about an apt a pairing as you’ll find all this week. Folk-singer … er, sorry, anti-folk-singer Jeffrey Lewis has made an unusual move this year by releasing an entire album of cover versions of one band’s output. 12 Crass Songs (Rough Trade) is just that, but much, much more. Lewis has leavened the of-course-they-fucking-do! vitriol of the Essex anarcho-communal punks with his own regular-guy warmth, to create a winning hybrid; the shout-along tunes retain their righteousness, but sound far less like pedantic polemics.
Headliner the Mountain Goats – basically lyricist-guitarist John Darnielle and bassist Peter Hughes, with supporting musicians – are touring a new and poignant disc, Heretic Pride (4AD). Darnielle has that Becker & Fagen-like way of talking around his subject matter: You’d never know he was singing songs about his chance encounters with chicks at death-metal clubs, or various odes to monsters and eerie things from the Goats’ delicate folk-rock tunes, and certainly not by Darnielle’s scrupulous avoidance of an outright explanation. (He saves those for the press notes.) But as far as lyrical eloquence in modern rock goes, there’s few who can currently touch him. (Tue.-Wed. at the Troubadour, 9081 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, 310-276-6168 or Troubadour.com.)
Published: 02/27/2008
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