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2003
NPUC: the Norwich Pop Underground Convention
NPU Go On Drop a Beat
2002
NPU Let's Go!
Beach Party
Valentine's

Tuesday August 29 2006

QUASI (Domino Records, featuring members of SLEATER-KINNEY), JEFFFREY LEWIS, THE CAPTIAN (tbc) @ norwich arts centre (£5 advance, 01603 660352)

Quasi

Sam Coomes (Blues Goblins) and Janet Weiss (Sleater-Kinney) come together again for more of the best lo-fi fuzzed-out and distorted rock, featuring Weiss’ deliciously deft drumming and honeyed backing vocals, plus acidic lyrics and keyboards from Coomes.

Their seventh album, When The Going Gets Dark, sees a return to a rockier sound. Formed by Janet Weiss and Sam Coomes back in 1993, after various line-ups in Quasi eventually settled down into the duo format that is still going strong. Between them, Sam and Janet possess impressive indie rock credentials. Sam has recorded and/or toured with Heatmiser, Elliott Smith, Built to Spill and more. He also performs solo under the Blues Goblins moniker. Janet has played with The Go Betweens, Junior High, and Elliott Smith, and she continues to play drums with Sleater-Kinney.

Quasi creates an incredibly large sound within the limitations of a two person band. Much of their signature style was originally derived from the use of a Roxichord (a unique hybrid keyboard) and Sam’s acidic lyrics coupled with Janet’s deft drumming and honeyed backing vocals. The duo fleshed out each album with a number of different instruments at their disposal. Recent years have seen the band moving away from sunny, keyboard-driven songs into a bluesier, psych-tinged guitar-based sound, with the addition of caustic, politically charged lyrics to their already highly personal agenda.

With When the Going Gets Dark, the duo is further expanding their sound with perhaps their most furious playing to date. Seven albums into their constantly changing career, Quasi continue to explore and stretch the boundaries of what they can achieve together.

http://www.theequasi.com

Jeffrey Lewis

Comic book artist and singer / songwriter from the Antifolk scene of New York, whose shows range from lo-fi folk to ‘sci-fi punk’, with the odd comic book visuals thrown in for good measure.

Jeffrey Lewis was raised on New York's Lower East Side by loving beatnik parents. Having no television in the tenement apartment, he became a comic book fanatic before even learning how to read. A life-long love of writing and drawing comic books, both autobiographical and fantastical, found new vent when Lewis began making up songs in the winter of 97-98. Initially inspired by the gentle psychedelic folk of Donovan, the DIY magic of Daniel Johnston, and the fearless early recordings of local folk-punk legends the Fugs, Lewis began recording homemade cassettes in 1998 and selling them, packaged in small comic books, at his soon semi-monthly shows at Sidewalk, home of New York's Antifolk scene. Lewis's younger brother Jack began playing electric bass and contributing to the shows and tapes.

When other Sidewalk performers the Moldy Peaches signed to Rough Trade Records in late 2000, they recommended Jeffrey's cassette recordings to label head Geoff Travis, and Rough Trade has since released two full-length Jeffrey Lewis CDs in America, England and Europe, garnering glowing press and a small but devoted following for the idiosyncratic illustrator / songwriter. Like his Rough Trade releases, and an art/music/DVD box set project (released on England's Hallso label), Lewis's shows can range between "lo-fi folk and sci-fi punk" as well as occasionally incorporating "low budget videos" (large ragged comic books displayed to accompany songs).

It is only since 2002 that Jeffrey and Jack have become an "official" band, with various friends trading time in the drum seat. The Jeffrey Lewis Band (with an ever-changing "Jeffrey Lewis & The" title) have played from Wisconsin to the Polish border, sharing bills along the way with international acts big and small, including Cornershop, the Fall, Beth Orton, Frank Black, Daniel Johnston, Scout Niblett, the Mountain Goats, Radio4, Adam Green, Kimya Dawson, British Sea Power, the Fiery Furnaces, Thurston Moore, the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, Devendra Banhart, and others.

"Jeffrey Lewis: 'The Last Time I Did Acid I Went Insane' - Best Indie Album of 2002; like his drawings, his music is witty, animated and true." - New York Daily News

"Bizarre but brilliant. Jeffrey Lewis could well be [New York's] ace in the hole." - Uncut

http://www.thejeffreylewissite.com

The Captain

One man, one guitar and a pre-recorded backing track - but this is no karaoke. Not to be confused with Captain!

"All the songs have something unique about them while still staying in the same one-man band format, and this is something worthy of praise." - BBC Norfolk