Jeffrey Lewis & The Voltage, Makeshift Hammer
Harmonie Hall
4372 Fleming St.
Philadelphia
June 20, 2026
"I don’t know what time it is, but you’re here and we’re here." Makeshift Hammer – repeatedly self-diagnosed in variable turns of phrase as Philadelphia’s premiere mandolin-and-bass-guitar duo – seemed comfortably confused by the bright daylight reality, playing an afternoon set at Manayunk’s wonderfully cozy Harmonie Hall, the former late-19th-century German social lounge and dance hall turned DIY venue and community space. Pulling up to an afternoon show always makes me feel a little discombobulated (I shudder to think of the times I’ve seen shows in windowless basement venues at music festivals at 11 AM, bleary-eyed, hungover and nursing cold brew and beer bloat) but Harmonie Hall is so bright, colorful and inviting that it doesn’t take much coaxing to settle in. Makeshift Hammer’s music suits their current moniker, made up as it is of homemade and ramshackle percussion played by both players with the feet, the mandolin and bass cradled or slung low, respectively; they reminded us throughout that they used to be called Driftwood Soldier, including when they played a song called “Driftwood Soldier." Singer and mandolinist Owen Lyman-Schmidt reminded me of the late, great David Lamb of Brown Bird, with a similarly rich, gravelly baritone and sense of swing and rhythmic acuity, not to mention the epic beard and rustic accoutrements; Lyman-Schmidt plays mandolin like it’s a snare drum or a dance partner always down to follow, singing with his eyes wide and blazing and brows as tall as they’d go, with bluesy panache and occasional fervor, a sweet-talking gutter preacher. I thought of the charm and speech cadences of those corralling the attention of crowds at old-time medicine shows and county fairs. Not totally my thing, but expertly done.
Jeffrey Lewis & The Voltage, on the other hand: right up my alley. I’ve seen Lewis before, at Johnny Brenda’s, so I knew what to expect, and the anti-folk NYC legend and his band brought the goods again, with a set spanning works across decades, from long, winding, solo-delivered acoustic songs to his more elaborate music-and-comics pieces, the ones where he talk-sings verbally-dense narrative couplets while his incredible comics are projected on advancing slides behind him. The band opened with a springtime song, just in time for slipping into the solstice. Its gently psychedelic swirl of reverse-slide-guitar delayed and looped the right energy to jump off from, mandala kaleidoscopes projected onto the white sheet held up by orange clips behind them: from there things cracked open, into songs about “scowling crackhead Ian”; cannibal monkeys (they do lots of sweet, gentle things... alas, they also eat faces); the pendulum of perspective vis-à-vis living and dying (why die? but why live? “we get to do both”); the story of the United States’ abuses and crimes against the people of Chile; how good it felt to be addicted to collecting vinyl when it was cheap during the CD boom of the '90s; CRASS covers (so sick); how much Lewis reveres Alan Moore; and best of all for my tastes, the 2001 classic, a song so perfectly unfolding it’s like a little novel, “The Chelsea Hotel Oral Sex Song." Alone for this one, with just C and F taking turns, the song’s sort of about dearly departed songwriting master Leonard Cohen, but more about the idea of not being a master songwriter and not being as bold, courageous or “good with women” as old LC, but “uncharacteristically courageous” and wistfully, sincerely sweet and wide-eyed with the wonder of songwriting; and then again, in LC’s defense, he was himself considered (in song, anyway) an exception to the preference for “handsome men”; and in Lewis’ defense, it takes a true gift to rhyme “there and then” with “Leonard Cohen," and if that doesn’t get you a room in the Tower of Song, it’s good enough for a room at the Chelsea, in my book. Hearing the song alone in your room, playable on demand, is great, but being surprised by it on stage, hearing the other bodies in the room laugh with all the sweet flavors of laughter at Lewis’ classic lines –
If I was Leonard Cohen
Or some other songwriting master
I'd know to first get the oral sex
And then write the song after
You can practice writing songs
About romance every day
But if you haven't loved
Then you'll have nothing to say
– well, all I can say is that, to me, it doesn’t get much better.
