For Another Day

Today’s AMM invited you to pull up a chair and pour yourself a whiskey. Make it a double. You’re gonna need it.

Full disclosure: Your humble AMM host has been a Mr. Lewis & The Funeral 5 fan for awhile now, absolutely smitten over the macabre tones of their 2007 release Murder and The Art of The Dance (bring it, “Black Coffee Night,” you sick bastard) and 2011’s brilliant mind creep Delirium Tremendous (my old entrance song, “I Found Love on The Highway,” like an ego-maniac baller just asking for it). It’s been a years-long love affair with their twisted, razor-sharp wit, the stench of booze on its wheezing breath.

The party kept going, the demon waltz never really stopped, but…life threw some curveballs, as it does. Some horrible ones.

Vocalist/songwriter Gregory Lewis and drummer James Sheeran both suffered devastating losses; Lewis’ longtime girlfriend to suicide, and Sheeran’s wife to cancer. It would be awhile before either even entertained the thought of heading back to the studio to record, and a bit of time to finish their album when they did, but it’s here. Before the World Beat You Down is damn well worth the wait. It’s as raw and real as it gets. The turmoil of personal tragedy fuels these dark melodies, but such is the way with Lewis and his five fiends. Bare those scars. Embrace the morbidity.

Mr. Lewis and The Funeral 5 present their holiday shindig at 10 p.m. tonight at The Townsend, 718 Congress Ave. And apparently, it’s guitarist/percussionist Rob Metcalfe‘s birthday. You get two parties in one, pal.

Now go fetch that whiskey. This one’s so recommended that it hurts.

-Photography by by Gabriel C. Pérez for KUTX.

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