“Ghastly, puritanical, po-faced, sanctimonious, finger-wagging, Woke-Witchfinder-in-Chief” Toby Young, Twitter

“Sphincter-poppingly angry, totally unamusing and uninsightful, and painfully, excruciatingly right-on. A bitter, politically correct member of the Remain-voting liberal elite. The type of comedy which is not designed to provoke laughter so much as solemn head-nodding and applause at the politically correct sentiment.” James Delingpole, Steve Bannon’s Breitbart News

““I seem to have been radicalised into a one man crusade against Stewart Lee and his fans. This will probably occupy the rest of my life but mark my words the man will die and I will try to be the one that ends his life.” Corbyngrad Mayor @SyedforLondon, Twitter

““Stewart Lee is an archaic left wing relic. The old ‘alternative comedian’ crowd is now the Establishment – Milo Yiannopoulos is more on the zeitgeist. The ‘alt’ comics are that comfortable establishment, with their ‘edgy’ Apollo nights out on the BBC. Don’t agree with all of his views, but at least people like Paul Joseph Watson can be funny about subjects that Lefties like Stewart Lee are shit-scared to go anywhere near.” Brendan McCarthy, writer/artist of Judge Dredd and Mad Max : Fury Road, Twitter

Dear Covidians of Infectoland

I hope you are all well and have not suffered any loss.
Here I wait patiently to reassume my privileged duties, which I promise to perform henceforth with a greater sense of responsibility, having learned and listened under lockdown.

One day we will all be laughing again in some rooms.
I cannot embrace you all.

Your pal

Stew Art Lee

1) LIVE SHOWS UPDATE

I’m not even bothering with trying to list dates here this month, as so many are in flux…BUT…

1) All outstanding shows of the Snowflake/Tornado tour will be rescheduled/are being rescheduled for whenever they are allowed to happen.
The venues have your ticket money and this is helping them not collapse. I will do these shows. Don’t worry.

2) All little socially-distanced club gigs (that I had down for working out new stuff in November, in London, N’castle, E’bro & Glasgow), have been pulled, and will be rescheduled.
Again, the venues have your ticket money which is good for them, so take a chill pill daddi-o.
As for any December 3rd onwards club shows, these are currently still on.

For the record, unlike clay’s Grayson Perry, I do not believe that venues or artists that are struggling under covid are ‘dead wood’ which will be cut out by the covid.
Some of the best artists currently working in the world in comedy and music are stacking shelves and driving vans right now, and always will be, having not been lucky enough to enjoy the patronage of various massive publicly funded arts institutions.
In my experience, the best people have often found commercial viability elusive, and the pestilence only exacerbates this. SHIT FLOATS. As a rule, most profitable art is rubbish, and my own success only makes me doubt my worth.
The Nov club dates were also an effort to make money for small venues to ensure that the infrastructure that supports our artform survives.

All changes as they occur will be listed on the LIVE PAGE OF THE WEBSITE

2) PODCASTS & INTERNETS I AM ON

Having not done any of these much in the past I did quite a few recently and I believe you will be able to find a stream of me talking to the Idler mag on Youtube.

There may be something popping up soon with Mod Postman Alan Johnson.
I interviewed RICHARD DAWSON for the Barbican livr stream of his brilliant concert last month and I think I will be doing something similar with SLEAFORD MODS in January.

I did a live stream with Boothby Graffoe, the Jake Thackray of Generation X, which was good but is gone now.
I will probably do another with BG at some point in the covid.

Also here is a trailer for a 2020 lockdown reimagining of Morgan Fisher’s 1980 project MINIATUTURES, out soon, on which I am lucky enough to appear alongside many of the original contributors https://youtu.be/2moh5nRlfnM

3) LTD EDTN PRINTS

All supposed merch you see of me on-line, like the YOU SAY YOU’RE ENGLISH football scarf or 100% PEARS t-shirts, is unofficial and I see nothing for it.

But these legit artists have made prints of my ANTI-TORY quips as lovely art to tie in with an exhibition by NEW NORTH PRESS that opens on Nov 20th – somehow.

Prints will be on sale at the show and on their website (www.new-north-press.co.uk).

There will – hopefully – also be a dedicated website with all the posters on it (www.revertingtotype.com), that will showcase the 150 prints from presses around the world, plus our 25 collaborative prints.

This is classier merch than a LITTLE BRITAIN action figure of a bloke pretending to be disabled.

4) KING ROCKER SHEFFIELD

Our documentary KING ROCKER has been selected for the Sheffield Documentary Festival but didn’t get screened due to Covid.

It will however, I am now allowed to announce, be on now free-to-air SKY ARTS, which has also recently covered PUNCHDRUNK THEATRE and IVOR CUTLER, in the 1st ¼ of next year.
Who would have thought that the weird arts brief of BBC4 would one day be fulfilled by SKY ARTS?

Comedian Stewart Lee and director Michael Cumming (Brass Eye) investigate a missing piece of punk history. Robert Lloyd, best known for fronting cult bands The Prefects and The Nightingales, has survived under the radar for over four decades. Anti-rockumentary King Rocker weaves the story of Birmingham’s undervalued underdog autodidact into that of the city’s forgotten public sculpture of King Kong, eschewing the celebrity interview and archive-raid approach for a free-associating bricolage of Indian food, bewildered chefs, vegetable gardening, prescription medicines, pop stardom and pop art.

Here’s everything we know at this point;

https://www.firerecords.com/films/king-rocker/
https://www.firerecords.com/films/

5) THESE FERAL LANDS

Mediaeval minimalist Laura Cannell, whom my wife and I have been huge fans of since the Welsh free-jazz harpist Rhodri Davis recommended her work to me in the bar of the ex-Hungarian embassy in East Berlin over a decade ago, is “beyond excited” to announce her new release THESE FERAL LANDS, for which she asked me to write and mumble words for 4 of the 10 tracks.

Laura says…

“I am beyond excited to announce: THESE FERAL LANDS Volume I – Out Friday 13th November 2020. Feat. LAURA CANNELL + STEWART LEE + KATE ELLIS + POLLY WRIGHT + JENNIFER LUCY ALLAN. This is our Personal and Collective Folklore. PRE-ORDER Ltd Ed CD/DL NOW

https://brawlrecords.bandcamp.com/album/these-feral-lands-volume-1

Twitter Tags: @kateelliscello @JenniferLAllan @laurarecorder @BrawlRecords
Instagram: @ghostsofsongs @lauracannellmusic @jenniferlucyallan @kateelliscello
#theseferallands

There are also wristbands / Bookmarks for sale – HERE

TUSK interview – HERE

6) Asian Dub Foundation

I am on the new record by Asian Dub Foundation –
http://asiandubfoundation.com/site/?p=1043

ACCESS DENIED, the new album from Asian Dub Foundation! Out 18-9-2020.
Asian Dub Foundation  release their new album “Access Denied” for X-Ray Productions , with collaborations featuring incendiary Palestinian shamstep warriors 47 soul, radical UK comedian Stewart Lee, and climate activist supreme Greta Thunberg.
The album showcases ADF in full spectrum mode from the tough Jungle Punk sound of “Stealing The Future” and “Mindlock” through to the orchestral meditations of “Realignment” and the reggae lament of the title track.
Unbowed and undeterred Asian Dub Foundation continue their sonic opposition to the powers that be and “Access Denied” kicks harder and higher than ever.

Asian Dub Foundation have put ‘Comin’ Over Here’ – on which I appear – on youtube, here

7) BENNY’S BABBIES

Stewart Lee completists, and art fans, can order this fabulous print, by agit-artist Cold War Steve, of Birmingham, called Benny’s Babbies from Birmingham Art Gallery.

The montage includes me, and many other far more significant Midlands figures i.e Steel Pulse, Kevin Rowlands, Mr Egg, Black Sabbath, and Robert LLoyd, and obviously any sales will help Birmingham’s superb art gallery, with its astonishing pre-Raphaelite selection and cool stuff by Laura Knight and Emmy Bridgwater, through the plague times.
A bostin Winterval gift for the Brummie, or ex-Brummie, in your life. £15.
We are all Benny’s Babbies. Ich bin ein Benny’s Babby.

https://shop.birminghammuseums.org.uk/products/bennys-babbies-poster

8) I arrogantly recommend…

TIM WELLS
https://unbound.com/books/shine-on-me/

Tim Wells’ first skinhead werewolf novel, MOONSTOMP, perfectly fused disparate strands of 70s New English Library pulp fiction, into story that was both viscerally entertaining and subversively thought-provoking.
He needs our help to publish its sequel and you would be doing me and him a favour of you bunged in as I want to read it ASAP.

ELECTRIC MUSIC by WOLFHOUNDS with sleeve notes by me –

https://thewolfhounds.bandcamp.com/album/electric-music

FOR SAKE OF JOY by THE SEEN. Stew is the guest reader of prose by the percussionist John Stevens

THE SEEN – FOR SAKE OF JOY | confront-recordings

Isolation, an experimental music album assembled by Mark Jenkins during lockdown to raise money for Age UK, which includes actual people from Tangerine Dream and Neuronium and me, in STOKE NEWINGTON ISOLATION UNIT. https://www.cd-services.com/product_info.aspx?id=17272&qry=&key=&genre=148&pi=0

The Trees. I have done sleeve-notes for the reissue of the complete back catalogue of superb 70s folk rock band THE TREES. https://www.firerecords.com/shop/

BOOKS.

100 STORIES TO SAY THANK-YOU, NHS benefit book edited by Adam Kay, featuring a story by me Dear NHS by Various | Waterstones

BEN MOOR’S NEW BOOK. Performance Artist and writer Ben Moor says,

“In lieu of the theatrical performances of Who Here’s Lost? I have printed the text of the piece for to be read at leisure.
This would have been on sale after the show to people who missed half the jokes (I tend to go fast) and so they can try and work out just what it was they’d been watching. The book version also includes a selection of pieces I wrote in each of the last four decades” CLICK THIS LINK

PODCASTS DADDI-0!

(Podcasts are like radio shows but are on the internet and you can hear them at any time.
I have just found out about them.)

These Weird Isles – LISTEN HERE

Pope Longergan Plimpin’ & Lompin’ – LISTEN HERE

Ian McPherson’s Hardly A Fit Subject For Levity – LISTEN HERE

The Internet

Comedy Without Errors – Some bloke has done a half hour study of me. https://youtu.be/0w-K0NWtysA

Erwin Saunders – This is one of those internet finds that one worries about sharing, and hesitates to recommend, a precious bloom that might wither on exposure to light.

There are 17 episodes which, oddly, have been numbered 1 – 17 in reverse order, so you need to start with 17 and work backwards.
Watch the 1st two without distraction, looking for the tiny points if light, ideally on a TV screen where you can see the backgrounds properly, and you will be hooked.
There is only one mis-step in the whole 2 hrs +, where “Erwin” obviously couldn’t resist using some footage he had shot some years ago, which is tonally slightly out of kilter with the rest of this brilliant labour of love.
I know that subscribers to this newsletter will treat Erwin Saunders’ work with the care and respect it deserves.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIptHpq0tre-Mnu2V1VOoww

Mark Silcox does Aesop’s Fables – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lWYVUxfEpY

Quentin Smirhes – musicologist – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwHw0B9zAL4Z08sVRRjfx5g

NEW FILMS

Honeyland (Tamara Kotevska, Ljubo Stefanov)
Days of The Bagnold Summer (Simon Bird)
The Laundromat (Stephen Soderbergh)
The Day Shall Come (Chris Morris)
Southern Journey Revisited (Tim Plester, Rob Curry)

NEW MUSIC

The Nightingales – Four Against Fate

Rich Hopkins & Luminarios – Live At El Lokal

The Dream Syndicate – Universe Inside

Wild Billy Childish – Kings Of The Medway Delta

Garcia Peoples – Nublu NYC 2019

Windy & Carl – Allegiance & Conviction

The Frees – Live From The End Of The Earth

Alan Wilkinson & Douglas Benford – Appointed Views

The Heartwood Institute – Tomorrow’s People

John Edwards – Just Another Day At Home

Adam Bohman & Douglas Benford – Ad Hoc & Words

Laura Cannell – The Earth With Her Crowns

Jack Sharp – Good Times Older

The Frees – Live To Air

The Frees – Lips That Bite

Fixed Horizon – Jungle

Jon Free – Spiralling

Richard Skelton – Border Ballads

Howe Gelb – Cocoon

The Primevals – Second Nature

Richard Youngs – Vistas

Darren Hayman – Home Time

Richard Youngs – Four Verses

V/A – Seito In The Beginning Woman Was The Sun

Lucinda Williams – Good Souls & Better Angels

Bob Dylan – Rough & Rowdy Ways

Billy Sedlmayr – Mean What You Say

Shirley Collins – Heart’s Ease

Alasdair Roberts – The Songs of My Boyhood

Boris – No

Slum of Legs – Slum Of Legs

Tobin Sprout – Empty Horses

Thurston Moore – By The Fire

Rhodri Davies – Telyn Rawn

Idles – Ultra Mono

Guided by Voices – Mirrored Aztec

The Cravats – Hoorahland

Alison Cotton – Only Darkness Now

Rachel Aggs – Visitations 0202

Richard Dawson – Republic of Geordieland

Shopping – All Or Nothing
Tamikrest – Tamotait
Hen Ogled – Free Humans
Asian Dub Foundation – Access Denied
Chuck Prophet – The Land That Time Forgot
Cash Rivers & Sinners – Frankenstein’s New Nut Huggers
Guided by Voices – Styles We Paid For
Dope – Semi Legal On The Edge Of Culture

REISSUED OLD MUSIC

Tim Buckley – Live At The Electric (1968)

John Lee Hooker – Black Night Is Falling (1977)

The Heads – Reverberations Vol 1 (2005)

Barnabus – Beginning To Unwind (1971)

Miracle Legion – 4.20 Live At The Boot (2017)

V/A – Brown Acid The Tenth Trip (1969-74)

Creedence Clearwater Revival – Live At Woodstock (1969)

John Lee Hooker – Documenting The Sensation (1948-52)

Albert Ayler – New Grass (1969)

Guided by Voices – Doses of Nonchalance (1995)

The Fall – Tech College, St Helens Merseyside (1981)

Linda Hoyle – Pieces of Me (1971)

Day Of Phoenix – Mind Funeral (1971)

L7 – Smell The Magic – SubPop (1991)
The Fall – Imperial Wax Solvent special edition (2008)
Guided By Voices – Rara Avis (recent live)
Gorgeous Space Virus – Shall We Go Skinny Dipping? (1992)
Sume – The Sound of a Revolution (1973-6)

IN OUR COVID ERA LAMENTATIONS…

Adam Schlesinger (Fountain of Wayne) (1967)

John Prine (outlaw country singer) (1946)

Henry Grimes (jazz bassist) (1935)

Hal Wilner (arranger) (1957)

Tim Brooke-Taylor (Goodie) (1940)

Lee Konitz (jazz saxophonist) (1927)

Matthew Seligman (Soft Boy) (1955)

Millie Small (ska singer) (1946)

Florian Schneider (Kraftwerk robot) (1947)

Bill Rieflin (drummer for hire) (1960)

Hugh McKenna (Tear Gas pianist) (1949)

Steve Weber (Holy Modal Rounder) (1942)

Astrid Kirchherr (photographer) (1938)

Danny Ray Thompson (Sun Ra saxophonist) (1947)

Aubrey Burl (archaeologist) (1926)

Phil May (Pretty Thing) (1944)

The Clacton Fin Whale (circa 2000)

Christo Vladimirov Javacheff (artist) (1930)

Doll Tor stone circle (3300 BC)

Kay Carroll (The Fall) (1948)

Bob the Cat (73 bus) (2006)

Alex Taylor (Shop Assistant, in 2005, and no-one knew)

Simon H Fell (jazz bassist) (1959)

Carl Reiner (director) (1922)

Ennio Morricone (architect of sonic dreams) (1928)

Keith Tippett (jazz pianist) (1947)

Jimmy Cobb (jazz drummer) (1929)

Barbara Smoker (Humanist) (1923)

The Nuffield Theatre, Southampton

Tony Elliot (Time Out) (1942)

Judy Dyble (folk singer) (1949)

Peter Green (blues guitarist) (1946)

Emitt Rhodes (power pop auteur) (1950)

Annie Ross (jazz bohemian) (1930)

Joe Ruby (Scooby-Doo) (1933)

Craig Weatherhill (folklorist) (1950)

Don Weller (jazz saxophonist) (1940)

Simeon Coxe (Silver Apple) (1938)

Diana Rigg (Avenger) (1938)

Toots Hibbert (reggae got soul) (1942)

Dele Fadele (carry bag man) (1962)

George Jeffrie (man’s-laughter maker) (1964)
Dave Kusworth (Brum punk Stone) (1960)
Gary Peacock (jazz bassist) (1935)
Doorkins (Southwark Cathedral Cat) (2005?)
Spencer Davis (Brumbeat pioneer) (1939)
The Cubbington Pear Tree (1770)
Fungie The Dingle Dolphin (1979)
Jill Paton Walsh (novelist) (1937)