Well it’s no secret that I’m a long time fan of Howard Stern and as such I was listening to an old episode of The Howard Stern Show the other day on Sirius Xm. I have Sirius for one reason and his name is Howard Stern. What? I told you I was a fan did you doubt me because that wasn’t wise.
In this episode of The Howard Stern Show fan and frequent guest actor Micheal Rapaport was coming in for an interview so I was rather psyched since I’m a fan of Rapaport too. The fucked up thing was when he showed up for the scheduled interview Rapaport showed up with The Jesus Twins in Tow. Howard by this time was rather familiar with The Jesus Twins, but still had to ask Rapaport why he brought them with him. Rapaport answered simply that The Jesus Twins were far more interesting than anything he had to say. Howard and Rapaport discuss The Jesus Twins for a few minutes, and lead to The Jesus Twins preforming a live acoustic version of their song “God Come Down Here”. I didn’t know much of anything about The Jesus Twins other then they were some seriously fucking weird musical fringe duo, but after hearing them play “God Come Down Here” I was hooked like a motherfucker. I hadn’t EVER heard anything fucking like it before in my life and I honestly became a fan on the spot.
I started to research the some what mysterious Jesus Twins and unfortunately didn’t find out a whole hell of a lot. That’s the problem with niche bands is the total lack of exposure in the mainstream music industry which insanely inhibits the band/artist’s exposure. Think about it a minute that all we know of musicians (and other famous fuckers) is from interviews, critical reviews, and biographies/autobiographies. You limit or remove those aspects then you can see what the fuck I’m dealing with when it comes to this kind of research shit. Anyways without further ado here is what I found out about The Jesus Twins after scraping and scouring the fucking internet.
The Jesus Twins
- The Jesus Twins were an obscure, virtually unknown and unsigned independent fringe musical duo active from 1997-2004.
- The Jesus Twins was a pair of identical twin brothers Eric Lewis and Jeffrey Brian Liebowitz.
- Both of the The Jesus Twins are manic depressive and in addition to that Eric also suffered from Bi-Polar Disorder.
- The Jesus Twins had an inexperienced manager named John Mendelsohn who the Twins treated with utter and total distain.
- In 1997 The Jesus Twins gained notoriety for crashing the Jay Leno Show.
- Also in 1997 The Jesus Twins garnered more notoriety when they forced their way onto the Howard Stern Show. The Twins demanded Stern recall every copy of the soundtrack to his movie “Private Parts” so their song Feel My Ubiquity could be included on it.
- The Jesus Twins muscling their way onto The Howard Stern Show was aired on television and is one of the most popular Stern show segments of all time.
- The Jesus Twins made several subsequent appearances on Stern’s radio Show over the following years.
- In 2001 The Jesus Twins released their song “God Come Down Here” as a protest against California’s “Three Strikes Law”. The release was accompanied by yet another completely bizarre appearance on The Howard Stern Show. The appearance included a manic Eric cutting his hand while punching a glass picture frame.
- The Jesus Twins musical style is considered to be “Outsider”.
- Outsider music is songs and compositions by musicians who are not part of the commercial music industry. They write songs that ignore standard musical or lyrical conventions, either because they have no formal training or because they disagree with formal rules. Outsider music is often bizarre and emotionally stark in nature.
- The Jesus Twins music actually displayed good production value which is rare in the outsider genre.
- The Jesus Twins music has been described as “an unfashionable street-informed soul funk sound (which I totally fucking disagree with. They were outsider musicians plain and simple nothing more and nothing less) with wordy melodramatic lyrics.
- The Jesus Twins songs were accompanied by frantic and frenzied synchronized dancing by the Twins.
- Tragically on August 5th 2008 while suffering a manic episode Eric Lewis Liebowitz was shot and killed by a Los Angeles police officer.
Albums:
- Resurrection
- This Moment
- Resurrection (Explicit)
- Feel My Ubiquity
Top Tracks:
- Feel My Ubiquity
- God Come Down Here
- This Moment
- Death By Chocolate
- Crazy One
- Siamese Fighting Fish
- Peace Is The Word
- Let Go And Let God
- Make Believe
- Wonder
I’ll see you when I see you,
Justin Sane