"$24 spent on what exactly?" I somewhat feverishly quipped, to which Lulu Lewis guitarist and co-founder Pablo Martin readily replied, "two skull masks and a party gun with a flag that says BANG!!!... the rest, Dylan [Hundley] did on an iPhone... and iMovie, some public domain footage, and the rest, we did [with] the band at Bill Harvey's place. We put a sheet and lights on the back and did shadows... pretty simple" via text. Let me back up and provide a little added context here: I've recently been in touch with J-Zone's resident studio engineer and The Du-Rites bandmate Pablo Martin, who graciously agreed to let me premier his band, Lulu Lewis' latest video-single, "All Just Pretending" here at The Witzard. He attests, and I wholeheartedly believe him, but it's still a little hard to believe, that their self-shot black-and-white "All Just Pretending" video only cost a measly $24 to fund and produce! "I think that's the major achievement of the [videos] we do... "Dig Beat" was 0 dollars and we spent 25 on this one," Martin excitedly continued. "All Just Pretending" has an inherently lush, B-movie quality to it, as well as well as a rather unique 1960's Lounge Music-esque vibe reminiscent of Amy Winehouse meets Garbage frontwoman Shirley Manson.


Lulu Lewis is just Pablo Martin's latest band (in addition to The Du-Rites, PABLO, and Tom Tom Club) formed in 2015 along with actress, producer, visual artist, and song-writer Dylan Hundley; part-time guest musicians additionally include drummers Jay "J-Zone" Mumford and Julius Solo, guitarist and bass player Bill Harvey, bassist Hannah Morehead, and background vocalist Clay Russell. "We do what we like to call "Harlem Punk"—our soulful Punk version from Pablo's beloved hood. We took the name Lulu Lewis from a grave at Trinity Cemetery in Harlem, so we have a respectful relationship with death," Pablo Martin wrote within a recent email describing Lulu Lewis' seemingly organic formation. Martin records and self-produces all of Lulu's compositions, which ultimately aim to combine multiple mediums with music and video elements as the foundation. It appears as though Dylan Hundley, Martin & company have an as-yet-unannounced full-length in-the-works, as they currently have four completed songs uploaded to their Soundcloud, in addition to "another Du-Rites snippet video" ahead of their temporarily shelved pre-album 7-inch and a forthcoming single from PABLO, of which Side B "will be [mixed] within a week or so."