Lyres - Biography
By Brad Austin
If Lyres have a legacy (besides that absurdly long list of past members), it is their ability to borrow from the past without being slaves to it. Their biggest songs, “Help You Ann” and “Don't Give it up Now,” appeared on the box set Children of Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the Second Psychedelic Era – 1976 – 1996, an exhaustive collection highlighting those songs that sounded like they came out of the 60's. Most prominently featured on the collection was the paisley underground movement of the 80's, which is where Lyres fit. Had “Help You Ann” been slipped into the tracklist of the original Nuggets box that celebrated 60's psychedelia, anyone who wasn't aware of the song would believe that Lyres were a product of the 60's counterculture. And they were, along with all the paisley underground bands. But all that Lyres really have in common with the original crop of psych-pop bands is a driving rock & roll sound and a loud Farfisa organ, played by the ever-manic Jeff “Monoman” Conolly, also the singer of the band. The only constant member in the group's two-decade long history, Conolly loved a good rock song nearly as much as he loved firing his bandmates. For Monoman, it wasn't about aping the styles of the Chocolate Watch Band or the 13th Floor Elevators, and it certainly wasn't about looking like them. It was about playing rock & roll music, and doing it well.
It's fitting that Conolly's arrival in playing music would begin with someone getting fired. Formed in Boston, 1979, Lyres came to be after Conolly's first band, DMZ, ceased to exist. That band was formed without Conolly, but at one of their first practices in early 1976, Conolly showed up, stole the microphone from their chosen singer, and wowed DMZ with his performance. They fired their frontman and hired Conolly on the spot. Conolly had a commanding vocal presence that fit well with DMZ's brand of rock music, as did the Farfisa organ he brought along with him. After about a year and a half of gigging, the band went into a recording studio and made a record with producer Craig Leon, who helmed the Ramones' debut. The resulting EP was released by Bomp! Records.
At the behest of their new label, Sire Records, the band relocated to New York for recording sessions with Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, better known as Flo & Eddie. The self-titled album that came from the sessions in 1978 was largely panned. It was decided to break up the band, and its members were split into two new bands. The two guitarists, J.J. Rassler and Preston Wayne, started a group called the Odds. Conolly, bassist Rick Coraccio, and drummer Paul Murphy became Lyres.
Lyres tore through the Boston club scene, diminishing the bad reputation that the DMZ album had earned them, one club at a time. They were signed to Ace of Hearts, the Boston-based label started by Rick Harte in 1978. They recorded an EP with Harte, who produced all of Ace of Hearts' bands, and released it in 1981 as The Lyres (Ace of Hearts). Where DMZ were often lumped into the punk rock craze, Lyres demonstrated with this release that they were unmistakably a garage rock band. Their popularity grew with the release of their debut full-length, On Fyre (Ace of Hearts), in 1984. The album was a 20-track long opus that compiled plenty of well-done cover songs of Connolly's heroes and a healthy dose of his own solid songwriting. They covered “Never Met a Girl Like You Before,” “Tired of Waiting” and “Love Me Til the Sun Shines” by the Kinks, “I Confess” by the New Colony Six, and “Swing Shift” by the Wailers, among others. The two biggest highlights, however, are the opening tracks “Don't Give it up Now” and “Help You Ann,” both by Conolly. This set of timeless rock & roll tunes could have come out of any decade. But still, it is hard to believe this music was recorded in the mid-80's. An EP, Someone Who'll Treat You Right Now (New Rose), was released in 1985.
With a lineup that mutated endlessly around him on his own whims, Conolly put out the second Lyres album, Lyres Lyres (New Rose), in 1986. It was a shorter set than its predecessor, at 13 songs, and 8 of those were written by Connolly. Admittedly, nothing here rocks with the force of “Help You Ann,” but the songs are energetically performed. Basically, it serves as the good time it was intended to be, and no one listens to Lyres in search of much else. Later that year, New Rose issued a box set of the band's material.
In 1988, the band returned with A Promise is a Promise (Ace of Hearts). An odd release, this album, includes songs that are both new and old, some of them live, and some studio-recorded. The next year, Lyres released The Lyres Live 1983: Let's Have a Party!!, a performance recorded live in the studio for Emerson College's music show, Metrowave, on the Pryct label. A new studio album, Happy Now... (Taang!), the first Lyres album of the 90's, contained only two Conolly compositions.
In 1998, Matador Records reissued the best four releases of the Lyres catalog, the Lyres EP, On Fyre, Lyres Lyres, and A Promise is a Promise. Since then, Conolly has revived the group on many occasions for live gigs, and the lineup has continued to fluctuate.