Don't Give It Up Now: The Lyres in Winter
Current status: Shedding a tear or two at the Carousel Lounge while confronting the legend of Jeff Conolly and the Lyres, Year 47, and wondering how we all got here
The following is basically my fantasy induction speech welcoming the Lyres into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
As a survivor of and living witness to the Boston rock scene of the 1980s, I never expected to see garage rock legends the Lyres in concert again after their Austin show on November 10, 2018. I wrote this on Facebook the day after:
Seeing Jeff Monoman Conolly lead the Lyres last night in an amazing show at Beerland (Austin's answer to Boston's late lamented Rat, minus the awful carpet) was like having a long-half-buried memory suddenly spring back to life in full color and three dimensions. It had been decades since I'd seen them, and the band hadn't played Austin for a good 30 years to boot. Late-period Lyres is as good as any other period I can recall, Monoman's obsessiveness with the product evident from his extensive fiddling with the mics during the "soundcheck" immediately preceding the first song, through the master class in experimenting with changes in tempos (I'm no expert in modulating tempos and time signatures within a song, but it was obvious this guy was into some unusual stuff for an ostensibly simple form). In my mind's eye I could see the ghost of Rat frequent flyer Billy Ruane cavorting a few feet away. Hearing them rip through "How Do You Know," I knew my life had at last come full circle.
Well, then: what would I call their show in Austin on — stranger than fiction — Friday the 13th, 2026, full circle again (appropriately enough, at a venue called the Carousel Lounge)? Well, at least it wasn’t South by Southwest. Did you ever cry in front of a garage band?
Quantum physics aside, I’ve always considered Conolly (and let’s get this straight, he actually doesn’t want to be called Monoman and retired that moniker decades ago) to be a larger than life figure, a unique musical obsessive suitable for admiring from a distance. He and his 21 or so current and former Lyres bandmates are responsible for a remarkable number of top-drawer songs and recordings and memorable live shows.
But he’s also quite human, a misfit kid from Darien, Connecticut (where, incidentally, he went to high school with Clint Conley, later of Mission of Burma) who went up to Boston to attend school at BU — where he lasted about a year — and the rest you probably already know if you’re bothering to read this.
He’s also currently battling cancer and planning to undergo serious surgeries, the nature of which I don’t really want to go into here. The head Lyre — songwriter, singer, organist, musical archivist — has lately had to resort to a GoFundMe campaign to offset the astronomical costs of his medical treatment. It’s yet another indictment of the USA’s cruel health insurance structure, whether you’re an acclaimed aging musician or not. The lack of coverage forces proud people who have worked hard for decades to go public with such matters when they would have preferred to keep it private, as after all it’s nobody’s business. If you’re something of a celebrity and/or much respected in your field it helps gather donations, but still one must ask oneself: Why should anyone have to go through this? (It suggests a rewrite of that old Lyres song, as Someone Who’ll Treat You Right Now On Medicare.)
It was a Wednesday night in late October of 1978 when I first laid eyes on Jeff Conolly on stage at the Rat in Kenmore Square (Boston’s punk ground zero) in his earlier band DMZ, headlining with the opening acts being a bunch of underground punk videos (“TV Tapes,” as these were billed) and an unknown band from New York called the Plasmatics, $3 cover. There weren’t many customers in the house. The Lyres were still a bit in the future. A teenage college student at the time, I wasn’t overly impressed with DMZ, besides which it was my initial exposure to the outrageous and boundary-breaking band the Plasmatics, then only a few months old and yes, Wendy did slice an electric guitar in half with a chainsaw, so you’ll forgive me if I don’t really remember much about DMZ’s set that night. That band imploded not long afterwards, but every Lyres show I saw was memorable in its own way.
Certain critics, and I assume some musicians too, consider the Lyres to be the gold standard of the first-wave garage rock revival and the kings of the Boston garage rock scene, which they and the Real Kids basically founded. Among other groups, Conolly was heavily influenced by the ‘60s Dutch band The Outsiders, covered several of their songs, and eventually befriended their late singer-songwriter Wladimir “Wally” Tax, recorded with him, and dedicated the Lyres Lyres LP to him. But although the Lyres were themselves outsiders to mainstream rock, they were always much more than an Outsiders cover band. Although they covered a lot of obscure ‘60s singles, Conolly’s musical vision, talent for arrangements, and passionate performances made the Lyres’ recorded and live versions at least the equal of or even superior to the originals (before their set at the Carousel, a clued-in mixtaper played the original versions of some Lyres covers over the PA, like Confess by the New Colony Six, No Reason To Complain by the Alarm Clocks, and What A Girl Can’t Do by the Hangmen). As for Conolly’s original songs, I don’t think there’s any doubt among those who devote themselves to such things that he’s long since earned a full place in the pantheon among his heroes, not to mention younger musicians who look up to him as a major influence.
Gold standard they may be, but in truth the Lyres have always been a cult band and their real-world success has never matched their insider/outsider rep. Even though they’d made something of a name for themselves before releasing their debut LP in 1984, On Fyre — no relation to the Fyre Festival, but an excellent album — only sold a bit over 10,000 copies that year (which the label’s owner considered a success; see footnote). ***
A certain mystique has always surrounded Conolly and the Lyres, and it’s only gotten more burnished over the years. For a long time I never knew why he wanted to help Ann so much (but now I think I do), although he was tellin’ you girl that he really wanted her right now, he just wanted to love her till the sun shines and yes I know that’s a Kinks cover, to be someone who’ll treat you right now. Although he yearns for someone to teach him to forget her and he knows she’s got eyes that tell lies, on the other hand she pays the rent, he loves her still he always will, he’s got no reason to complain, he says I’m trying just to please you, it’s the way I feel about you (yeah, him and Pete Best!), he’s not like the other one, he’ll try anyway, so don’t give it up now. Here’s a heart; you won’t be sad anymore.
I believe someone once compared Conolly as a singer to a white James Brown, in that the words he sang were generally unintelligible to the average listener even if they came from the same place and spoke the same regional dialect as the band. (“Ah HO mah HO, ah HOO mah HOO” was the way the droll and exemplary Boston Rock writer Polly Campbell once transcribed his typical vocal.) Intelligibility aside, there’s a gravitas to his singing voice, a full-throated confidence that comes through loud and clear, matching the organ’s insistent propulsion. As a listener you can do little but emotionally agree wholeheartedly with whatever Jeff’s singing about, whether or not you understand it. It just feels like revealed truth.
To me anyway, She Pays The Rent and How Do You Know were two of the unofficial anthems of the young strivers of the old Boston rock scene. The Lyres were Boston, Boston was the Lyres. They were often aggressive and brusque, but never mean-spirited. Listening to them today, if you’re looking to discern any message behind that addictive beat and Conolly’s warbling, it’s about trying to be your best self, trying to be selfless and loving and optimistic against heavy odds even though God knows you don’t always live up to that ideal.
Jeff’s been workin’ in Boston now for just about 50 years (minus a little time off in California), playin’ on the weekends, drinkin’ his rock ‘n’ roll beer. Stuck in the clubs, waiting for the door that never appears, it’s only confirmed his fears. (Can you say “lifer”?) People told him he was going to make it, but how did they know what they were saying — after all, how do they know? People said he was going crazy, but they didn’t know the hassles he’d seen. He’s just saying: how do they know he was going to be big, how does he know what the girls were going to dig? How do they know he was to blame, how do they know he’s going down the drain? In the end, he’s decided he’s going to stick around Boston at least one more year. So, a happy ending, I guess (with a nervous sideways glance).
Anyway, here’s Polly’s concert review from 1985. Take yourself back there for a bit.
In music — and all art forms, really — the subject of real life is something for the artist to either run towards or away from. The question is, which way do you want to go? And if you choose the latter, when real life intrudes on the escapist fantasy, as it inevitably will, do you try to engage with it (“Take your broken heart and make it into art,” attributed to St. Carrie Fisher) or shut it out completely? And if your chosen genre is garage rock — well, who the hell wants to hear garage rock songs about getting cancer, growing old and watching your friends and relatives die, or government-sponsored murders anyway? No, best to leave that alone and stick to Hang On Sloopy. Sing about wanting to get that girl who lives way down in Diddy Wah Diddy, where they’re walkin’ the dog in hi-heel sneakers all day and all of the night. Save the real stuff for the memoir, if you care to write one.
So, with all my history with this band, how did I feel seeing them again last Friday night? Did I find myself back in 1986, standing in the sweaty leather-jacketed crowd close to the stage downstairs at the Rat in old, pre-gentrified Kenmore Square? No, it’s 2026 and a different dive bar in a different city. I’m at the Carousel Lounge, a circus-themed venue and a genuine piece of Old Austin — dating to 1963 — strung with holiday lights (it’s mid-February) with clowns, acrobats and a tightrope-walking monkey painted on the walls, on an almost deserted working-class block in North Central East, thinking Please, God, let them be the band I remember. I know they’re not kids anymore and I don’t expect them to be, but I want them to be the goddamn Lyres, I want Jeff Conolly in good form and ready to go.
By the time the band took the stage (actually a squarish wooden platform slightly higher than the floor) after three decent to really good opening acts had played their sets and gone, the crowd had gathered up front standing and fist-pumping just a few feet away from them. The room’s energy level had reached warp capability and full Happening status. Jeff Conolly stepped up to the electric organ. That’s him? Yes, it was indeed.
I can’t remember being in a concert venue where I felt so much love radiating toward the performer at center stage, and so much sheer unfiltered joy in general. Old friends were hugging. People were beaming. Strangers smiled at each other. It was a brief glimpse of a better world. I was wearing a Rat logo T-shirt since I owned one and it seemed appropriate for the evening. Several ex-Bostonians stopped to compliment me on it, and I was somewhat shocked when a woman who looked to be in her early 40s lamented to me that she was too young to have ever gone there (but yes it closed in late 1997, aaaaagh, that’s at least a whole generation ago now). Although I was starting to feel a bit like a living-history museum exhibit at this point, I realized I was just showing the flag at a garage rock revival meeting presided over by Conolly as the high pagan priest.
Jeff Conolly, like many of us, is not young anymore, nor does he look it, and he’s been ill. (Spoiler alert: I’m not 25 anymore, either!) He had to take a couple of short breaks during the set, resting in a chair on the side of the stage for a few minutes to avoid overexertion. It was understandable. Maybe the Lyres’ set wasn’t as long as a typical one would have been in 1989, and yet it still seemed like business as usual for the frontman: balls out or nothing. Conolly thought nothing of stopping mid-song because he didn’t like the sound levels, the way one of his bandmates was playing a chord, or something else. To be honest it was all a bit messy, but it was the Lyres in 2026 and it was nothing short of valiant and we were just happy and grateful to be in the room with them.
At some point as an active music listener and still occasional clubgoer, if you hang around long enough you realize that at some point you’ve gotten to be of an older generation, if not the oldest. (Shout out to all you 90-to-105-year-old Sinatra, Louis Prima and Artie Shaw fans!) Both the bands and their audience in such places may be irrelevant according to the marketing gurus, but we’re not done yet. If Jeff Conolly is going down I know he’ll go down swinging, screaming, and pounding away at his Vox Continental organ, and a lot of us will be in his corner. Hey, I don’t want to jinx him, so here’s hoping he’ll get well and stick around many more years, playing on the weekends and so forth but after all (EVERYBODY!!) how do you know? Give Jeff his 50-year solid gold pins from Vox and Farfisa, thank him for his service, elect him to all the halls of fame there are, and be grateful he still walks and rocks out among us.
Follow the Way of the Artist Formerly Known as Monoman, O my people, for he knows we all need the same things. Someone to heal you right now. (UH!) Someone to treat you right now. (UH!) Someone to love you right now. (UH!) Someone to take you to a Lyres concert…right now.
Because, after all, a promise is a promise.
[The videos: How Do You Know, in two parts for the grand finale. The second video is especially epic.]
***Source: Mike Dreese’s interview with Rick Harte, owner of Ace of Hearts Records, Boston Rock #58, December 1984. “(On Fyre) was released at the end of April and has remained steady right on through. It’s broken the 10,000 mark and is going for a great deal more because the overseas sales have been good already.” [For comparison, gold albums sell 500,000 copies; platinum albums, one million. Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms sold over 30 million copies in 1985, including one million CDs.]
I think ..that’s the Matter piece I wrote?
One of the highlights of my memories of that day was him playing me the reel to reel tape of the Left Banks’s Walk Away Renee! What an afternoon l!
That was beautiful man. I saw Dmz reunited at one point and I would swear on a stack of Bibles I saw the lyres in Brooklyn at one point where Jeff tried to stage dive and kind of missed. All in all great garage rock memories