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Lyre, Lyre, pants on fyre! >> Monoman Jeff Conolly, Boston's garage boss with the big hot sauce by FLIPPED OUT
This crazed cat's been fronting Beantown's purveyors of garage-rockin' mayhem, the Lyres, for close to 20 thankless years, and it's already been a decade since local '60s punkniks have witnessed Monoman's madness. And yeah, baby, he's still at it, as committed as ever to his microphone, battered Vox organ, and soul-drenched pound o' sound! The Matador label has recently reissued the Lyres' first four 1981-88 releases in shiny new digital format, but Conolly's story goes back to even before the Lyres ever gave ears a whack--to 1976, to be exact. "I tried to reinvent myself as a singer," recalls Conolly. "I still don't know what sparked that. I just started getting really weird!" Mono Jeff found himself front and centre of a searing, sneering, seething Stooges-meets-Standells combo called DMZ, who unfortunately got lost in the shuffle of the Pistols-led punk upheaval. "We'd do these gigs splitting the bill with the Jam," Conolly says, "and we'd destroy 'em! They were just so mannered compared to us." In any case, the deliriously depraved DMZ dirt never got caught quite correctly on vinyl, thanks to former Turtles Flo and Eddie's too clean production job on DMZ's only official album. DMZ finally went splitsville but it didn't take too long for the Lyres to catch fyre in 1979. "The Lyres came out of being really, really angry that DMZ never realized its potential. People quit DMZ and one of the guys in the band threw me down the stairs," says Conolly, grimacing in recollection. The Lyres' first full-length 1984 platter, On Fyre, remains to this day an essential ravin' record chockful of fury and tremolo guitar-powered floor-shakin' energy, including Monoman's immortal masterpiece "Help You Ann." "We were the only garage band at that time that toured so heavily, trying to eke out a living," Connolly claims. "But ultimately there wasn't enough interest in what we were doing to sustain a band." That could account for the continually changing Lyres line-up--a real revolving door of band members. Also, Monoman has the reputation of being a perfectionist and a particularly tough taskmaster. And then there's the not-so-little matter of his brain candy consumption, as well as all that sauce that caused his liver to go all a-quiver. "I'm not on any substances at all now," Conolly maintains. "I don't even drink. I work 60 to 70 hours a week in a record store." Luckily, Jeff has always found some similarly '60's punk-damaged henchmen to help him bash out his berserk brand of garage slam blam. He's also never stopped putting out pulverizing platters, some more inspired than others, usually made up of a mad mixture of Monoman originals and superbly chosen covers of obscure '60s crunchers. "With my covers, I've tried to figure out the riddles of the records I thought were really mysterious and had secrets," Connolly says of his versions of tunes by, f'instance Dutch beat gods the Outsiders or the acid fried Rocky Erickson. As far as his perceived place in today's mall-ternative music world is concerned, Conolly doesn't mince his words. "I try not to see myself in today's music scene. People in Boston just care about what's on MTV or who's on the cover of Spin. I get treated okay, but I'm always pretty much taken for granted." Still, Monoman makes for one mean cult figure and in garage-punk circles his persistence, sheer unpredictability and twisted talents have only ensured his status as a loony legend of contemporary rock 'n' roll. Oh, and by the way, if you're still trying to figure out how hot sauce, Spanish señoritas, and pure '60s punkitude connect in the Conolly cranium, tough luck, chump! Maybe catching Conolly and his Lyres cohorts (3/4 of the original line up!) will help provide the answer to that particular riddle. Or maybe not. After all, baby, some mysteries may be meant only for Monoman to understand! The Lyres invade Café Campus with the Spaceshits and Deadly snakes Saturday, July 4, 8pm, $8. Guest writer Flipped Out is the host of CKUT's Subterranean Jungle
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Alrighty, baby, riddle me this: what in tarnation could taste-bud-torturing hot sauce, spicy Spanish señoritas and scorchin' '60s punk-a-rama possibly have in common? Drawing a blank, ain'tcha?! Well, lemme give you a clue: they all find a peculiar place in the mangled mind, used and abused body and eternally teenaged soul of Boston's one and only Jeff Conolly, otherwise known as Monoman.