Mod-A-Day: The Lyres

In 1979 Jeff Connolly a few guys got together and created one of the longest running garage bands ever. Here we are nearly 30 years on and the band is still lauded as a leader in the genre and their records have quite the impact. The band? The Lyres. With a sound that is at times brooding, and at others driven, their sixties influenced rock sound can be compared to The Seeds, The Animals, Them, or even The Kinks.

The Lyres are more garage than rock or punk, and that's what makes it interesting. There's no cookie cutter production here, no label excec "fixing" things in post production. This is all Lyres, from the screeching yells of "No Reason to Complain" to the sixties pop of "Don't Give It up Now", their sound is every bit their own, even on their covers -- of which they do a fair amount. Through it all though you will hear their signature stamp, a sort of pscyhadelic pastiche over sixties garage rock, with it being neither exactly one or the other. Surprisingly there is a fair amount of soul to be found here, of a blue-eyed kind mixed with rock to be sure, but it's all serious soul none the less. And of course you get Lyres front man Connelly's farfisa organ through out, kind of like the type face that holds a printed page together.

The Lyres -- You'll Never Do It Baby