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Gavin B. · 08-27-2009, 11:03 AM

Song of the Day

Photo of "Monoman" Jeff Connelly at a Lyres' 1980 performance at the Rat in Boston.

Don't Give It Up Now- The Lyres I was taken aback the first time I went to YouTube and there wasn't a single song by my old Boston homeboys, the Lyres. The Lyres were led by Farfisa organ king and tamborine master Jeff Connelly aka Monoman. Monoman earned his nickname for his obsessive collecting of old singles by garage bands and the Lyres played the same kind of ? and the Mysterians, Misunderstood, Seeds, Stooges, and Barry and the Remains variety of garage rock.

The Lyre's were technically a proto-garage band who were part of the Boston punk scene in the late Seventies and early Eighties but Monoman's faithful renderings of his songs sound so authentic, many folks think the Lyres' music is from the Sixties era when they first hear it. It's ashamed how great Boston bands like Mission of Burma, the Pixies and the Lyres got passed over by the music industry and were only appreciated long after they had gone their seperate ways. The Lyres deserved a whole lot more. They were a wicked good live band.

I decided to produce this homemade video of the Lyres song Don't Give It Up Now, so they had at least one song posted on YouTube. For the video content, I mostly used old photographs, gig flyers and scans of old album covers by the Lyres.

08-27-2009, 11:03 AM	#67 (permalink)
Gavin B. Model Worker Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 1,248	Song of the Day Photo of "Monoman" Jeff Connelly at a Lyres' 1980 performance at the Rat in Boston. Don't Give It Up Now- The Lyres I was taken aback the first time I went to YouTube and there wasn't a single song by my old Boston homeboys, the Lyres. The Lyres were led by Farfisa organ king and tamborine master Jeff Connelly aka Monoman. Monoman earned his nickname for his obsessive collecting of old singles by garage bands and the Lyres played the same kind of ? and the Mysterians, Misunderstood, Seeds, Stooges, and Barry and the Remains variety of garage rock. The Lyre's were technically a proto-garage band who were part of the Boston punk scene in the late Seventies and early Eighties but Monoman's faithful renderings of his songs sound so authentic, many folks think the Lyres' music is from the Sixties era when they first hear it. It's ashamed how great Boston bands like Mission of Burma, the Pixies and the Lyres got passed over by the music industry and were only appreciated long after they had gone their seperate ways. The Lyres deserved a whole lot more. They were a wicked good live band. I decided to produce this homemade video of the Lyres song Don't Give It Up Now, so they had at least one song posted on YouTube. For the video content, I mostly used old photographs, gig flyers and scans of old album covers by the Lyres.