Lilys

August 29 - September 5, 1 9 9 6 [Music Reviews]

Lilys bloom

Kurt Heasley goes the distance for pop purity
by Brett Milano
Lilys frontman Kurt Heasley is drinking iced coffee outdoors in Central Square, chewing over his musical reference points. "I find a lot more joy in the Velvet Underground than in Nelson," he notes, "And sometimes I stare at girls' butts when they get off bicycles." Sure enough, he's spotted exactly that on the sidewalk a block away. Not that Heasley is being purposely elusive, just that he goes off on a lot of tangents.
As does his music. The Lilys' Better Can't Make Your Life Better (Sire/Elektra) -- the looseknit band's third album and major-label debut -- sounds at first like a standard pop CD, but it's too odd for that. You might call it one of the most sophisticated bubblegum albums ever made. The tunes never resolve into straightforward hooks; neither do the lyrics ever lay their meanings on the line. And the more intricate they get, the more Heasley's inclined to throw on an ironically sweet back-up chorus or '60s guitar. It sounds for all the world like what would happen if Frank Zappa wrote songs for the Bay City Rollers.
"It's `Louie Louie' with changes," Heasley notes. "It's '60s in the sense that a G-chord is '60s. I wasn't born in the '60s [Heasley is 25], so I could just as easily have made it sound like the '20s. A 12-string is my favorite instrument, but out of no particular liking of the Beatles or the Byrds do I love 12-string guitars. In fact, I probably heard it first from the Pale Saints." Heasley appears to have absorbed pop music as obsessively as anyone I can think of. He notes, for example, that he liked the Dream Syndicate's first couple of singles but lost interest when their debut album came out. Nothing too odd, you might think, except that he was about 10 when those were released. So he knows history well enough to resist easy categories for his own stuff.
"They're deciding now that orchestrated pop is the big thing. Big deal. I've had Pet Sounds all my life, and people are really getting a boner for it now? Like they spent the '80s listening to nothing but Animotion and forgot that Sgt. Pepper was around?"
A few entertaining digressions later he notes, "This is why I never did interviews before; people thought I was kidding. But after the last album, they thought I was the most depressing person on the planet." That was Eccsame the Photon Band (SpinArt, 1994), recorded in the wake of a bad break-up. "I was completely heartbroken and I let it rule me for two weeks. You can hear that I'm in the void. I figured I could start there and expand out of the blackness, instead of just sitting in it."
Much of the new album was written in the studio during the sessions. Heasley figures that he's less inclined to be a perfectionist about his songs if he enters the studio with no songs at all.
"Believe me, it's a much more frustrating experience if I walk in knowing exactly what I want. I can write better than I can play, so I'd rather sound like someone who can barely do anything." And he stayed away from modern digitized production -- one of the banes of his existence.
"When I record bands [at the .45 Studio in Hartford, where he engineers and produces], I make sure they don't spend $75,000 on a record. They can spend the major-label money on something else, like a life." Later he notes that "I was just listening to George Harrison's Somewhere in England -- you know, that fucking terrible album? But it would be beautiful if you could hear it the way I heard it, if you could strip away the producer's input."
The Lilys haven't been a Boston band until very recently. Heasley has run different versions of the band from Denver, Louisville, Washington, and Hartford (Velocity Girl's Archie Moore is the most famous alumnus). "Twenty-seven people in five and a half years. Most people who were in the Lilys wind up leaving pop music altogether. One of the original members is a choreographer in Prague. Most of them are smart-asses, which is one of the main criteria for joining. You like melody, you like rhythm, you're a wise-ass and you can count to four? Good, you're in the band now." The Lilys play T.T. the Bear's Place next Friday, September 6.

OUTLETS RETURN
Why is Saturday night's Outlets reunion (at T.T. the Bear's Place, with Underball and the Hornets) unlike all the other Outlets reunions?
"They're not reunions anymore -- we're back," says guitarist Rick Barton, calling from an outdoor phone, on a camping trip with his kid. Sure enough, the original line-up of the Outlets -- Barton, his brother Dave on lead vocals and guitar, bassist Michael "Whitey" White, and busy punk drummer Walter Gustafson (also of Mung and Gang Green), the same band who cut the seminal "Knock Me Down" single in 1980 -- returns to active duty this weekend. They've already booked a follow-up gig (October 4 at the Rat) and put some new material in the can.
Reunions can be bittersweet occasions, but the Outlets have a lot on their side. They were in their teens when they first got together, so they're not exactly over the hill yet. Their sound -- punk-rock dynamics with strong pop hooks -- isn't a million miles away from what sells right now, and they've sounded at least as sharp at recent get-togethers as they did in their heyday.
"The new songs are punk and pop, so I guess they're Outlets songs," Rick says. "The time seemed right to get back together; hey, maybe we just wanted to capitalize on the punk-rock movement. But everyone told us we still had it, so we might as well go for it."
Only the unavailability of Dave Barton, who went to LA and back in search of a music career, kept the band from getting together sooner, but Rick says that this reunion is less for money than for fun. "We're all pretty successful in our careers right now -- I've got a painting business, and my brother's selling real estate. So we've got a little food on the table; let's get out there and play."

VELVET CRUSH UPDATE
Providence popsters Velvet Crush were never in a big hurry about making albums -- they've released only two in a six-year career -- so it's no surprise that their gig tomorrow (Friday) at T.T. the Bear's Place will not be in support of their long-overdue follow-up to 1993's stellar Teenage Symphonies to God (Epic). But they will be playing much of the new material, which is now set for release in March.
So far Velvet Crush have cut nearly 20 songs in three different sessions produced by longtime ally Mitch Easter. Now that their album's delayed, they'll use the time to record a few more, then pick the 10 best songs from the batch.
"We're not thrilled about the delay, but we figure there's only about a million bands putting albums out, so we'll use the breathing room," guitarist Jeffrey Borchardt says. They're aiming for a simpler, more direct album; they've shelved its original title, Heavy Changes, and instead plan to call it just Velvet Crush.
"We still want to use that other title for a big, sprawling mess of a double album that we plan to make somewhere down the road," Borchardt explains. After touring with a bunch of guest guitarists -- Easter, Tommy Keene, and Gigolo Aunt Dave Gibbs -- they've found a permanent fourth member in former Six Finger Satellite ax man Pete Phillips. "It may seem like an odd match, but we've known him for years and years. You always find the right person in the last place you look."

DANDO/OASIS SONG AXED
One of the selling points of the forthcoming Lemonheads album, Car Button Cloth (due mid October on Tag/Atlantic), was supposed to be "Purple Parallelogram," a straight-ahead rocker that Evan Dando wrote with Noel Gallagher of Oasis. The only problem is that you won't get to hear it. In an 11th-hour decision, the song has been yanked from the album, which is now being remastered accordingly. The official story (from the Lemonheads' label publicist) is that Dando felt that the song was unfinished, specifically that it lacked a middle-eight. The unofficial story (from a muckraking site on the Internet) is that Gallagher insisted the song be pulled, claiming Dando was cashing in on his name. (For the record, I've heard the song and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it.) "Purple Parallelogram" did make it to the advance tapes and CDs, which are now instant collectors' items.

COMING UP
A strong double bill of singer-songwriters tonight (Thursday) at Cambridge's Lizard Lounge: Merrie Amsterberg, who recently made a terrific demo at Fort Apache, shares the bill with Jenifer Jackson, a former Bostonian now in New York. The new, reshuffled Quivvver play the Middle East, ex-Raindog Mark Cutler brings his Useful Things to the Tam, and Laurie Geltman plays T.T. the Bear's Place . . . Chris Doherty's new outfit Hamerd play the Rat tomorrow (Friday), Chuck begin two funky nights at the Phoenix Landing, and Dead disciples Slipknot are at the Linwood. And Ultra Breakfast have a single-release party at the Middle East, with Trona, Syrup USA, and a solo set by Mary Timony . . . Ethnic popsters the Wild Colonials begin a Saturday-night residency at Bill's Bar this week; the Big Bad Bollocks are at Mama Kin, and the really awful Moxy Fruvous are at the Middle East.
Groovasaurus are at Johnny D's Sunday. New Orleans's Glyn Styler, one of the few original voices to come out of the lounge trend, plays the Middle East; you can also catch him at Charlie's Tap Monday . . . The Red House Painters, the former cult band who now record for the Island-distributed label run by schlockmeister John Hughes, play Mama Kin on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Barbara Manning, who richly deserves her indie-darling status and then some, plays the Middle East with Damon & Naomi opening.