POST NO. 13: THE NOISEBOY'S ROOTS

Remember three years ago when we were in the midst of a garage rock revival thanks to The Strokes and The White Stripes? Sure you do. That was a great time! We broke out our black leather jackets and tight, torn jeans, mussed up our hair, went out to the local dive bar, and got shitfaced every weekend! Man, my right ear is still ringing from the madness!

My moniker, The Noiseboy, was originally chosen as my DJ name several years ago when I began spinning in bars around town. Dating back to my early days as a bar DJ -- I was a college DJ before that, which is an entirely different creature -- I spun primarily garage rock, mixing in traditional rock and roll, '70s hard rock, punk, mod, and a bit of what I termed "grits" (outlaw and olden-times country). The name was inspired by '70s rock scribes Lester Bangs, Richard Meltzer, and Nick Tosches -- who jokingly referred to themselves as "the noiseboys" -- and then hung around when I needed an identity (tell me about it!) for Blogger.

My DJ days are hardly over, even though it's been well over a year since I gave up my regular gig at Mike & Molly's. In November, I'm going all the way back to my college roots to find a niche on the radio dial. As a wink and a nod to ideal of escapism that permeated the late-'60s/'70s, and in honor of Marc Feld aka Marc Bolan aka T. Rex, my show will likely be titled Life's a Gas.

So today, I offer a tribute (yes, my tongue is firmly planted in cheek) to the debut of "The Noiseboy" with a song from the original garage rock revival circa the late-'70s/early-'80s. One important thing missing from the heralded 21st Century garage revival is the sound itself: fuzz-tone guitar, Farfisa organ, sleazy attitude, and frenzied energy. That wasn't missing from the '80s revival; they got it right that time around as evidenced by bands and artists like The Chesterfield Kings, The Fleshtones, Billy Childish, and The Cynics.

Chief among those bands was Boston's The Lyres, who were led by a prep-school dropout by the name of Jeff Conolly. Conolly collected two things: Farfisa organs and records. He earned his longtime nickname "Monoman" because of his obsessive collecting of vinyl, which you can read all about in Brett Milano's book Vinyl Junkies (highly recommended if you're pulling jury duty!). After his late-'70s punk band DMZ split, Conolly started The Lyres and headed into the studio during the summer of 1980 to record a handful of songs that were never given an official release. For your enjoyment, here's one of 'em (taken from the Lyres album AHS 1005).

The Lyres - "She Pays the Rent"

For more on The Lyres, go here or here.