A Promise Is a Promise

by

The Lyres

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It's hard to top two of the best, fiercest rock'n'roll albums ever made (1984's "On Fyre" and 1986's "Lyres Lyres"), and compared to those two discs, Jeff Conolly's ensuing record was kind of a letdown when it came out in '88. But with the passage of time, the album is a cut above most of what "rock" has devolved into since (maybe The Hives aside).

Fellow reviewer K.C. Fennessy has already listed the many covers and their origins (Monoman has always had good taste in covers), so no need to rehash. The "buyer beware" isn't a ripoff alert; rather, it's an alert that different versions of the CD have different extra tracks.

Amazon and Fennessy have the 16 tracks from the Matador reissue listed, and that's what I thought I was buying. Instead, I got a copy of a reissue from the Georgia label Fundamental Music, which has 21 tracks. It has five extra live tracks (origin not listed, but I think they showed up on some Ace of Hearts singles in the late '80s), all live Lyres staples: "Jezebel" (The Teddy Boys''64 raveup of Frankie Laine), "Go-Go Girl" (a tear through Marc Bolan's "Mustang Ford"), "Help You Ann," "Don't Give It Up Now" and another Sonics standard, "Cinderella" (which Jeff's been doing since his DMZ days). All are loud and distorted for your listening pleasure. Just be warned: It sounds like Conolly was messed up that night (not uncommon, which is why I stopped going to live Lyres shows), and this version of "Don't Give It Up Now" finds him ad-libbing a crass line about sex and AIDS.

Also, "We Sell Soul" is on the Matador re-release, but not the Fundamental CD. But the song, a 5-star version of Roky Erickson's first A-side with The Spades, first appeared on the cassette version (though not the CD) of the 1990 Warner Bros. Erickson tribute, "Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye," and can also be found on two '90s Lyres CDs on Taang!: The EP "Nobody But Lyres" and the full-length collection "Some Lyres."