You're Never Low with the Lilys

By Jason Hunter

ne of my favorite "L's" are the Lilys. The Lilys are actually Kurt Heasley and a revolving cast of musicians. This fluctuating cast is the primary reason I love the Lilys - there is so much variety in their releases from 1991 to 1999. Some of my favorite tracks are when Kurt is trying to out bloody My Bloody Valentine such as "Claire Hates Me", "Tone Bender", "Hermit Crab", and "Collider". Yet, it's the fuzzy pop sensibilities of the A Brief History of Amazing Letdowns EP and the brilliantly mad Better Can't Make Your Life Better that get me out of my seat, playing air guitar and/or drums. The Amazing Letdowns EP is the best of the two worlds the Lilys inhabit. It's got My Bloody Valentine's wall of guitars and great sunny-day pop melodies. What makes Better Can't such a brilliantly mad release is that it's a tribute to stream of consciousness songwriting wrapped around an appreciation for the Kinks' sound. I can never decide which song on this album I like the best - it shifts with every listen - and some of the lyrics are laugh-out-loud bizzaro funny. In listening to these releases, I remember so many odd and disparate memories about my college years - doing an impromptu college radio fundraising show based around the Eccsame The Photon Band LP, ironing the dress shirts I worn to my internship to the Amazing Letdown EP, receiving a copy of In The Presence Of Nothing from Spin Art's mail order department with a hand-written note about how they found the out-of-print CD laying around and it was mine. All those memories returned listening to the Lilys for this post. Also, I remember that this band has two songs that make my top ten favorite drum fills within a song list - "Hermit Crab" and "Better Can't Make Your Life Better". I wanted to include a link to the LP version of "Ginger" because it's such a great pick-you-up song. This morning I was in a bad mood in the worst way, but after a few spins of this song things are much brighter. "Ginger," as seen in the video above, is from the A Brief History of Amazing Letdowns EP. It's a fun, frisky, smile inducing song.