Tune Tag #65 with Matt McClure: Lilys, Lickerish Quartet, Beck, Mavis Staples, Wilco, Three O'Clock, Steve Earle, Quick
Remember Pop Rocks? Blue Razz was the nazz, natch! Well, we got a little pop, and a little rock in our Tune Tag today! You may actually discover a new fave flavor!
Greetings, Matt! Polydactyl Tag! You’re IT!
Tune Tag welcomes singer/songwriter, !
Matt: I grew up a nervous kid on the Jersey coast, in the middle of the Pine Barrens. I’ve been working professionally in the video game industry for the past 25 years.
I was the singer and songwriter for the bands The Figurants and Red Kitchen, and have been making a go of it on my own for the past few years.
I’ve released 4 solo albums including my latest In Situ, that you can stream everywhere. I’m just about done with my next album, Eastern Outs, which should see release before the end of the year.
Limited-run copies of my debut album, Goodbye Felons, are available on vinyl (for the cheap) on eBay and Discogs.
I’m new to Substack, so I’m still getting my feet wet and figuring out how I want to make it work, but you can expect lyric art, videos, song stories and journal entries! Thanks for having me, Brad!!
🎵Stream Matt’s songs, also, via SoundCloud, by clicking here!🎵
Last week, we Halloweened with of Earworms and Song Loops:
Next week, we’ll enjoy the Tune Tag company of guest, , of Of a Sober Mind!
Matt’s song #1 sent to Brad: Lilys, “A Nanny in Manhattan,” 1996
Matt’s rationale: I chose this song as a sort of meatball right over the plate, considering it’s got a lot of big themes to choose from: NYC, jealousy, infidelity, film criticism, nannies, stalking, and trains.
It’s also just an incredible piece of writing and production on a classic, wildly under-appreciated album. I’m lucky enough to call this song’s composer, Kurt Heasley (above), a friend throughout the years, and I even pitched him a video idea for this very song using goat puppets (get it? “Nanny”?). I’ve thought so much about this video that never happened that it kinda feels like it did!
Brad’s response: Bits’n’pieces from the band’s Wiki page: “The Lilys have gained a reputation for sounding very similar to other artists and bands over the years, with Michael Sandlin of Pitchfork Media going so far as saying, “You might say Lilys frontman, Kurt Heasley, is a world-class thief.”
But, as one journalist (Vickie Chang in a 2006 OC Weekly in Orange County, California) put it, “I know we’re supposed to hate bands that sound too much like other bands, but the difference with The Lilys is that they do it so blatantly and so shamelessly, that it’s somehow rendered okay.”
Veteran rock critic,
of Substack’s And It Don’t Stop, described the band’s sound (in The Village Voice in 1999) as “amplified watercolors.”Brad’s song #1 sent to Matt: The Three O’Clock, “Neon Telephone,” 1988
Matt’s response: I could be wrong, but I believe the commonality between these two songs may lie in a similarity of story: Both are takes on troubles with the narrator’s ladies. “A Nanny in Manhattan”’s story implies infidelity, while “Neon Telephone” outlines a malaise that drains the joy/connection from a romantic entanglement.
They also both feature a telephone prominently, a wonderful parallel of modern isolation and communication breakdowns. So yeah, maybe that’s it.
Brad’s rationale: Jason Falkner is listed as having once been a member of Lilys (but, then, 58 others have been, also! Makes me wonder if I ever was, perhaps unwittingly or against my will! Falkner was also in The Three O’Clock in ‘88 for the Vermillion album (produced by former Liverpool art rockers, Deaf School’s sax player, Ian Ritchie, above, for Prince’s Paisley Park Records, distributed by Warner Bros., for whom Deaf School recorded three albums, late-’70s), from whence comes “Neon Telephone.”
wrote about Deaf School recently:
The following year, Falkner joined Jellyfish, a longtime favorite of FRONT ROW & BACKSTAGE, of which this is one example:
Oh, and there’s this: The song (formerly known as a tune) was written by The Artist Formerly Known as Joey Coco (a thinly-disguised Artist Formerly Known as Prince, formerly known as an unpronounceable symbol), with backing vocals by Wendy and Lisa, formerly known as Clarence and Heathcliff:
Matt’s song #2: Wilco, “Jesus, Etc.,” 2002
Matt’s rationale: I’m choosing “Jesus, Etc” primarily because it mentions tall buildings, and that similar line in “Neon Telephone” immediately reminded me of this Wilco classic. And, I’m sure Substack’s
is as big a fan of Prince as I am. Not to mention his drumming lad, , with his own Substack!Brad’s response: That’s exactly what I thought, Matt! You just got it before I would have!
Wilco, live on Letterman, with “Jesus, Etc.,” 2008:
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