Lyres (band)
American garage rock band based in Massachusetts
Lyres were a Boston-based garage rock band led by Jeff "Monoman" Conolly. Formed in 1979, their most popular songs include "Don't Give It Up Now", "She Pays The Rent" and "Help You Ann".
History
The original lineup of the band featured Conolly (organ and vocals), Rick Coraccio (bass), Ricky Carmel (guitar), and Paul Murphy (drums). Conolly, Corracio and Murphy played together in the punk/garage rock band DMZ.
In 1981, The Boston Phoenix described Lyres as "the city's reigning garage band." In December of that year, the New Musical Express (NME) praised the band's first EP, AHS 1005, and its "infectious rhythms". NME's Richard Grabel wrote that Lyres had "an understanding of the dynamics of interplay between rhythm guitar and cheesy organ that borders on the remarkable" and that "what they do is too perfect to ever be out of fashion."
Former DMZ members Coraccio, Murphy, Peter Greenberg, and Mike Lewis all rejoined Conolly in Lyres at some point from 1979 to the early 2000s. The A-Bones drummer Miriam Linna (a former drummer for the Cramps) and the A-Bones and Yo La Tengo bass player Mike Lewis filled in with Lyres for a show in 1986. Stiv Bators of the Dead Boys and Lords of the New Church, and Wally Tax of the Outsiders also recorded with the Lyres in the late 1980s.
Connolly moved to California in 1989, and Lyres became less active. They performed off and on until 2026, going through a large number of personnel changes. Conolly was the only constant.
“Lyres (band)” enters the record as american garage rock band based in Massachusetts. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Lyres, band and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3782554. VIAF identifies the subject as 148345826. The Library of Congress control number is no2001048978. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1979, 1981, 1005 and 1986.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lyres (band)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.