1. Dimes Make Dollars 2:24
2. Socs Hip 7:12
3. Accepting Applications At University 2:51
4. And One (On One) 4:06
5. Leo Ryan (Our Pharoah’s Slave) 7:18
6. Solar Is Here 1:42
7. The Spirits Merchant 4:27
8. The Lost Victory 1:42
9. The Generator 2:17
10. A Tab For The Holiday 2:15

Formed in the early 90s, The Lilys have been a constantly mutating vehicle for the ever-changing musical tendencies of singer/songwriter Kurt Heasley. The sub-MBV shoe-gazing flavours of first two albums ‘In The Presence Of Nothing’ and ‘Ecsame The Photon Band’ have never really grabbed me, although others have found good qualities in them. The second of these only really bursts into life with two sudden explosions of power pop, giving a hint at the drastic change in direction Heasley was about to take. A brief spell as bassist with The Apples In Stereo (whose ‘Touch The Water’ he would go on to cover) seemed to further ignite Heasley’s interest in more 60s-influenced pop music, but the results couldn’t have been more different from the retro acts clogging up the charts at the tail end of the Britpop era; third album ‘Better Can’t Make Your Life Better’ managed to put a fresh spin on over-used Kinks/Who influences due to incredibly complex and skewed song-structures, fitting more ideas into one song than most bands managed across an entire album. After director Roman Coppola used single ‘A Nanny In Manhattan’ (a song that careers off with such unhinged abandon that it collapses in a heap before it has even hit the two-minute mark) to soundtrack a Levis ad, the band found themselves with a UK hit on their hands; a hastily remixed and re-sequenced version of the album was promoted via a memorably madcap invasion of the British media, including an appearance on the Richard & Judy show and a hoarse live performance on Top Of The Pops. Unfortunately, the subtle sweetening applied to the new version of the album was not enough to make its wayward inventiveness sink in on the first (or even second or third) listen, and the charity shops and music & video exchanges of London Town were soon clogged up with unwanted copies of the CD. Ironically, given that this brief excursion into public consciousness happened in the UK, the resultant major record label deal took them away from their home-from-home at Che Records and landed them with Sire, who opted to release the follow up album in the US only. Hence, ‘The 3 Way’ turned up briefly and unnoticed in the UK as an expensive import, and then vanished without a trace. This is a shame as it is easily Kurt Heasley’s finest achievement. The 60s influences and complex song structures are carried over from the previous album, but with an increased sophistication and playfulness that is extremely infectious, finding room in its short running time for both poignancy and slapstick. Heasley also displayed a new found ability to spin out some of his ideas over longer time frames – two of the songs break the 7‑minute barrier without feeling a second too long.

The album begins deceptively simply with ‘Dimes Make Dollars’ which is based round a spiky 3‑note guitar riff, like the start of The Kinks’ version of ‘Milk Cow Blues’ stuck on a loop for two minutes, picking up a like-minded organ for parts of the journey. Lyrically it appears to extol the virtues of the ‘High View Hotel’, with Kurt barking out his promotional spiel on the verses and an unexpected comedy banjo joining in on a chorus which comes across as an extremely groovy advertising jingle, as if one of the corporate plugs on ‘The Who Sell Out’ has been developed into a proper song. Track two, ‘Socs Hip’, is the first of the seven minute epics and over the course of its running time keeps the listener trying to guess where it’s going to go next, starting off as a soul stomper before going through a brief tango and then settling into a 60s beat group feel. But then it’s back to the opening one-note funky guitar riff and the whole cycle repeats once more. Despite this apparent restlessness the song manages to flow organically through all the changes, and is fleshed out with ornate backing vocals, twiddly harpsichord and a discreet string quartet. ‘Accepting Applications At University’ sounds like The Beatles trying to do Motown with jazz inflections, the backing vocals shadowing the lead vocal at every turn. Again it manages to be super-sophisticated and great fun at the same time. A strange off-key ethnic flute introduces ‘And One (On One)’ which rides along on a slower bass groove, with a measured harpsichord riff, artificial strings, a talking fuzz guitar on the chorus and a great high note from Heasley at the climax. Then it’s into ‘Leo Ryan (Our Pharoah’s Slave)’, the other lengthy track and the funkiest thing The Lilys ever did. For the first 4 minutes or so it is a relatively straight-forward, if rather cryptic, slice of 60s disco, but then the fake strings start stabbing away and it breaks down into a guitar solo that sounds like Robbie Krieger playing the sitar. Fuzz guitar pushes things back on track before a stray saxophone suddenly appears out of nowhere and tootles pleasingly for a few bars, heralding a brief coda that crashes into a chaos of sax, harpsichord and cymbals. For those who have been unable to resist dancing round the room to this 7‑minute funkathon, ‘Solar Is Here’ provides a handy winding down period. It’s a brief piece of laid-back jazz with a mysterious voice intoning in Italian in the right channel. The waltzy ‘The Spirits Merchant’ repeats the trick of having the backing vocals repeat the lead vocal a beat or two behind, and becomes an album highlight due to what could be loosely termed the verse (the structures are too unconventional to be able to refer to verses and choruses in the normal sense). Heasley sings a melody so pretty that it’s as if he has decided to be genuinely affecting rather than merely clever for a change. It might be the high vocal register, or the reference to the ocean, but it puts me in mind of something from the downbeat second side of ‘The Beach Boys Today’. Then it’s into the home stretch with a closing trio of succinct ditties that finish proceedings off in a hurry. ‘The Lost Victory’ sounds like it is going to be a more sensibly structured song, but barely a minute in seems to lose its way with a puzzled two chord riff as Heasley sings about ‘a message lost in the translation’, which could apply to most of the lyrics on the album. ‘The Generator’ is built around a fidgety guitar and piano riff, taking in a chorus that rhymes ‘carrots’ with ‘parrots’, and concluding with an abrupt twisted organ note that leads directly into the insane final track ‘A Tab For The Holiday’. This fades in uncertainly and then becomes a deliriously catchy mixture of George Formby and The Monkees, with overlapping vocals, the return of the comedy banjo and a toy piano hurled into the middle of the room. After two minutes it cuts to a jazzy coda before somebody slams a door shut.

‘The 3 Way’ runs to barely more than 36 minutes, but is so packed full of ideas and invention that it is a handy album to have in your collection for one of those days where you would like to spend all day listening to records but only have time for one quickie. This album does the job nicely. It throws the best bits of all your favourite 60s bands into a blender, rearranges the chunks into complicated but pleasing patterns, and then plays the result at twice the speed. The next Lilys album ‘Precollection’ saw Kurt form yet another new line-up and take his music in a more primeval and introspective direction, at times suggestive of David Bowie undergoing hypnotherapy. A slow-burner, it makes for a rewarding experience if given time and, as with ‘Better Can’t Make Your Life Better’, is available in two versions. Retitled ‘The Lilys’ for its UK release it was subject to a rethink regarding the tracklisting and cover art. ‘The 3‑Way’ never got a second chance, which meant it got somewhat lost at the time, but thankfully Kurt and this phase of his band* got it just right on the first attempt.

* After I’d posted clips of The Lilys various UK TV performances on YouTube I received a message from bass guitarist David Shuman. I couldn’t resist asking him about ‘The 3 Way’ and how the band went about recording Kurt’s often complicated songs. Seems that just as John French took on the job of transcribing Captain Beefheart’s oddball compositions on ‘Trout Mask Replica’ so that the rest of The Magic Band could attempt to play them, Dave to some extent played a similar role on the ‘The 3 Way’:

“Regarding the songs, I could write quite a bit about how some of them came about, but the two long ones sort of just sprang out of Kurt, and I had to go to a lot of effort to slow him down and document all the parts. Essentially with all of these songs I had to really define the forms and feels with Aaron [Sperske, drummer] while we recorded, with much of the guitars being laid on afterwards. It was quite a bit of fun to do some of those songs, and I was really happy with what we came up with.”