'90s Shoegaze Pioneers Lilys Announce February East Coast Dates

'90s shoegaze pioneers Lilys have announced February East Coast tour dates. The band's East Coast tour will include shows in Philadelphia, Baltimore and New York City and more. All upcoming shows and ticket links are listed below. The Philadelphia show will include visuals by Klip Collective and marks the first time the band has played in town since 2015.

"There is an energetic shift at play over the last 12 months, away from the dominating cultural commodity of outrage," Kurt Heasley, frontman, founder, and sole constant member of highly influential indie rock band Lilys says. Lily's "Casablanca" tour is here. Acting supervisor Don De Vore (Collapsing Scenery), a Lily for twenty years now, remarks that " I have a great respect for these songs, so I'm almost glad they haven't been overplayed. I've gotten together some of the best musicians to pay proper tribute to them."

While the Lily's musical style and approach shifted continually in its history, their early recordings, including the stunning debut album In the Presence of Nothing, were strongly influenced by My Bloody Valentine. The Lilys' first seven- inch single "February Fourteenth," released on Slumberland Records in 1991, even gives direct tribute to their impact. It's important to note that MBV's own frontman Kevin Shields is a huge fan of Kurt Heasley's work, and in his book on Loveless for Continuum's 33 1/3 series, writer Mike McGonigal called the Lilys "the only post-MBV 'shoegaze' band that mattered."

1994's Eccsame the Photon Band, described as a "hallucinatory revelation" by Marc Hogan of Pitchfork, marks the Lily's shift to a slower, moodier, and more spaced-out sound. "I went closest to what my 23 year-old brain could stand with Eccsame- to the edge of my own mortality and sanity," Heasley says. "as far as the period, the energy, the zeitgeist of what we were intending, that was the only time we ever did it." An imminent, meticulously remastered vinyl version on a newly revitalized Frontier Records will please fans. "There's no reason that should be a $200 record," Kurt says.

In 2021 the released an expanded version of their classic collection A Brief History of Amazing Letdowns (originally a 10" on spinART) as a double LP (order). These recordings, made in Philadelphia 1993-4, present what Heasley terms "basically a maximum listen, which properly represents that transitional phase" between the 1992 Slumberland debut In the Presence of Nothing and their second album Eccsame the Photon Band (originally released by spinART, then reissued by Frontier).

"These performances are bringing the personalities --both players and patrons-- to the forefront with the largest mythical synthesis," Heasley says. "The songs largely cover the first epoch '90-'95, but that's only most of the set." "I always say that Kurt and I can play guitar for like seven hours straight and not miss a note because we always listen for each other's mistakes and exploit each other's mistakes and have that sort of psychic connection," Devore says.

"Playing is Evan Weiss of Girls and Sparks on bass; Chris Colley of School of Seven Bells on percussion; Matty McDermott of Nymph on cosmic pedal steel; and Evan Weiss on bass (the longtime gtr player of legendary group SPARKS," Devore says. "Then I will be playing synths, samples, and guitars and Kurt will sing and occasionally play guitar."

Lilys January 2022 Tour Dates

02.10 - Philadelphia, PA @ Latvian Society (Tickets)
02.11 - Philadelphia, PA @ Latvian Society (Tickets)
02.12 - Brooklyn, NY @ Baby's All Right (Tickets)
02.13 - Baltimore, MD @ TBA
02.14 - Brooklyn, NY @ Baby's All Right (Tickets)