The Tryfles – The Tryfles{FULL ALBUM}1986 The Tryfles formed in New York in 1984, during the most exceptional sixties-revival season of the American metropolis. The scene revolves around the Dive and JD Martignon's Midnight Records. There’s an incredible buzz in the city, even though the names actively involved in the scene are only a few dozen. One of them is John Fay, a schoolmate of Elan Portnoy and Jordan Tarlow. Along with them and Elan's brother, Orin Portnoy, Fay sets up his first band.
The repertoire is filled with the usual covers borrowed from the compilations that, thanks to Martignon’s store, are making the rounds in the city: Pebbles, Nuggets, Highs in the Mid-Sixties. However, the adventure doesn’t last long, and the band falls apart.
The Portnoy brothers will go on to form the Twisted, while Chandler and Tarlow create the Frosted Flaykes.
All four of them will soon enter the legend of American garage punk with bands like Optic Nerve, Fuzztones, Outta Place, Raunch Hands.
Fay, however, goes on to form the Tryfles alongside Peter Stuart Kohman, the beautiful Ellen Oneil (who is replaced shortly after the first single by Celia Farber, eventually ending up in the Maneaters), and Lesya Karpilov.
The relationships between the band and JD, however, are not idyllic, and the blame-game between the band and the producer delays the release of their 45 RPM and their only album until its paradoxical publication after the band has already disbanded.
The album diverges from the classic garage punk sound that’s consuming the city, shifting towards a psychedelic and folk direction with intertwining semi-acoustic guitars like those in "In the End" and tracks with a more pronounced beat influence but lacking the tearing distortions that at that time constitute the archetype of the garage song, ultimately defining the canons of the "soft wing" of the New York area that will later be developed by Cheepskates, Absolute Grey, and Headless Horsemen.
The record has precious tracks like "Bitter Heart," "Your Lies," or "When I See That Guy," but suffers from an inadequate mix that reveals an still naive approach to the subject matter, making The Tryfles one of the missed masterpieces in the history of American neo-sixties.
After that adventure, we find Fay dealing with hard rock in Freaks, Stuart will form the Headless Horsemen before fulfilling his dream of playing with the Chocolate Watch Band, while Celia, after selling her drop guitar to Mr. Morrissey for quite a few pounds, becomes one of the most famous American journalists, known especially for her medical/scientific campaign on AIDS, her treatments, and her business.
As for the beautiful Leysa, I can only tell you that I waited in vain for nearly thirty years for her to materialize in my bed.
Then, I fell asleep.