By Eleni P. Austin
“Jenny said when she was just five years old you know there’s nothin’ happening at all, every time she put on the radio there was nothin’ goin’ down at all, not at all/One fine mornin’ she puts on a New York station and she couldn’t believe what she heard at all, so she started dancin’ to that fine-fine-fine-fine music, ooohh, her life was saved by Rock N’ Roll, Hey Baby, Rock N’ Roll…and it was alright, it was alright.”
That song was famously written by Lou Reed, appearing on The Velvet Underground’s Loaded album. But the lyrics have always resonated for Lyn Bertles.
Lyn grew up in the quaint, Hastings-On-Hudson village, 20 minutes north of Manhattan, in New York. She came from a musical family. Her mom played piano and recorder and wrote several cool musical pieces. Both of her brothers played.
Her earliest musical influences were found in her mom’s record collection. The Big Band sounds of Glenn Miller, the nuanced vocals of Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, as well as Broadway musicals like Camelot, Carousel and West Side Story, all made their mark. Listening to her mom play Debussy also had a profound effect. True inspiration hit when she saw the Beatles perform “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” on the Ed Sullivan show.
She began taking piano lessons in grade school, moving on to violin at age nine. She can hold her own on bass, guitar, piano, mandolin, flute, clarinet, saxophone and trumpet. But she is truly in her element with violin and viola.
She performed throughout school, in big and small aggregations, playing ragged but right versions of Joni Mitchell songs with friends, or stepping out solo to sing Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit.” By college, she realized that music had chosen her. Her talents were constantly in demand, playing in recitals or recordings for fellow students.
That epiphany motivated Lyn to relocate to Los Angeles after school. She quickly found her footing within the sprawling music scene. She cycled through a series of bands. Between The Two toured Japan on roller skates. Then came Mahatma Lew And The Hosannas, First Men On The Sun, Sacred Cows, Red Poppies and Tutti Tropo. She was involved in an early incarnation of The Groovy Rednecks and in 1992, she briefly fronted her own combo: Lyn Bertles & Reptile. But it didn’t last. As she recently noted, “I just wasn’t that into myself.”
In the decades since, she’s played with everyone from Morris Tepper, Eggtooth, Rob Laufer, The Continental Drifters, Cameron Dye and most lastingly, Tito & Tarantula. Tito Larriva’s post-Plugz/Cruzados project is best known for providing music for Robert Rodriguez films like Desperado and From Dusk To Dawn. It was during this era when she met her husband, Tarantula bandmate Nick Vincent.
Her first solo album, Aquatic Babehood, was produced by Rob Laufer and arrived in 2013. More recently, she’s been busy with the Dime Box Band, a five-piece fronted by Kristi Callan (ex-Wednesday Week). Something of a family affair, it includes Lyn, Nick on drums, their son Alex on bass and cello, plus Kristi’s son, James on guitar. Their most recent record, Happy arrived at the tail end of 2019. Now, Lyn has returned with her long-awaited sophomore effort, Middle Child.
The first two tracks, “You Know I Love You” and “Middle Child” set the tone for the record’s wry and reflective tilt-a-whirl ride. The opening notes of “You Know I Love You,” all scraggly ‘70s guitar, rubbery bass lines and a see-saw beat, mirror the lyrics’ slow-burn vexation. Lyn’s buoyant delivery nearly camouflages the kind of domestic resentment that occasionally bubbles to the surface: “Honey, you know I love you, but you keep taking the…lighter.” As the arrangement clanks and whirs ahead, she unleashes a stream-of-conscious rant that hints at a bit of gaslighting: “Honey, do you love me, cause you keep messing with my mind, where twirling plates and gears are grinding, bear with me if you can, I feel such longing….” Sprightly Honky-Tonk piano and swoony violin segue into the sheepish denouement: “Honey, you know I love you, I just found the lighter lounging on the floor, Honey, let’s forgive for blaming and complaining I want you back.”
The title track attempts to unpack the neuroses that accompanies the birthing order (thus motivating Jan to purchase a frothy black wig on a classic Brady Bunch episode). Pslightly Psychedelic guitar spirals with sitar-iffic intent atop pliant bass lines, snake-charmer keys, feathery viola and a tick-tock beat. Lyn ponders her own place in the hierarchy: “Youngest ones, they go their own way, oldest ones they can be shining if they’re not whining, and middle, well, here I am.” By the break, she’s grown tired of over-simplification: “Hey, I don’t believe in such kind of sayings, not in Monday’s Child, even though I’m a perfect Pisces, we’re so much more, and Middle Children, child, well, here I am.”
Lyn’s songs hopscotch through a surfeit of styles. The drowsy rebellion of “I’m Leaving Now,” deftly mixes the personal with the political. Shang-a-lang guitars partner with slurred bass lines piquant mandolin and woozy handclaps. She’s down to rally for the right causes: “Feds are cutting benefits for those who need them the most, and judging by the way it looks, we’ll soon be toast,” but on her terms: “I’m leaving now, I’ve worked the room, I’ve shed what little light I have into the gloom, a peaceful life-well, come on, come on over, hey world peace, won’t you take us for a ride.”
The Jangle-Pop hoedown of “Woodford Hollow” is powered by ringing guitars, bucolic banjo, shivery autoharp and flighty violin. But beneath the shiny, happy surface, lyrics sketch out a bleak scenario that pointedly hints at domestic violence: “When your house is in the valley, the deep, deep valley, you won’t get the light that you would on the hill, bruises don’t see sunshine, long sleeves, make-up, the wreckage wrought after whiskey starts to spill.”
Meanwhile, a meta-modern dilemma meets Dayglo New Wave on “Would You Change Your Ring?” Sparkly guitar wraps around spiky violin, caroming bass, a rippling tambourine shake and a cantilevered beat. Lyrics long for recognition in an increasingly faceless world: “When I call, no answer, and you see, this is what most hurts, the end of a long day when you’re kind of wondering, some past life-is this just desserts, would you change your ring so you know it’s me?” Our pathologically Pavlovian response to to our cell phone beeps and bleats keep human connection at bay: “I don’t blame you for trying to keep the big, bad world away, if only for a moment, any kind of respite, crack the code, the Unicorn is free.”
Meanwhile, on “Way More Lost,” squally, AOR-flavored guitar is quickly augmented by muscular rhythm riffs, angular bass, spidery keys and a ramshackle beat. Lyrics look to manage expectations that come with adulthood: “…I don’t need no diet donut holes, yeah baby, just look away, they’re poison, look at the rays…I don’t need no ugly glances in passing, yeah baby, own your faces, yeah baby, good vibes and graces, yeah, it’s not the way I thought it’d be, yeah, baby, we’re way more lost.”
The action slows on a couple of tracks, “Friday” and “Route 22.” The former wouldn’t seem out of place on Carole King’s trailblazing “Tapestry” album. Painterly piano and burnished guitar chords line up next to wiry bass and a sluggish beat. Lyn wears her workaday ennui on her sleeve, making her way through “Mundane,” “Truth Day,” “Whining Day” and “Blurry Thursday” to get to “Finally Friday.” While The Easybeats had “Friday On My Mind” and The Cure insisted “It’s Friday, I’m in love,” this is less sanguine. Sylvan strings echo and sway across the arrangement, papering over the winter of her discontent. The latter is a mid-tempo trip down memory lane, fueled by chiming guitars, fluttery mandolin, loose-limbed bass, willowy keys, gossamer strings and a kick-drum beat. Gimlet-eyed lyrics recall halcyon days and the inescapable angst of adolescence: “The little farms they’d sit there, they used to do their business, where school term’s starting, my mind would be far away, half a girl in each direction, and Joni sang for my protection, and when the summer’d come, when the summer’d finally come, I’d hit the road cause I couldn’t wait to see you, Route 22, Route 22.”
Other interesting tracks include the swaggering “Out Of The Park” and the lyrical haiku of “Like A Wave.” The album closes with the languid “Security Girl.” Percolating keys, plangent guitar thrumming bass and clinky percussion are wed to a steady beat. Lyn’s soothing croon cocoons lyrics that offer reassurance with a soupcon of cosplay: “But, don’t you worry baby, I can keep you in when you’re out of line, I’ve got your motives, so don’t waste my time, I want to be your security girl, your security girl, I want to be your security girl/Cool clips for the handcuffs, lots of stuff hanging off my belt, fancy brown uniform, I hope I make you melt, melt, melt.” A smoky sax solo adds an air of sultry savoir faire. It’s a graceful finish to a playful record.
While Lyn is practically a one-woman band, playing guitar, bass, keys, violin, viola, mandolin and saxophone, she also relied on a wolfpack of players. This includes her husband Nick on drums, percussion, keys, banjo and autoharp, Rob Laufer on keys, bass and guitar, Fernando Perdomo on guitar. David Jenkins and Lyn’s son Alex also add bass. Honeyed harmonies were furnished by Kristi Callan and Tara Austin.
Lyn Bertles is not afraid to color outside the lines, and that’s a good thing. Her songs retain the same spirit found in seminal records by Amy Rigby, Marti Jones, The Roches Linda Thompson Kirsty MacColl and Syd Straw. Middle Child is by turns quirky, clever and confident. In short, exactly what the doctor ordered.
