#generon

It's time for Beginnings, the podcast where writer and performer Andy Beckerman talks to the comedians, writers, filmmakers and musicians he admires about their earliest creative experiences and the numerous ways in which a creative life can unfold.

On today's episode, I talk to musician Kurt Heasley. A Floridian by birth, Kurt spent his early years in Hopatcong, NJ and in Virginia Beach. In 1988, he recorded a demo tape which he gave to Slumberland Records boss Mike Schulman. Schulman was so impressed with the demo that he released Kurt's first records, which were recorded under the name The Lilys. Between 1992 and 2006, Kurt would go on to record eight albums as The Lilys including A Brief History of Amazing Letdowns, Eccsame the Photon Band, and Everything Wrong Is Imaginary, which span genres from shoegaze to psych-rock to mod revival. Although Kurt stopped making music full time to concentrate on other pursuits, he plays every now and then, including some recent shows in Philly and New York.

Back in October when Kurt was in town to play those shows, I met up with him at his manager's apartment in Williamsburg where we talked about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, “Give me the child til seven, and I’ll give you the man”, folk knowledge, hyper-rationality & the end of the Enlightenment, finding new ways to confront corporate dominance, protopians, the interconnectedness of all things, group mind, pure science, knowledge & paradigms, John C. Lilly, instilling empathy in the hardened, and metaphysical pranks.

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