John Daly — 15 July 2020 on Rocket Shop Radio Hour

John Daly joined host Tom Proctor on ‘Rocket Shop‘, Big Heavy World’s weekly local Vermont music radio hour on 105.9FM The Radiator. Check out his concept album and news about the upcoming musical about Matthew Lyon at spitnlyon.com. (Scroll down to see the album.)

On Wednesday, July 15, after long hiatus, Rocket Shop returned with especially operatic guest John Daly.

Piano tuner turned leader of the Matthew Lyon fan club, John Daly has undergone an astronomical turning of passion. He’s conceptualized and been a part of the team producing Spit’n Lyon, a rock ‘n’ roll opera dedicated to the oft forgotten printer, politician, farmer, and soldier.

“He’s a forgotten founding father,” Daly said during the show.

For the unaware—those who sat through history class with a passivity dooming them to forget—Matthew Lyon was a legislator from Vermont and Kentucky, who fought with Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys and had a penchant for speaking his mind. He was assertive, dedicated, and rowdy too. You may recall his involvement in an altercation with Representative Roger Griswold on the house floor: Griswold assaulted Lyon with a hickory cane, and Lyon picked up a set of fire tongs and gave him what for.

A condensed history of Matthew Lyon is assembled on the play’s website. Documentation of his life is marred by politicized accounts and gaps in information. For instance, many biographies fail to mention Lyon’s neighbor, Boyrereau Brinch also known as Jeffery Brace. Brinch was a freed slave who was born in Africa and experienced every brutal travail of the American slave system. Brinch eventually became Lyon’s neighbor and friend, and shared his abolitionist views with Lyon. The opera itself attempts to construct a factual history of events, with a few assumptions and one change made for the sake of plot (Brinch and Lyon are placed on the same battlefield at one point even though they fought on different fronts).

This relationship forms a critical point in the opera when Lyon moves from Vermont to Kentucky, and Brinch has to ask whether or not Lyon will carry on preaching freedom for all.

This event, among others, gave John the faith to write his opera. “It practically writes itself,” he said. 

He identified a clear duality in Lyon between traitor and savior that followed him throughout his life, from immigrant redemptioner, to foolhardy soldier, to an imprisoned critic, and finally to his seat in the house where Lyon’s convictions were tested by the desire for power. He stood against the federalists and threat of an American monarchy, but once in power, would he maintain his counterculture attitude?

Conceptualizing, writing, and producing the opera has been a four year effort, beginning with Daly’s own deep dive into researching the myths and legends of Matthew Lyon. He began exploring the story in 2016, digging through the University of Vermont’s archives for anything with a reference to Lyon. Four autobiographies later and the story of Matthew Lyon had latched onto Daly like a parasite. The need to write was inescapable.

So armed with a literal musket, Daly donned his best tri-corner hat and stockings, carved a quill pen, and wrote his concept album by candlelight. I also don’t say that figuratively. It’s called method writing—similar to method acting—and no sane people do it. Fortunately, Daly inhaled so much dust and lost so much sleep while scrounging for sources that he may have lost some sensibilities.

I may joke, but the effort Daly put into assembling this story has been immense, and this has only led us as far as writing work’s concept album. Daly and friend Neil Mauer brainstormed some basic chord progressions, and Greg Goldman was responsible for orchestrating and producing the album; every note heard is Greg’s. The songs are available on soundcloud.

On air, Daly shared “Tea Time in Boston,” a song with modern jokes (“The only thing worse than a Boston driver is a Boston pedestrian”) and a catchy refrain. King George sings the song on the album version, but the real power behind the throne, Queen Charlotte, will take the song to the stage. Next Daly shared the cheery bar song, “Catamount,” about the Green Mountain Boys, which namedrops Allen and Chittenden, among others. Daly used the law verbatim in his next song, “Alien and Sedition.” The last chilling song, “Ivory Tower,” details Lyon’s distaste for consolidated power as a young man.

Writing the actual opera has been its own, separate ordeal. The entirety of playwriting was done by Lesley Becker, co-founder of Theaster’s Theater.  Becker has worked on converting the album into a play for the past 18 months. As talented of a playwright as she may be, Becker still has to tell Daly to trust her.

“We’re all artists,” he said. “We have our egos.” It’s difficult, and understandably so, for Daly to leave his darling, his magnum-opus, in the hands of another. He also added that “playwriting is very different from songwriting…A character has to have a reason for saying this.” 

As of now, the opera has had one cold readthrough, and undergone a few edits. It’s likely a few months away from completion at the earliest, but Daly hopes to have the whole performance ready by the November elections. The manner in which the conversations of Lyon’s era mirror our own is not lost on Daly nor his team. Racism and abuse of power are key themes, as are xenophobia and freedom of the press.

The opera is not afraid to criticize. As Daly said after the microphones were put away, “The problem is not the thing itself. The problem is the pedestal.” Holding a document, belief, or event in reverie is the issue, and Daly makes sure nothing is left out of the discussion.

The future of the opera is filled with hopeful uncertainty. COVID has made the pace of production mercurial, but it has also opened a lot of doors. With fewer productions in rotation as normal, more talent is available.

The opera should connect with many Vermonters, either through lineage or geographic nearness. As shown on Spit’n Lyon’s website, the cell where Lyon was imprisoned would have sat on Green Street in Vergennes. Many of the locations relevant to the story are unmarked in Vermont, and Daly hopes that changes. He wants to recognize Vermont’s history, especially its importance to the Revolutionary War. He imagines one day—after bringing the show to Broadway—taking the train from New York City to Vergennes, listening to an audio tour detailing the Green Mountain Boys, the battles fought to protect the Hudson River, and Daly’s new best friend, Matthew Lyon.

Text by Luke Vidic.

Photo by James Lockridge.