Here is another in my (very) occasional series of more in-depth looks at bands that I have crossed paths with over the last four decades.
This time we look at The Lemonheads, or just Lemonheads as they were for the first few years. This was a band that I, and many others, were really aware of for a fleeting few years of the early 1990s. We remember their iconic bass-heavy cover of Mrs Robinson, maybe the indie waves of It's A Shame About Ray, or the simple beauty of Into Your Arms.
For me, I have to admit, the band will forever be associated with drunken student nights at Manhattan's in Southport, which would invariably end with the dancefloor clearing to make for several dozen bouncing twenty year old boys, pogoing around to Mrs Robinson and Teen Spirit.
The Lemonheads were grunge, they were power-pop, alternative, indie - they were also all about lead singer Evan Dando. But over the last month, I have taken a deeper dive into their entire catalogue and they are so much more than that.....
In the beginning
It all started in 1986 at the Commonwealth School on the south side of the Charles River in Boston, with a high school band called Whelps. That was Evan Dando, Ben Deily and Jesse Peretz, who shared drumming duties between them for a while, before recruiting a string of drummers. Then they became Lemonheads, named for a brand of candy, which Dando later said was the perfect name because they were, "sweet on the inside and sour on the outside."
Signing for local label Taang! Records, Lemonheads recorded numerous sessions, that resulted in three albums in the late 80s.
Hate Your Friends (1987).
This was almost entirely high-speed punk - 13 songs in 24 minutes was a frenetic pace, bursting straight in with I Don't Wanna. The album showed a melting pot of influences; 394 had hints of California punk (a la Social Distortion), Sneakyville was frenetic and somewhat discordant, like something from the Dead Kennedy's, Amazing Grace was Deily's interesting take on the traditional tune (and the first of many interesting covers by the band). The title track was a bit of strident guitar over a rat-a-tat drumbeat, wrapped up in a lo-fi mix. And on Don't Tell Yourself It's Okay, you perhaps hear the first hint of future Dando.
Creator (1988)
The follow-up album started to show some indie chops breaking out from the pure punk of the debut. This could perhaps be better labelled as jangly thrash-pop! There was a bit more variety here; slightly vocal dirge on Out, but songs like Die Right Now, Two Weeks In Another Town and Plaster Caster smacked of 70s rock, which makes sense as that last song was written by Gene Simmons of Kiss.
Lick (1989)
The last of the albums on the Taang! label and the last to feature co-lead singer and songwriter, Ben Deily, was more of this hybrid indie-punk mixed with hard rock. Come Back D.A. was very Stooge-y, Cazzo Di Fero (written by new boy, guitarist Corey Loog Brennan) seemed to be taking a stab at mocking 80s hair metal, then there was the lovely fuzzy guitar on 7 Powers. But again, your ears are drawn to an interesting cover version - this time of Suzanne Vega's Luka! Melody Maker neatly summed it up, saying that the band "[shows a] talent for melancholy recontextualisation of the oddest source material."
The band now signed for major label Atlantic Records and as well as Deily leaving and Brennan joining, David Ryan also comes into the fold on drums.
Lovey (1990)
This album blended punk, country and metal (perhaps a good signpost for the future) and is interesting when you listen to it and realise that it came out more than a year before grunge really broke through with 1991's Nevermind.
With Deily gone, the songwriting focus was all on Dando. The brash guitars on the album counterpoint Dando's gravelly and somewhat melancholic voice. For me, the album revolves around the epic Ride With Me - a song that has a lot of space between the drums, plenty of fuzz and feedback and an overall tempo that rises and falls. L'il Seed was an opportunity for Brennan to come to the fore, but it does sound like a bit of a Hendrix pastiche.
Ride With Me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0TbFAO1Bbc
The height of fame
It was Peretz's turn to leave now, who went on to pursue a career in photography and film, doing much of the bands future cover art. Dando went to Australia to write with Nic Dalton and Tom Morgan. When the band reformed to work on the next album, it consisted of Dando, Ryan and latest recruit, Juliana Hatfield coming in on bass.
It's A Shame About Ray (1992)
The breakthrough album has that classic Lemonheads indie sound. The punk roots that still had them labelled as grunge, were largely missing, to be replaced with a sound that was more akin to crossing the Wonder Stuff with The Byrds (than Nirvana + the Stooges).
Laconic and laid back in places, no more so than on the title track, it also rattled along nicely on tunes like Bit Part and Alison's Starting To Happen, while Hannah & Gabi infuses a country twang to proceedings and a folky cover of Frank Mills, from the Hair soundtrack.
Alison's Starting To Happen:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_NwXtO9MI8
After the album and tour, Hatfield was off, forming her own Juliana Hatfield Three - and now the band (adding 'The' to become The Lemonheads) consisted of Dando, Ryan and Dalton.
Come On Feel The Lemonheads (1993)
More success followed with Come On, especially through the sublime single Into Your Arms, which highlighted an all round mellower feel on the album. That song in particular proves that songs really don't need to be complicated to be epic (for those that are interested, it mostly strums around D-G-Em) - although it should be noted that this wasn't a Dando tune, but one from Dalton's old band, Love Positions. The laid back feel is also evident on The Great Big No and It's About Time. There is some time to up the pace; Down About It is definitely more frenetic, Style is a pounding, driving, rock epic and Rest Assured is Ramones style punk-pop; but then Big Gay Heart goes full country pastiche, and again harks back to 70s rock, this time with a big Eagles feel.
The album is also notable because not only does Hatfield come back to do some singing, but it also features both Belinda Carlisle and Rick James on back vocals!
Into Your Arms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yjkz20-Cd7w
First hiatus and new line up
Dando was struggling and it was becoming increasingly obvious that there were cracks developing. One show ended up with Dando barely able to sing following taking crack cocaine. He admitted he had a drug problem and took himself off to rehab.
He was back in 1996 and pulled together a completely new line up for the band. Murph (Dinosaur Jr.) was the new drummer, Bill Gibson (The Eastern Dark) joined on bass and John Strohm (Blake Babies) was second guitarist.
Car Button Cloth (1996)
While still displaying some of The Lemonheads trademark jangle, Car Button Cloth perhaps inevitably displayed a darker side to Dando's writing. It opens with the rootsy It's All True, before the slacker epic, If I Could Talk I'd Tell You and hazy folky psych of Break Me. Something's Missing reaches back to the post-punk of bands like Husker Dü. Knoxville Girl seems to be a punk-bluegrass take on a traditional murder ballad. Then there is the most interesting finale - a grunge / metal instrumental called Secular Rockulidge!
Second hiatus, Dando goes solo
The second phase of The Lemonheads ended with the Car Button Cloth tour and a successful appearance at the Reading Festival in 1997.
From 1998, Dando did a lot of solo touring, sometimes playing a lot of The Lemonheads songs, especially around the time The Best Of The Lemonheads was released, but it was never a formal reunion. There was a solo live album, Live At The Brattle Theatre in 2001, some work with The Dandy Warhols and a solo album, Baby I'm Bored in 2003.
Back for a third time
After nine years, the band was back and with another new line up. This time, Dando was joined by Bill Stevenson and Karl Alvarez of The Descendents for recording purposes, and a more fluid live line up that rotated between Stevenson and George Berz (Dinosaur J.) on drums and Josh Lattanzi sometimes playing bass.
The Lemonheads (2006)
Now signed to Vagrant Records, the first new album in a decade was simply called The Lemonheads, and included guest appearances from Dinosaur Jr's J Mascis and Garth Hudson from The Band.
Sombre piano notes give way to the high-speed Black Gown, back to the old style of two minute tracks. The album has less of the spaces of previous albums, being more matter of fact. Pittsburgh rattles along with quick firing drums, Poughkeepsie is also a bit of a thrasher. But there is still time to slow the whole thing down. Baby's Home has some country tinges and rolls along like an old slow dance, with some beautiful and delicate picking over some more chunky chords. It ends with December, which for the first two minutes plays like an early 90s Lemonheads tune, before going off into a two minute jam of discordant guitar, power drumming and swirly Hammond. Dando himself comments on You Tube, that "I dig the jam... we never tried that before... me and Bill [Stevenson] were like ok... 2 minutes of... jamming!"
December: https://youtu.be/adXc-NDZ5Qk
Varshons (2009)
Varshons is an interesting album of covers. It starts in fine 70s rock fashion with Gram Parsons I Just Can't Take It Anymore. The country-rock style is continued, this time more perversely in a cover of art-punk masters Wire's Fragile. There is Layin' Up With Linda (GG Allin), Waiting Around To Die (Townes Van Zandt) and a slowed down Green Fuz (by 60s garage band, Green Fuz). More 60s garage is in the shape of psych-rock Yesterlove (Sam Gopal: Fun Fact - written by Ian Willis an alter-ego of Lemmy, who was in the band), which could almost be a Lee Hazlewood out-take. There is Dutch electro with Dirty Robot (Arling & Cameron, while the song Mexico rises and swells to an epic violin-fuelled crescendo.
More interest comes on his take of Leonard Cohen's Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye, which features a duet with none other than Liv Tyler (showing that she also inherited some musicality from her father), before closing with a beautiful version of Christina Aguilera's Beautiful (I never saw that coming).
A tour in 2012 saw the band include Chuck Treece and Fred Mascherino (Taking Back Sunday), before a tour that autumn supporting the Psychedelic Furs saw Hatfield re-join.
Rumours of a new album abounded, fuelled by Ryan Adams tweeting that he would be playing drums on it. Hatfield and original songwriting partner Deily, were also rumoured to be onboard. But an album never materialised.
Sporadic touring followed in 2015, before a follow up to Varshons finally showed up.
Varshons II (2019)
Despite the ten year wait, the next album was not of original material, but another selection of interesting covers. It opens with a gorgeous version of Yo La Tengo's Can't Forget. There is Old Man Black by Bevis Frond, and early 70s, Neil Young-esque slightly trippy rock with a hint of GBV lo-fi. Paul Westerberg's (The Replacements) Things gets a nice chugging version.
Dando then lends his voice perfectly to two Americana classics; Speed Of The Sound Of Loneliness by John Prine and Abandoned by Lucinda Williams, which sees squirly guitar over acoustic build up to a slow waltz. They also go full country with a take on Florida Georgia Line's Round Here.
They thrash through TAQN (Take A Qualude Now) by British 60s psych-rockers The Eyes, go a bit dub with Unfamiliar (The Give Goods), before Dando puts on an uncanny Nick Cave impression on the Bad Seeds Straight To You.
Speed of the Sound of Loneliness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0fi8_2Pb88
In the summer of 2022 - The Lemonheads announced that they would be touring to celebrate the 30th anniversary of It's A Shame About Ray.
Hatfield announced that she would be joining the band for part of the US leg.
Comments