The Lemonheads
At first, the core of the Lemonheads was Evan Dando and Ben Deily, two guys who became friends at Boston’s Commonwealth School in the mid nineteen eighties. Playing basic punk rock under the name The Whelps, they soon changed their label to the one we know today, Dando picking up the title from a candy bar. As the band became more and more of a concern, Dando dropped out of college to concentrate on The Lemonheads full time, and on the back of their first release ‘Laughing All The Way to the Cleaners’ signed up to the locally based Taang! Records, where they would release the albums ‘Hate Your Friends’, ‘Creator’ and ‘Lick’ before Deily, who had until that point been sharing writing and singing duties with Evan Dando, left the band in 1989.
A year later and Dando, with his new band including David Ryan on drums, had lead his Lemonheads to Atlantic / Warner records. Their first LP for the major labels was 1990’s ‘Lovey’, a record which still seemed to show the band finding their feet, and subsequently didn’t set the world alight. Dando, searching for inspiration, boarded a plane with friends Nic Dalton and Tom Morgan to Australia, where the majority of their breakthrough album ‘It’s A Shame About Ray’ would be written. Despite selling largely to people who had heard their cover of Simon & Garfunkels’ ‘Mrs. Robinson’ (the track was tagged on to the end of the album much to the band’s annoyance), the disc remains an uber-credible indie hit to this day, the benchmark for all slacker indie.
Other than that single however, there hadn’t been the major crossover hit many had predicted. The first sign of the possibility of such a track came with the LP ‘Come on Feel The Lemonheads’ in 1993, ‘Into Your Arms’, a delightfully simple slice of folk loveliness, finding its way in to the charts and on to the radios of seemingly everyone who was at college at the time.
1994, and with Britpop about to explode in the UK, Dando and his Lemonheads tour relentlessly and become good friends with Oasis. However, whilst this should have been a time of consolidation, all was not well under the surface. Dando became increasingly erratic, sometimes not being able to talk during interviews because of heavy drug use, and admitted that he had a problem with crack cocaine. His addiction lead to some of the darkest and (oddly) most engaging songs in the Lemonheads cannon, 1996’s ‘Car Button Cloth’ being full of them. But despite the triumph of that record, a 1997 gig in Reading was to be amongst their last – in this incarnation, at least. Whilst former bandmate Deily had spent his time at Harvard getting a degree, a drug addled Dando left his band, and went AWOL.
Atlantic deemed it was time to put a full stop under things, and released a best of compilation a year later. Dando continued to sporadically tour as a solo artists, occasionally performing Lemonheads tracks, but as a band, it seemed they had ceased to exist. Dando increasingly concentrated on getting himself together and focused on his solo work, releasing the well received ‘Baby I’m Bored’ in 2003, and touring the world in support of it.
All quiet on the Lemonheads front, then – until 2005, when rumours of a reunion began to circulate – rumours confirmed when the band announced two shows performing their classic ‘It’s A Shame About Ray’ in London as part of the Don’t Look Back Season in September 2005. Dando remained at the centre, but the sketchy line up now was even more lucid – ex Descendents Bill Stevenson and Karl Alverex joined the recording line up, whilst Bill Stevenson, Chris Brokaw and George Berz of Dinosaur Jr have all recently taken up drum duties. The recording of a remarkably strong self titled comeback album was bolstered by the guitar work of J Mascis and the touring contributions of Vess Ruhtenburg and Devon Ashely of The Pieces. Let’s hope they can keep it together this time, eh?
MY LEMONHEADED SPACE: Two tracks to stream from the new record inclusive of recent single ‘Become The Enemy’ and standout ‘Poughkeepsie’, as well as a free download and all the usual stuff these spaces have to offer.
EVANDANDO.CO>UK: A brilliant fan site, inclusive of scarily up to date news, tons of lyrics and a Lemonheads Encyclopaedia.
BENDEILY.COM: Let’s not forget Ben, who was there at the start. This site’s motto? ‘Paying attention to Ben Deily, so you don’t have to’.
THE LEMONHEADS OFFICIAL ONLINE PRESENCE: All dolled up in the garish pinks and reds of the new album sleeve, your usual tour info and news tit bits can be found here. Stop giggling because I said ‘tit’.
’THE LEMONHEADS: First new Lemonheads material in a decade, and some of the most coherent, melodic, chirpy tunes Dando’s ever had a hand in writing.
LIVE IN NORWICH: Matt Tomiak applauds the ‘heads, yet bemoans the lack of a decent crowd. Where were you all, Norwichians?
LIVE AT SOMERSET HOUSE: Idyllic setting, and curious Sleepy Jackson support slot, for the beginning of the comeback.
EVAN DANDO ROUGH TRADE INSTORE: Yousif Nur giggles like an excited schoolgirl at the prospect of getting quite so close to a true hero. He managed an autograph, and a write up. Good lad.
LEMONHEADS ALBUMS RETROSPECTIVE: If you spent the mid nineties thinking there were only three bands (Blur, Pulp and Oasis) and that only the first two of them were any good, like us, you might need a catch up on all things Lemon Headed. Yousif provides one.