Due to popular demand, we are going to ‘Spillover….The Lemonheads!
For the most part (The) Lemonheads became in later years Evan Dando, and whoever he was hanging out with at the time, so we can also take Evan Dando solo songs too.
There are nine Lemonheads albums to choose from, plus singles, EPs, and lots of good covers to boot.
So, to perfect the perfect Lemonheads playlist, please nominate one or two tunes in the comments with a youtube or spotify link, please. I’m allowing more than one nomination, as possibly they may not be as well known as other bands we’ve ‘Spilt-over like the Stones, or Elbow.
So, do you like early noisy Lemonheads? Mid period strummy grungey Lemonheads? Quiet countryish Lemonheads? Acoustic gentle Lemonheads? Funny, romantic Lemonheads? Or the one about the gas man taking Evan’s old stove away?
Please also share any Lemonheads memories, ephemera, anecdotes, trivia, or nonsense.
I’m a massive fan, and have kicked off noms with an acoustic version of a song from their 4th album. The acoustic version was a b-side, but ended up on their greatest hits too. My favourite version of “Ride With Me” is a live acoustic one I taped off the radio back in 1992, but I’m not sure where the cassette is.
Right! “Big Gay Heart” (on which panth will back me up/has already put dibs), “Into Your Arms” and last but not least by any stretch of the imagination, “Different Drum”. Which is ACES.
Damn you and you fast fingers bishbosh!
I just happened to be loitering! Right place, right time… (And the more votes for Big Gay Heart, the better!)
Great idea, Oh Blimpmeister! Big Gay Heart just has to be on the list. Otherwise, I will sulk…
format fail {sigh}
It was Mr Panther’s idea!
Right. My second choice would be It’s About Time from the same magnificent album.
‘Turnpike Down’ is my favourite – just because of the tune, really. About being lost and happy. The sweetest songs for me: ‘Confetti’, about somebody’s unhappiness at not having their love returned, by somebody who would rather be alone than pretend – and ‘Hannah & Gabi’, which is just beautiful. “Got me watching your eyes, watching things go by outside…”.
The guitar book for It’s A Shame About Ray has some handwritten Evan notes on each song on the album, perhaps I should relay some here?
Go for it! Or save it for the actual playlist post.
I’m glad someone mentioned “Hannah & Gabi” – that’s such a perfect opening line, and the steel guitar melts me.
Some of Evan’s throwaway images are so perfect – “she’s the puzzle piece behind the couch that made the sky complete”, “the cigarette girl took off her tray / and dropped her dress in a shiny pile”.
Steel guitar by Jeff “Skunk” Baxter!
Jeffrey Allen “Jeff Skunk” Baxter (born December 13, 1948 in Washington, D.C.) is an American guitarist, known for his stints in the rock bands Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers during the 1970s. More recently, he has been working as a defense consultant and chairs a Congressional Advisory Board on missile defense.
Yay!!!!
Kitchen is such a great song.
Could we not just have the whole of the It’s A Shame About Ray album? It’s not very long…
If I have to choose just two: “My Drug Buddy” and “Confetti” (because it has my favourite guitar solo in the world – all 20 seconds or so).
Pretty sure I remember a live version of “Ride With Me” off the radio too…
“Ray” is nigh on a perfect album, and lovely & short too. But there is more to the Dandocanon!
dond for Confetti.
ohh…this is going to be great! I have to admit that I lost track after “Car Button Cloth” but “Come on Feel” and “It’s a Shame…” were near constants on my tape deck at the time and are both pretty perfect albums.
Donds for “Into Your Arms” (my next favourite after “Big Gay Heart”) and “Kitchen” and…oh just about everything else suggested so far.
Would like to put in a nom. for “Bit Part”, “Alison’s Starting to Happen” and “Favourite T”…oh and “Being Around” too.
I went to see them at the time, but I can’t remember the details! I want to say around 1993 at the Brixton Academy, but I’m not sure….is there any kind of online archive where you can look these things up??
I remember buying a knock-off long-sleeve for a fiver from a dodgy bloke out front and putting it straight on over the top of my many other layers (it was the grunge era, leave me alone!) and they were ace! It must have been just before Evan’s singalong-round-the-campfire-at-Glastonbury phase…
I witnessed Evan getting hounded off stage by angry Portishead fans in the acoustic tent at Glastonbury, 1995. I think he lasted about 4 songs. Not nice at all.
The upside for me was that instead of staying for Portishead, which I’d been planning to do, I went to watch Pulp on the main stage, which remains probably the best live music experience of my life.
I used to own two Lemonheads T-shirts.
so is that one Levellers and a Lemonheads t-shirt each, then?
Pulp were also responsible for what is probably the second best live music experience of my life: I went to see them in Cardiff at their first gig after Michael-Jackson-arse-wiggle-gate, Jarvis was on top form and they were absolutely incredible from start to finish.
I saw them at V96. They were very, very good. I also saw Gary Numan. He was very, very not.
Them being Pulp, not the Lemonheads (who I never saw live).
I met Mr.Dando at Glastonbury ’95 – he puzzlingly asked why I kept referring to him as Richard – I was quizzical as to why he wasn’t, indeed, Richard.
There’s a preamble of three days worth of accidental off roading in the back of a landrover – the cleaning out of the local pub cellar’s stock of canned beer – van hot wiring, so they could be reversed up to the fence – ex girlfriend’s and their ever so posh stock of gin and cigarettes – and sunstroke .. but it’s not very interesting.
Evan – doesn’t trip off the tongue, does it? … does it?
(Pulp were ace, Jarvis was in perfect laconic mode and “Sorted…” was premiered – not a patch on Senser or the Ozric Tentacles though ….. )
Shane – too funny! “Richard Dando”!
90s band T-shirt inventory:
1 x Inspiral Carpets (Beast Inside – 14th birthday present)
2 x Lemonheads (Mrs Robinson/Being Around; Come On Feel…)
1 x Levellers (One Way, long sleeve)
1 x Cowboy Junkies (Black-Eyed Man)
1 x Suede (Dog Man Star, long sleeve, dodgy bootleg from Oxford Playhouse)
1 x Oysterband (Celtic Junkies, long sleeve)
1 x James (ja m es design, nicked from my brother)
1 X Transcendental (folk rock band, quite big in Salisbury)
I’m sure there were more than that.
90s band T-shirt inventory:
5/6 Manics, two of which were bootlegs
2 Senseless Things
2 Elastica
2 These Animal Men
1 S*M*A*S*H
1 Pavement
I’m sure there were more than that…
90s band t-shirt inventory:
1 x Lemonheads longsleeve
1 x Levellers longsleeve
1 X These Animal Men (the one like the Lonsdale logo)
1 X S*M*A*S*H (“Not Your Star Fucker”)
2 X Nirvana (1 Nevermind, 1 Bleach)
1 X Rage Against the Machine
1 X Mudhoney
1 X Shed Seven
1 X Oasis (that doesn’t seem true now, but I’m pretty sure it is)
1 X Therapy? (I think!)
hmmm….I’m sure there were more…
Ozric Tentacles! Yay!
Apologies, I don’t know much Lemonheads, I will listen with interest, but I have seen the Ozrics a load of times and used to love them live.
for me it was the earlier lemonheads. i like the post deily heads but these are the tracks i think of first.
postcard
ever
Shamefully I never went back further than the “Lovey” LP, apart from a couple of 7″s. I think it was because someone had told me that Evan only played drums on the first records, this being 92, I had no internet to check.
you should get Lick, some nice stuff on that. I think Evan wrote most of the tracks too. Mallo cup for instance which is great. it was the first I bought and i went backwards from there. hate your friends is a bit noisy. i only have this stuff on vinyl so ought to get it uploaded for myself.
I have, of course, heard you lot mention the Lemonheads time and time again, but I must confess to never having taken too much notice…whispers quite possibly confusing them with the Lemonbabies
hangs head in shame… WHAT HAVE I BEEN MISSING?!
Sorry for shouting…. anyone got a time machine they could lend me?…
Aaaah, the early 90s, flannel shirts, ripped jeans, long hair, band t-shirts, arguing over which Mercury Rev song was the best, and going to see Bivouac play at the Dog & Shovel. Happy days.
(It’s Car Wash Hair, btw)
Late again.
Have we had Mallo Cup yet? We should.