Lemonheads
Posted: Thu Jan 25, 2007 6:58 pm

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Variety (Magazine) commented on the recent NYC show, “…the trio ripped through both the "hits" (a soaring "It's a Shame About Ray") and lesser-known tunes (the purposefully woozy "Rudderless") with as much energy -- and considerably more precision -- than the original lineup.” The band has been playing up to 35 songs per night, including tracks from their latest release, about which Mojo Magazine describes as, “…high-velocity melody thrills played with relish by hardcore zealots - suffused with the pop-smart synthesis of heat-haze and endorphins…”

Talk about getting back to your roots. For The Lemonheads latest offering, Dando convened two of his early influences, the unholy duo of drummer Bill Stevenson (DESCENDENTS, BLACK FLAG) and bassist Karl Alvarez (DESCENDENTS), in a remote Rocky Mountain hideaway. And it was there, off and on over eighteen months, that they kicked out the first LEMONHEADS album in ten years.

New Zealand Dates:

Auckland - Monday 26th March – The Studio
Wellington - Tuesday 27th March - San Francisco Bath house
Christchurch – Wednesday 28th March - Jetset Lounge

Tickets on sale nationally from Thursday 25th January at www.ticketmaster.co.nz, Real Groovy and Fast & Loose in Auckland.

Going back a bit…

Evan Griffith Dando formed THE LEMONHEADS with two high school buddies in late winter '86, in their senior year at Boston's tiny Commonwealth School. A few months later, they spawned what is now one of the most sought-after punk relics of the 80s, the indie EP Laughing All the Way to the Cleaners. Boston-based Taang! Records immediately picked up on the LEMONHEADS, with three college radio pleasers to follow: the LPs Hate Your Friends (1987), Creator (198, and Lick (1989). In 1990 Atlantic Records took notice of the massively expanding LEMONHEADS fanbase in Europe (where they toured in 1989) and America by signing the band and releasing their well-received (in Cambridge, Massachusetts) fourth LP, Lovey.

A 1991 tour brought Evan to Australia and New Zealand, where by chance he met songwriter Tom Morgan and future LEMONHEADS bassist Nic Dalton. Their collaboration made all the difference for the next Atlantic release, It’s a Shame About Ray (1992), a concentrated blast of pure pop perfection that clocks in at just under 30 minutes. Thanks to songs such as “Confetti”, “My Drug Buddy”, “Rudderless”, and “Ceiling Fan in My Spoon”, Dando hit a whole new audience (“they’re getting younger,” he confessed to Kathie Lee Gifford at the time).

Mainstream media hype of THE LEMONHEADS shifted into high gear, with lots of wild speculation as to the exact nature of the relationship between Dando and long-time friend Juliana Hatfield (who played bass and sang on Ray). It also didn’t hurt when a 1993 People magazine spread devoted a full page to Evan as one of the fifty most beautiful people in the world. That news came to Evan in New Zealand, on his 26th birthday. When a magazine rep called to tell him he was among the "fifty dishiest people", Dando recalled, “I thought she said ‘busiest’. And I thought, ‘kin right!' With all the traveling, I was busy!”

Atlantic released a smash follow-up, Come on Feel the Lemonheads, in October 1993. The album brought Dando a genuine charting single (“Into your Arms”) as well as instant classics such as “Great Big No”, “Down About It”, “Being Around”, and “You Can Take it with You.” In winter 1993/1994 Evan Dando was in your living room, thanks to live appearances on the Letterman and Leno late night network TV shows. Inevitably, in Warrington, Pennsylvania, a 20-something named Jeff Fox published the first issue of his backlash ‘zine Die Evan Dando, Die.

Two years of brutal touring for THE LEMONHEADS followed, which Evan punctuated with some high-profile personal meltdowns on various continents that caught the imagination of a press ever eager for negative copy. Still THE LEMONHEADS (now with Boston friends John Strohm on guitar and Murph on drums) managed to crank out a defiant 1996 release Car Button Cloth, with some of their best melodic pop/punk to date: “It’s All True”, “If I Could Talk I’d Tell You”, and “Tenderfoot”. After a year promoting the record, Dando announced at the 1997 Reading Festival that he was disbanding THE LEMONHEADS. Atlantic released a Best of The Lemonheads album in 1998, and a lot of geezers surmised that that was that.

“I just decided to duck out for a while”, explains Dando of his self-imposed exile from the scene. “I didn't have it in me. It took until I met my wife in 1998 until I got back into making music.” That would be Elizabeth Moses, Newcastle-born English supermodel and musician. Once married in 2000, Dando started to come alive again like Frampton, first with a 2001 live album Live at the Brattle Theater/Griffith Sunset, and then in 2003 with a well-received solo LP, Baby I’m Bored.

In 2004 Evan Dando found himself fronting the MC5, the most incendiary rock band of 1960s America, as lead vocalist in a 41-show tour. And it was hard to miss Dando during 2005 and early 2006, as he toured widely in North America and Europe with various bass players (Juliana Hatfield and Josh Lattanzi) and drummers (Bill Stevenson, Chris Brokaw from COME, George Berz of DINOSAUR JR), and occasionally as a one man electrical wrecking crew. Memorably, in September 2005, Dando, Stevenson, and Lattanzi played two instantly sold-out shows in London as part of the Don’t Look Back series, where they rocked through It's a Shame About Ray from start to finish.

After two decades, the latest incarnation of the legendary pop-punk outfit consists of poster boy of Grunge, Evan Dando (of course!) along with ex-Zero Boy Vess Ruhtenberg on bass and drummer Devon Ashley – formerly of The Pieces.

Websites:
www.myspace.com/thelemonheads
www.thelemonheads.net

RE: Lemonheads
Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 12:00 am

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