Going on a Rockin’ Stroll Down Memory Lane with The Lemonheads

The first–and last–time I saw The Lemonheads was nearly twenty years ago. Singer/guitarist Evan Dando (who, for all intents and purposes, is the Lemonheads) headlined a KNDD-sponsored acoustic night at the Seattle Art Museum, and my good buddy Dan Troy snuck me into the VIP-only gig at the last minute. The night culminated in me meeting Dando, and bumming a chewed-up number 2 pencil from Dave Grohl so that the Lemonheads frontman could autograph a picture of Danny Bonaduce tucked away in my wallet (long story). When he scrawled his John Hancock over the erstwhile Danny Partridge’s image, Dando–bemused smile on his face–proclaimed me “weird.” Coming from a man who once wrote a tender acoustic ballad about his old stove, it was a hell of a compliment.

Those memories–and a lot more–rushed into my head when I heard that The Lemonheads were playing a set at the Triple Door tomorrow night. I was in my twenties when the band became alt-rock superstars, and their most fondly-remembered record, It’s a Shame About Ray, was the soundtrack of my life for almost the entirety of 1992. I listened to Ray again for the first time in years a month ago, and was struck by how fresh it sounds: If today’s crop of earnest folkies grew a sense of humor, learned how to rock occasionally, and eased up on the self-conscious Americana touches, they’d sound like this.

Calling the album The Lemonheads’ masterpiece would be more than a bit presumptuous, and a notion that self-confessed slacker Dando would likely laugh off. The term implies ambition and carefully-crafted sonic architecture, and It’s a Shame About Ray feels like the antithesis of that lofty label. Less than thirty minutes long (unless you count the cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson” slapped onto later editions of the CD after its initial pressing), it’s a deceptively breezy set of mostly acoustic-anchored pop songs that capture–almost by accident, and with surprising depth–what it’s like to be young, flushed in love, and struggling to figure out the world.

Dando’s gift, which came to full flower on It’s a Shame About Ray, was filtering the little details of that time through a poet’s eye. Ambivalence about commitment almost goes undetected amidst the chiming, happy power-pop hook of “Confetti,” while a few songs later he gives fully into the giddy joy of infatuation with the exhilarating “Alison’s Starting to Happen.” “My Drug Buddy” relates the story of a guy and a girl scoring drugs at a phone booth with warm nuance, over a bed of Booker T-style organ. And Dando captures the sights and sounds of a routine journey home with crystal clarity on “The Turnpike Down.” All along, there’s something totally unforced about the songs: They don’t feel tossed-off, so much as pretense-free–offhand slices of life set to effortlessly catchy melodies.

After Ray, The Lemonheads scored some modest success with their follow-up, Come On Feel The Lemonheads, then lost their major-label home amidst the obligatory combination of substance abuse problems and diminishing creative returns. Dando’s sporadically resurfaced over the last fifteen years with solo records and a rejiggered Lemonheads lineup, and the band bounced back two years ago with an inspired covers record produced by the Butthole Surfers’ Gibby Haynes, Varshons. But the centerpiece of the band’s Triple Door gig tomorrow night will be a performance of It’s a Shame About Ray in its entirety. Hearing Evan Dando sing those songs live after twenty years promises to be a moving experience, for him as well as the rest of us.