One night in a bar, about six months ago, I was assaulted by a gentleman who had read some music pieces I’d done for the alternative weekly paper in Jackson, MS. The man wasted no time in asking me who my favorite bands were; never an easy task. But while I was rattling off the usual list I gave (which probably needs to be updated) I saw eagerness in his eyes: he was just waiting to talk; to tell me something he felt I must know.

“Do you like The Lemonheads? Evan Dando is a genius. It’s a Shame About Ray is the album of the ‘90s!”

He said this in such a manner as if he was urging me to disagree with him, but I had no evidence to back up anything I might say about the group, because I simply didn’t know much about The Lemonheads. Of course, I’d heard the name, I knew the lead singer’s name was Evan Dando and that he’d had a crack problem somewhere along the line and that he had been one of dozens of similar musicians to spend some time in the sack with Winona Ryder. But all I really knew about their music was that they covered Big Star sometimes and did that Gen-X baiting “Mrs. Robinson” cover. So, like a good student of popular music, I set about downloading some Lemonheads. I listened to some songs off of Ray, as the gentleman suggested, and they were great, but only about two songs stuck with me and my interest began to wane. And then a couple of weeks ago, I read that the group was about to release a new album, so I thought I better give them another chance lest I be left out in the cold should this new work bring about a comeback of Travolta-sized (or at least Jason Bateman-sized) proportions.

But the work I picked was the album that more or less ended things for the band the first time around: 1996’s Car Button Cloth. Coming off the relative failure of Come On Feel The Lemonheads, Dando had apparently become something of a punchline in the rock world, becoming better known for photo shoots with Juliana Hatfield, saying silly things in interviews, and succumbing to a crack addiction. The album was recorded after Dando had sobered up (supposedly) and put together an entirely new band (still called The Lemonheads) featuring Murph from Dinosaur Jr. on drums. The criticisms pointed at Car Button Cloth are true: it’s unfocused and a bit of a mess; but it also contains at least three of Dando’s greatest compositions.

“It’s All True,” is a stop-start rocker with strong Byrds-ian echoes in the verses. It also features the best use of cowbell since Gene Frenkle cured Bruce Dickinson’s fever and a solo that would probably make J Mascis call a lawyer, if you could sue for someone completely copping your guitar playing style and tone…and if J Mascis actually gave a shit.

“If I Could Talk I’d Tell You” is arguably the best of Dando’s “upbeat three-chord” songs which also includes “Into Your Arms” and “Confetti.” It’s also one of dozens of songs in the man’s canon which could have easily been a top ten hit if given the proper attention from Atlantic Records. Gotta love the bridge which sounds like someone just got too lazy to do an actual guitar solo and simply whistled a guitar line instead; but it works, adding to the care-free nature of the song.

But probably the best song here (written by longtime collaborator Tom Morgan) is the beautiful and hilarious “The Outdoor Type,” a song by an indoor guy, for indoor guys. He hits the nail on the head with lines like: “I can’t go away with you on a rock climbing weekend / What if something’s on TV and it’s never shown again?” As someone who has a bad relationship with the sun and earth (I’m actually allergic to grass) I can’t help but laugh at the sad truth of lines like “I’ve never slept out underneath the stars / The closest that I came to that was one time my car / Broke down for an hour in the suburbs at night,” or the mantra for all of us who spend too much time in front of the warm glow of an LCD monitor: “God bless the great indoors.”

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