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IVH: The Lemonheads / It's A Shame About Ray [1]

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Date: 2023-05-18

Tonight’s selections from the Lemonheads fifth album, It’s a Shame About Ray.

It’s the early 1990s in New England. You’ve got a free afternoon, so you round up your friends, one of whom you have a crush on, to get a little high and walk around until something happens to you. That’s the rough plot of the Lemonheads‘ It’s a Shame About Ray. Released in June of 1992, the album was the band’s fifth overall but second for Atlantic Records, eventually being certified gold in the US, the UK, and Australia. Its 30th-anniversary deluxe edition, courtesy of Fire Records, offers the remastered record plus B-sides, demos, and covers. The original album remains a paragon of ’90s pop rock. It opens with “Rockin’ Stroll”, told from the perspective of a blissed-out baby inside a stroller being wheeled around outside: “People’s knees / And trunks of trees / Smile at me”. That is followed by “Confetti”, which frontperson Evan Dando wrote about his parents’ divorce: “She just wanted him to love her, but he didn’t / He took to the woods and wandered in it / Walked along and on until they couldn’t.” Then there’s “My Drug Buddy”, with backing vocals from bassist Juliana Hatfield, which is the tale of scoring “some of the same stuff we got yesterday” as a female friend makes the crucial phone call. Jeff “Skunk” Baxter provides slide guitar on “Hannah & Gabi” (the band would lean heavily into this twang on their next album, 1993’s Come on Feel the Lemonheads). It’s a divine half-hour of songs about familial, romantic, and platonic relationships and bumming around town. — Pop Matters



Mrs. Robinson



Some background: The Lemonheads formed in Boston during the mid-1980s and released three albums of fuzzy punk-pop on local label Taang! Records before signing to Atlantic in 1989. Their 1990 major-label debut, Lovey, wasn't a huge return on the investment, but in the two-year interval between that album and Ray, Nirvana and the ensuing alternative boom proved that smaller bands and unlikely signings could have enormous commercial prospects. The Lemonheads both benefited and suffered from this new pop cultural climate: Just as Ray found a more open-minded audience, it was also disregarded by so many kids like me, who were suddenly very serious about music, man, and saw only Dando's model looks, not his songcraft. Never mind that Ray is as much a junkie album as Nevermind, written and partly recorded during a particularly narcotic-heavy trip to Australia. No wonder Dando was a pin-up: He was handsome but damaged, a fixer-upper. If he was the Jordan Catalano before Jared Leto, then the do-they-or-don't-they controversy between him and roommate/bassist/kissing partner/self-professed virgin Juliana Hatfield made them the Ross and Rachel of the "120 Minutes" set. Now that all of that hubbub has died down and Dando is just another alt-act trying to make a comeback, Ray sounds nearly revelatory in its restlessness, mixing college pop with country flair and relocating Gus Van Sant's Portland atmosphere to New England. The most beguiling aspect of the title track, one of Dando's best compositions, is its impenetrability: It could be about anyone or pertain to almost any bad situation, and that ambiguity suggests some tragedy that can't be named or faced. "The Turnpike Down" descends on a tripping hook that sounds altogether too bubbly for the material, while "Alison's Starting to Happen", inspired by a friend's ecstasy trip, sounds genuinely excited, especially when Dando starts rushing his words towards the end. "Kitchen", with its handclaps and effervescent jangle, rubs elbows with the tense chords and casually manic repetitions of "Rudderless", where the acoustic guitar sounds spikier than the electric. And the bow on the package is the not-necessarily-ironic cover of "Frank Mills", a song from the musical Hair that Dando sings with a charmingly goofy bliss. — Pitchfork



It's A Shame About Ray

x YouTube Video



The clues had been there for a while – their A+ cover of the Stone Poneys’ Different Drum on their Favorite Spanish Dishes EP, the amped-up jangle of the Lovey standout Stove – that Dando had a more wistful, tuneful side waiting to bust out, which it did either side of a stay in Australia. Dando liked the place so much that he doubled back soon after the band’s first tour there, opening for Fugazi solo, and ran into a clutch of groups such as the Hummingbirds (who counted future Lemonhead ​​Nic Dalton among their ranks for a time) that played the sort of effortlessly melodic indie that he was about to fall head over heels for. He stayed on in Sydney for a while, doing speed and writing songs with new pal Tom Morgan, whose band, Smudge, had supported The Lemonheads at an earlier date in the city. They pulled together the title track – a gorgeous semi-acoustic lament for someone who is maybe dead, but maybe not, such are Dando’s typically vague lyrics – and Dando rattled off the uptempo opener Rockin’ Stroll and the laconically addictive Confetti before returning to the States. There, he enlisted Blake Babies’ Juliana Hatfield on bass and drummer David Ryan to make It’s a Shame About Ray. — Guitar



Confetti



I couldn't have given a shit about the Lemonheads in 1992, when I was a freshman in college and all the upperclass women were swooning over Evan Dando. For me, his pin-up status de-authenticated his music, which seemed mopey and unsubstantial. He sounded detached, like a stoner at a funeral, and the songs on the Lemonheads' break-out album, It's a Shame About Ray, were so short (several under two minutes) and the hooks so nonchalant they sounded accidental, all of which suggested a paucity of ideas and a short attention span reinforced by song titles like "Rudderless" and "My Drug Buddy". — Pitchfork

Dando has spent his career garnering both a slug of adulation and a fair amount of resentment. ‘Evan Dildo, the slacker-jawed himbo’ was a summary collection of put-downs. Maybe he was just too beautiful for his own good, or the urban myth that he was the heir to a fortune cast him as a chancing rich boy. Maybe his drug use seemed merely a recreational lifestyle choice set against the desperate – and somehow more virtuous - self-abuse indulged in by his musical peers. Whatever it was, and still is to a certain extent, Evan Dando appeared to stir a passive annoyance in a public who perceived that he was wasting his undoubted talent. — The Quietus



My Drug Buddy



Fortunately, most neat reductionist theories are blown apart by a few facts. Evan Dando is an extremely bright guy, and one who was deeply affected by his parents’ divorce when he was 11 years old. His life had been turned upside down by the breakdown of a relationship which seemed perfect on the outside but was fundamentally doomed. Like his father before him, Dando would project a certain image in public as he battled with depression. And, just as his dad made a significant break, it would take a tour of Australia in 1991 and a collection of colourful characters to spark Evan Dando into creating The Lemonheads’ masterpiece. There are several great tracks on It’s A Shame About Ray but one of the highlights is ‘Confetti’; a disarmingly upbeat song about Dando’s parents’ separation. It is one of those magically deceptive songs; utterly hummable and jarringly poignant. When Dando sang, “He kinda shoulda sorta woulda loved her if he could’ve/ He’d rather be alone than pretend/ She just wanted him to love her but he didn’t,” the rawness of the divorce still weighed heavily a dozen or so years after the event. — The Quietus



Bit Part



And one from the Favorite Spanish Dishes EP. A cover of the Stone Poneys (with Linda Ronstadt) Different Drum — written by Mike Nesmith from the Monkees. Great version of a great song! Favorite Spanish Dishes was a “promo only” EP that was released between Lovey and It’s A Shame...



Different Drum



WHO’S TALKING TO WHO?

Jimmy Kimmel: Molly Shannon, Giancarlo Esposito, Nickel Creek (R 3/22/23)

Jimmy Fallon: Chris Evans, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Toosii (R 4/17/23)

Stephen Colbert: Tom Hanks, Rachael & Vilray (R 1/9/23)

Seth Meyers: Bill Hader, Minnie Driver, Hernan Diaz (R 5/3/22)

James Corden: Owen Wilson, Jeff Goldblum, Lior Suchard (R 3/28/23)

SPOILER WARNING

None. All repeats. Spoil away.

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