As The Lemonheads prepare to release Varshons 2, we revisit this Album By Album piece, originally published in Uncut's March 2010 issue (Take 154) Evan Dando has calmed down since his near-procession into narcotic oblivion in the mid-’90s, but he can still do old-school things to hotel rooms. Now...
THE LEMONHEADS
CAR BUTTON CLOTH
Atlantic, 1996. Produced by Bryce Goggin
Dando cuts an increasingly wretched figure, hanging around Oasis wearing a jacket previously owned by the late Kurt Cobain. The album itself is curiously whimsical and chipper.
It got pretty bad. The Oasis part was harmless, and fun, and I don’t know why everyone was bothered by it so much. The jacket… that was bad. Courtney gave it to me, and I liked it, and I wore it a bit, and then I gave it back to her. But I was definitely out of my mind for a while there, and then it got worse. I flew down to Sydney, and banged a bunch of speed, and stayed up. The next night we did E, the next night some acid… and that’s when I lost my mind. By the time we made the album, I’d chilled out. I was drinking way too much, which is worse. Car Button Cloth is a booze album. We recorded it in Woodstock. It was made with no concessions to making a popular record, but I’m not naturally an uncommercial writer, I guess. I wrote “If I Could Talk I’d Tell You” with Eugene Kelly from The Vaselines. I’d always wanted to do “Knoxville Girl”, so I was pleased to get that done – I love The Louvin Brothers. But by 1997, I just felt like there wasn’t really a place for us. I wasn’t hungry any more. I had more money than I knew what to do with, so I was like, “Fuck it!”
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EVAN DANDO
BABY I’M BORED
Setanta, 2003. Produced by Jon Brion
Seven-year silence broken by terrific solo debut. Cover star a possible clue as to creator’s newfound equanimity – English model Elizabeth Moses, now aka Mrs Dando.
I’d been through the wringer. I just did it so hard for so long that I knew I needed a long break. I did all the things I hadn’t done – skiing, surfing, stuff like that. I was still trying to write songs, but I was having a real tough time. I couldn’t call it a Lemonheads record. There were too many people from other bands on it – Calexico, Come, Spacehog. And Ben Lee [who’d first gained attention as the teenage writer of Dando homage “I Wish I Was Him”]. What happened was that he’d get me over to his flat and say, “Come on, Evan, let’s write a song, just for fun.” He was a good coach. He wrote “All My Life” just for me. I thought it was a catchy song. I didn’t think too much about the lyrics. I was just happy to be back in the game. I never really stopped drugs completely. I stopped drinking in 2001 for four years, because that was a problem. I’m not gonna say no to a line at a wedding, or something, but it’s not my whole life any more. That’s my wife on the cover, yeah. She changed everything for me. Falling in love, it’s pretty cool.