Sometimes it's hard to break out of the 60's and 70's when it comes to music, so I've sent a directive to the staff at ForTheDishwasher to make a concerted effort to delve deeper into 80's and 90's music scene over the next few months. And if they don't do my bidding I'll fire their asses and hire cheap labor from North-of-the-Border to implement my orders.
Now if I could only think of the Yul Brynner The King and I quote, things would be copasetic.
So we're starting things out with an IASAR Lemonheads extravaganza. Then maybe some Tripping Daisy, Lucksmiths, The Wedding Present...who knows where this'll lead. As usual, enjoy!
From John Mulvey at Uncut:
It’s not always easy to remember these things: in 1992, did It’s A Shame About Ray sound quite so poignant, so tender, so presciently damaged? If memory serves, we all jumped on this, Evan Dando’s fifth Lemonheads album, as a sort of exuberant and charming riposte to grunge. Dando had gradually steered his brattish Boston punk band into becoming a rough-edged powerpop outfit. Compared with, say, Alice In Chains, the Lemonheads certainly sounded fun, if not quite the lightweights they were portrayed as in the wake of that ill-advised dash through “Mrs Robinson”.
But listening to It’s A Shame About Ray now, what’s most striking is an emotional frailty at the heart of these swift and memorable little songs, a vivid intimation of the mess that Evan Dando would soon become. After his fourth album, Lovey, had underperformed, Dando escaped to Sydney and fell in with a bunch of indie musicians, centred around a cute band called Smudge and a lively label called Half A Cow. Smudge’s frontman, Tom Morgan, and Half A Cow’s owner, Nic Dalton, became Dando’s new musical accomplices: Dalton would soon join the Lemonheads full-time as their bassist.
Morgan and Dalton certainly encouraged Dando’s warm melodic gifts, his goofier side – as did The Robb Brothers, who produced Ray at their studio in LA. But amongst all the “butterscotch streetlamps” and so on, the singer’s insecurities were already pronounced. On “My Drug Buddy”, a gorgeous, countryish lope that briefly posited Dando and Juliana Hatfield as a ‘90s Gram and Emmylou, he notes sorrowfully, “I’m too much with myself, I wanna be someone else.” “Rudderless”, meanwhile, is saturated with regret: “Walked back home to my place (tired of getting high), Guess I don’t wanna die.” This, remember, is purportedly Dando’s age of innocence. In fact, he had been seriously experimenting with drugs for years.
It’s A Shame About Ray, in its 2008 incarnation, is still a great album, but a palpably darker one. The original 29 minutes remain a compact pop thrill. “Mrs Robinson” remains a trouble-making aberration (and one left off initial pressings of the album). [...] Beneath the fresh bubblegum zing, they reveal the truth about Evan Dando: long before fame got to him, he was exquisitely well-prepared to self-destruct.
CD Reissue Technical Information:
Artist: Lemonheads
Album: It's a Shame about Ray (Reissue)
Year: 1992
Audio Codec(s): FLAC
Encoding: Lossless
Rip: EAC split tracks
Avg. bitrate: 911 kb/s
Sample rate: 44100 Hz
Bits per sample: 16
Channels: 2
File size: 215 MB
Length: 0:33:07
Tracklisting:
01. Rockin' stroll (1:48)
02. Confetti (2:45)
03. It's a Shame about Ray (3:07)
04. Rudderless (3:19)
05. Buddy (2:51)
06. The Turnpike Down (2:34)
07. Bit Part (1:51)
08. Alison's Starting to Happen (1:59)
09. Hannah & Gabi (2:41)
10. Kitchen (2:55)
11. Ceiling Fan in My Spoon (1:48)
12. Frank Mills (1:45)
13. Mrs. Robinson (3:44)
CD Reissue Megaupload Link
Single E.P. Technical Information:
Artist: Lemonheads
Album: It's a Shame about Ray (Single EP)
Year: 1992
Audio Codec(s): FLAC
Encoding: Lossless
Rip: EAC split tracks
Avg. bitrate: 906 kb/s
Sample rate: 44100 Hz
Bits per sample: 16
Channels: 2
File size: 65.3 MB
Length: 0:10:05
Tracklisting:
01. It's a Shame about Ray (3:08)
02. Shaky Ground (1:47)
03. Dawn Can't Decide (2:38)
04. The Turnpike Down (2:33)
Single E.P. Megaupload Link
Live E.P. Technical Information:
Artist: Lemonheads
Album: It's a Shame about Ray (Live EP)
Location: Liberty Lunch, Austin, TX
Recorded: December 3, 1992
Released: 1993
Audio Codec(s): FLAC
Encoding: Lossless
Rip: split tracks
Avg. bitrate: 889 kb/s
Sample rate: 44100 Hz
Bits per sample: 16
Channels: 2
File size: 73.2 MB
Length: 0:11:31
Personnel:
Evan Dando: guitar, vocals
David Ryan: drums
Nic Dalton: bass, vocals
Tracklisting:
01. It's a Shame about Ray (3:13)
02. Confetti (2:47)
03. Mallo Cup (2:14)
04. Rudderless (3:17)
Live E.P. Megaupload Link
