Classic Albums #7: Lemonheads 'it's a shame about Ray'
 

It's a Shame about Ray is an album by The Lemonheads. It was released on June 2, 1992 (see 1992 in music). Tom Morgan of Australian band Smudge helped author the album, and Juliana Hatfield played bass.
After its initial release, the album was re-issued with a cover of "Mrs. Robinson", originally by Simon & Garfunkel, which was released as a single. The song had been recorded after the other tracks, with a different bass player. Pressure from the record label also caused the title of the song "My Drug Buddy" to be reduced to the less-provocative "Buddy" when the album was reissued.
"Alison's Starting to Happen" refers to Alison Galloway, the drummer for Smudge.
The album also includes a cover of the song "Frank Mills" from the musical Hair.
The band performed the album in its entirety at London's Shepherds Bush Empire on September 14 and 15, 2005, as part of All Tomorrow's Parties' Don't Look Back series of concerts. The cover of "Mrs. Robinson," a song that Dando grew tired of after its popularity, was missing from the setlist.
"Confetti" and the title track were also released as singles in the UK.


Track listing

(All songs by Evan Dando unless otherwise stated.)
1)"Rockin Stroll"
2)"Confetti"
3)"It's A Shame About Ray" (Words by Dando/Tom Morgan, music by Dando)
4)"Rudderless"
5)"My Drug Buddy"
6)"The Turnpike Down"
7)"Bit Part" (Words by Dando/Morgan, music by Dando)
8)"Alison's Starting To Happen"
9)"Hannah & Gabi"
10)"Kitchen" (Nic Dalton)
11)"Ceiling Fan In My Spoon"
12)"Frank Mills" (James Rado, Jerome Ragni, Arthr MacDermot)
13)"Mrs. Robinson" (Paul Simon)

The song "Mrs. Robinson" did not appear on original versions of the album.

ALL HAIL KING EVAN

:o awesome album!

This one slipped by me in 1992. I remember always wanting to pick it up but never got around to it. I'll have to watch for it.

you will love it gmku, it is pop and guitars and rock, beautiful songs.

i took one out of the library once, it was great but i forgot to burn it :p

i bought it in 2001 based completely on the font cover! and just loved it to death, i have seen them/him 3 times now. and i have all their/his albums.

Thanks, Screamingskull. Sounds like my cup of tea.

you can't really call them the lemonheads though, it's really just the beautiful and talented Evan Dando, he writes everything.

here is evan dando, human turd in the toilet of popular music.
'sall I'm gonna say on this thread.

It's a shame, if Evan Dando was ugly you guys would probably give the lemonheads a second chance, But because he is handsome, but straight away assume their music is shit.

what it has to be older that 15 years to be considered a classic?

Personally, I advocate a 20 year waiting period.
Even then, this would still be pretty weak music to me.
And I never thought Dando was really all that handsome, even. Never got why he was considered such a heartthrob.

i don't agree with one word you just said.

I'm also in favour of a 20 year period. Mainly because I don't like a lot of early-90s music.

Hang on... I don't like a lot of things, ignore me.

well i also made a Todd Rundgren Something/Anything thread for the classic's list, but people didn't like that either.

http://www.sonicyouth.com/gossip/showthread.php?t=14265

that albums 35 years old.

Not so.
I like Japan, for god's sake, and a bigger bunch of made-up prettyboys is hard to think of.

As for Rundgren, I don't dig that stuff personally, but I'll go ahead and agree to a couple of his albums being classics because of the techniques they employed and Todd's unique and identifiable approach to recording.

fuck the lemonheads. my distaste for them has nothing to do with evan and everything to do with the sound of soft indie-wuss-rocking GRATES on my ears. the lemonheads are everything the butthole surfers and sonic youth and dinosaur and big black DESTROYED with their abrasive ROCK!

yeah sure, they really destroyed it huh?

This is the first and only album I bought and heard of the Lemondheads (for £5) I only picked it up cuz Thurston sings Lemonheads in Screaming Skull.

It's got some inoffensive airy strummy nothing pop songs on. I guess it's ok if you're falling asleep, but classic album #7? :O

that's why i am called screamingskull, because of the lemonheads reference in the song.

Maybe i should just list obscure noise bands from now on.

Whatever a 'classic' is, I don't think Ray is it. It's a popular and enjoyable distillation of sounds already doing the rounds at the time, fronted by a very magazine-friendly singer. That's ok in itself, but beyond that, what did it REALLY bring to the table?

great pop-rock songs?

as far as musical history goes, YES!!!!

Rob all you do on here is argue with people, lately me.

sorry, I have had a bad few weeks. Take nothing of it personal.

no offense ss, but this is not a classic.

actually, you're the only person who is still talking about them today, the lemonheads have not come up in conversation for me in the past ten years or so.


"into your arms, whow, into your arms, i can go"

i fucking hate that song, i like their "mrs. robinson" cover though.

this lp is ok but the real classics were 'creator' and 'hate your friends', thanks to ben deily who was the talented one... well ok, dando is cool too, actually lemonheads played live here in helsinki a couple of weeks ago, great gig!

Both him and JulianafuckingHatfield can go and fuck themselves. File under sarramkrop's hatred for certain indie blokes in the vein of Stephen Malkmus. In fact, they could almost be related, for all I know.



Twat.

I love My Drug Buddy, one of my favourite songs ever.

The rest depends on my state of mind... it's either charming and sleepy or boring and vapid. It's never struck me as a classic.

HA! I was just writing about Evan and The Lemonheads in another thread a mere minute ago. On to the subject at hand, as a longtime Dandohead "Ray" is most definitely one of my all time favorite albums, but that said Evan has quite a body of work beyond "Ray". No doubt, virtually every single song on "Ray" is an absolute classic (whether you like Evan or not, these songs ARE now considered to be "classics" by many fans and critics alike the world over), but I also think "Come On Feel The Lemonheads" and "Car Button Cloth" contain some really, really great songs. Those two records have often been described as "uneven" or "unfocused" when compared to "Ray" but I've never really seen them that way. The genre hopping of those albums is part of their charm and really, I think "Come On Feel" is every bit as strong as "Ray" (most hardcore Dandoheads feel the same way). As far as "Car Button Cloth" goes, it may not be quite as consistent as "Ray" and "Come On Feel" overall, but it does contain a handful of truly great songs that rank right up there with anything he's ever done. Hell, it may even by my all time fav Lemonheads album if push came to shove. As I was just saying in that other thread, I would also highly recommend his recent solo albums "Live At The Brattle Theatre" and "Baby I'm Bored" as well as last year's acclaimed, self-titled Lemonheads album (which features Bill Stevenson and Karl Alvarez of The Descendents, J. Mascis and Garth Hudson of The Band). It's very much in the classic Lemonheads mold. :)

p.s. Rhino Records is planning a two CD "Ray" reissue for later this year....

What's Evan Dandos solo stuff like? Acoustic? Country tinged? Folk? What?

I saw one secondhand yesterday.

I own some Lemonheads but don't listen to them very often.

Yeah, the solo stuff is generally acoustic based, more introspective overall. "Live At The Brattle Theatre" is a live album from one of his solo acoustic shows and it features stripped down arrangements of Lemonheads classics like "Down About It", "Turnpike Down", "Outdoor Type", "Buddy" etc. etc. "Baby I'm Bored" is his first proper solo album and it's a real grower. Maybe not a whole lot of stuff on there that will come out and grab you right away but it'll grow on you with repeated listens.

The biggest difference between his solo stuff and the new "Lemonheads" album is the Lemonheads album rocks a lot harder. It kinda falls somewhere inbetween the post-punk of the late eighties Lemonheads records and the jangly guitar pop of the early nineties Lemonheads records with Evan and J. Mascis both delivering some pretty rockin' gee-tar. :)

there is pretty much NO difference between Evan's Solo stuff and the Lemonheads records (after Deily left the band). THE LEMONHEADS IS EVAN DANDO, Baby I'm Bored is a sad record.

Well of course Evan Dando is The Lemonheads and has been from "Lovey" on. The difference I'm talking about is purely musical. Like when journalists have asked Evan what is the difference between a record he puts out under his own name and this new "Lemonheads" album, he's answered that the new stuff under The Lemonheads banner rocks a little harder, if not a lot harder than his solo stuff. And it's true. There's not really anything on "Baby I'm Bored", which is pretty introspective overall, that rocks in the same way some of the stuff from the new Lemonheads album does, you know what I mean? They're both great albums but they're apples and oranges in that sense.

god i dislike that album. whats the point in reduxing an album thats barely 25 minutes long. boring boring strummy shitwhic was only made popular due to the curret wave of trendiness anmongst the singles/slacker brigade. flannel shirts were uninspiring and bland and so is this album....

hey evan... redux these beauties instead....

He still does some of the pre-"Ray" stuff live. "Ride With Me" and "Stove" are staples of both his acoustic sets and full band shows. "Half The Time" and "Mallo Cup" both show up pretty regularly to. I've also seen him do "Don't Tell Yourself", "Clang Bang Clang" and "Your Home Is Where Your Happy" in recent years. And last time I saw him in December he encored with "Hate Your Friends". :)