Graham Reid | | 1 min read
The Lemonheads: Just Can't Take It Anymore
By happy coincidence, the very day that the Lemonheads' cover of Leonard Cohen's Hey That's No Way to Say Goodbye was pulled out From the Vaults this 2011 double disc -- subtitled The Best of -- seemed to leap out of the rack and attach itself to my credit card.
These 47 non-chronological tracks draw from all part of the band's career and start with songs from their debut album Hate Your Friends in '87, pick up their much acclaimed and diverse covers (Suzanne Vega's Luka, Mike Nesmith's Different Drum, Paul Simon's Mrs Robinson, Rainer Ptacek's Rudy with a Flashlight, Gram Parson's Brass Buttons, New Kids on the Bock's Step by Step etc) and up to material from Car Button Cloth, their '96 album before the split up.
Of course they reformed and did their covers album Varshon in '09 (Parson's Just Can't Take It Anymore among the songs, and Green Fuz from that closes things here) but the good stuff came on their albums Lovey, It's a Shame About Ray and Come on Feel the Lemonheads which are well represented here with memorable songs like Into Your Arms, Big Gay Heart, Ride with Me, My Drug Buddy, The Outdoor Type . . .
By drawing from the best of country-rock, power pop, guitar jangle rock, acoustic ballads and indie-rock, Evan Dando and the Lemonheads built an impressive body of work and, as Michael Heatley observes in the cover notes, Dando might have had his problems but even now you rule him out at your peril.
The tracklisting for each CD might be flipped in the booklet, but this excellent double disc is just $20 at JB Hi-Fi stores here, which makes it this week's Bargain Buy.
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