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The time has come to look deep into your heart and ask a very tough question: am I ready to accept Evan Dando back into my life? The relationship you had with the towering poster boy for narcotics with the chiselled jaw and uncanny knack for power-?pop pleasures was a tumultuous one back in the 90s. Amidst the growling grunge clatter of that decade, his Lemonheads endeared themselves to you with a beautifully honest, hook-laden record called It’s a Shame About Ray. Songs like Alison’s Starting To Happen and Rudderless were breaths of fresh air in an ultra-serious alternative rock landscape. That record’s successor, Come On Feel The Lemonheads, was wobbly but didn’t stumble, inspiring faith that Dando wasn’t as wincingly foolish as the press made him out to be. But it all came crashing down with Dando’s spiralling drug habits and a woefully confused Car Button Cloth (1996), closing the book on the Lemonheads story for the next 10 years.
In case you didn’t notice, Dando reformed the Lemonheads a few years ago and dropped a self-?titled comeback bolstered by new members – punk legends Bill Stevenson and Karl Alvarez. It’s a respectable effort, and recent well-received performances where Dando’s finally embracing his early catalogue are further evidence that he might have his shit together again and we should most definitely take him back. Dando plays the Horseshoe June 13, midnight.
