The Lemonheads - Car Button Cloth

 

The Lemonheads – Car Button Cloth

By

Jesse E. Mullen

You’ve formed a band straight out of high school. You’ve released a classic album of the early 90s. And then your critics say you’ve squandered away your talents.

So was the story of Evan Dando in the mid-90s. His band The Lemonheads released a cover to cover classic in It’s A Shame About Ray in 1992. He formed a powerful songwriting partnership with Tom Morgan of the Australian band Smudge. And then he threw it all away.

Or at least that’s what music journalists of the time wanted to believe. Sure, he had his very public struggles with addiction. And yes, he had some odd behavior in an Australian airport. But he also recorded a largely excellent follow up album in 1993’s Come On Feel The Lemonheads.

However, questions still remained in the public’s eyes. Could Dando keep delivering excellent albums under the circumstances? And how long could he handle the rock n roll lifestyle? In 1996, Evan Dando surprised everyone with a new Lemonheads album. Entitled Car Button Cloth, it was the most diverse disc Dando had recorded yet. But how did it stack up?

The album gets off to a fine start with “It’s All True.” The track features a stop-start rhythm unlike Dando’s typical up-tempo fair. He also sounds somewhat wearier on the track – his experiences of the past few years seem to have had a profound impact on him.

When the guitar break hits, it resembles J. Mascis. Fitting, as a member of Dinosaur Jr. is featured here. Patrick “Murph” Murphy was on loan to The Lemonheads after a grueling Lollapalooza tour prompted his exit from Dinosaur in 1993.

On “If I Could Talk I’d Tell You,” Murph starts off with the same tom rolls that he used on Dinosaur Jr.’s “Little Fury Things.” Musically, the song is upbeat jangle pop and the verses all substitute one word for non-sequiturs. But the title has a slightly darker connotation.

Dando seems to be referencing the real-life incident when he lost his voice smoking too much crack in 1993. Consequently, he had to give an interview to a member of the British press using a pen and paper for his responses.

“Break Me” is perhaps the track where the Dinosaur Jr. sound comes out the most. While the opening riff sounds much like The Lemonheads’ own “Rudderless,” and Dando sings more sweetly than J. Mascis, the guitars crunch and jangle much like they would on one of Mascis’ songs.

The mellotron and piano interlude before the final crescendo further solidifies the track as a sonic highlight. The way the song transitions from bright and cheery in the verses to dark and brooding in the choruses show Dando growing further as a lyricist and a composer.

Other songs allude to Dando’s state of mind at the time. Between the upbeat call-and-response verses of “Something’s Missing,” Dando muses on feelings of malaise. “Hospital” alludes to addicts dying before their time with its refrain of “green, green leaves falling off the trees.”

It’s “Losing Your Mind” however that best displays how Dando was feeling at the time. A slow, minor key rock song that alludes to early Black Sabbath, Dando describes a chilling comfort in going insane. The song is borderline progressive by Lemonheads standards, and shows Dando branching out into new territory.

Perhaps the cover of “Knoxville Girl” is the most interesting track on the album. A murder ballad from the 1930s, Dando rearranged it into a country/grunge hybrid. Playing in waltz time with a loud, ringing d-chord in the chorus, it’s safe to assume The Louvin Brothers couldn’t have imagined this when they originally recorded it.

But there was also one lost track from the sessions. “Purple Parallelogram” was a song Dando co-wrote with Noel Gallagher in 1994. Dando met the Oasis guitarist and songwriter on tour in the UK and quickly struck up a friendship. They wrote a few goofy songs on a portable tape recorder in a hotel room and went their separate ways.

When Dando was making Car Button Cloth sometime later, he dusted off the track and recorded it with the full band. However, Gallagher was not pleased that the novelty song they had written was being released and requested that the track be removed. Thus “Purple Parallelogram” is only available on advance promo copies of the album.

Sometimes the events of an artist’s personal life overshadow great work. Unfortunately, this was the case for The Lemonheads in the mid-90s. Despite attempts by critics to write him off, Evan Dando still had plenty to say. Car Button Cloth is Dando at his most adventurous, but also his most focused.

TAG/Atlantic Records/1996