July 19, 2008

the lemonheads "confetti"

have you ever suddenly thought of a song that you haven't heard in a dozen years, and then listened to it and felt like it sounded different in your memory? this kinda happened to me today with this one:



i didn't really remember the drums at all, and i forgot all about the guitar solo. i guess part of re-assessing the songs i liked from the early 90's involves tuning out guitar solos though. in my brain, this one was way more acoustic, and evan dando's voice wasn't as deep. oh well. it's still a pretty great song, and i ended up DLing the whole album, which totally rules and makes me feel like i'm 14 and finding exciting hairs all over my body.

also: this video is exactly what i thought art school would be like circa 1992... you know, like, taking some clunky old camcorder out to an abandoned old building and filming your friends playing guitar. then maybe coming back and shootin the shit with some tweedy professor who makes comparisons to william burroughs or something. bonus points for androgynous girls in dark lipstick and sprockets attire.

1992 evan dando made an even more beautiful woman than 1992 dan.

3 comments:

Aaron Wexler said...

I bet a 2008 Dan would make a more beautiful woman than a 2008 Evan Dando though.

evan dan - do though.

anthony campuzano said...

evan dando has the best male pop vocal ever. his voice is ideal. his songwriting isn't on par though. john sebastian should have been his ghostwriter.

dan said...

actually, evan dando is still looking pretty good:

http://img68.imageshack.us/img68/7906/evandando001788131ne3.jpg

in fact, he's got considerably less grey hair than me, which is notable being that he's about a decade my senior and used to openly admit to smoking crack.

as for the songwriting-- and since i've been listening to this record a lot for the past 24 hours-- i think the lemonheads found themselves in a precarious position. too soft to be punk, too stripped-down to quite fit the college rock scene, not macho enough for grunge. for all those weird restrictions, i think dando did a decent job. i don't know the lovin spoonful much besides singles, so i can't comment there, but i think dando was a better songwriter than most of the early nineties folks. i mean, the lemonheads weren't the pixies or anything, but they were maybe on par with the posies?

SUPER SECRET CONFESSION: i like dando's version of "brass buttons" better than graham parsons'. alt-country just doesn't work for me. which is weird because i like a lot of classic/indie rock that comes out of it. i love beggars banquet, but grievious angel leaves me cold. i'm weird sometimes.