The Lemonheads formed in Boston, MA in 1983 by friends Evan Dando, Ben Deily and Jesse Peretz while they were all still in high-school. In the beginning they played a style of punk rock that sat somewhere in between Hüsker Dü and The Descendents, but as the band progressed they added more and more of a pop-sheen to their music. The first two albums are raw, angry and melodic, and some of the best indie rock to ever come out of Boston (Dinosaur Jr were from Amherst). Since Evan Dando is the only original member in the Lemonheads nowadays, I think a lot of people forget that in the beginning Ben Deily was responsible for writing half the songs (and most of the good ones). The core of Jesse, Ben and Evan lasted three albums, then Ben quit after the album Lick. Jesse stuck around for one more album, Lovey, before quitting (he went on to a lucrative career directing music videos, his most famous one being for the Foo Fighters' song "
Big Me"). The albums Lick and Lovey pre-date grunge but bear all the hallmarks of the genre: metal-tinged pop songs rooted in punk rock. Corey Loog Brennan from Bullet LaVolta played lead guitar on Lick and Lovey, and he wails all over those two albums. After Jesse's departure Evan flew to Australia to write with some friends, and then recorded their most popular album It's A Shame About Ray. The follow-up album Come On Feel The Lemonheads contained their highest charting song, "Into Your Arms", that went number one right after Nirvana's "Heart-shaped Box" and before Pearl Jam's "Daughter". Evan put the band on hiatus after releaseing the album Car Button Cloth (which featured the drumming of Emmett Jefferson Patrick "Murph" Murphy III of Dinosaur Jr fame), a hiatus that would last nearly ten years. For those ten years Evan just did mountains of drugs and not much else. In 2005 Evan wrote some Lemonheads songs, signed to Vagrant Records and recruited Bill Stevenson and Karl Alvarez of Descendents/All fame to back him up and record the self-titled album. J. Mascis also contributed some of his signature guitar leads to the album, which was one of 2006's biggest surprises for me. Every album is great, but If I had start somewhere I would recommend Creator first, It's just got great timeless pop songs with a real punk rock edge.
As an added bonus here is the bands cover of The New Kids On The Block song "Step By Step", get it
here.
