Welcome to the weekend, folks!
Mark today down as the day that Matt (me!) learned that I really need to investigate the B-sides/rarities of The Lemonheads, i.e. one of my favorite groups from the 90’s!
Lemonheads albums It’s A Shame About Ray and Come On Feel The Lemonheads got a TON of play in my world during the 90’s. Unexplainably, I didn’t see the band live at that point, and I’ve finally been able to make up for that in the past few years since Evan Dando resurrected the band (in name anyway) for live dates, and a new self-titled album.
The Popdose cats caught my attention with this part of their weekly Chartburn discussion:
Robert: The Lemonheads did a B-side cover of “Keep On Lovin’ You” in ‘96, and Evan Dando was asked in an interview for Athens, Georgia’s Flagpole alt-weekly if his version was meant to be ironic. He said it wasn’t — he bought Hi Infidelity in eighth grade like everyone else, and he wished rock stars would act like rock stars onstage again the way, say, REO Speedwagon and Kiss did, instead of shyly saying “thanks” after finishing a song and then quietly starting the next one. Dando does add some toking noises (sorry if my pot lingo is out of date — I’m a square) to the Lemonheads’ version of “Keep On,” but otherwise he sounds sincere in his delivery. And he does have a much better voice than Kevin Cronin.
As you can imagine, faster than I could type “Google,” I was off and searching for the above mentioned cover. How could I have missed it? Simple, it came out around the Car Button Cloth period when I tuned out. I later found appreciation for the Car Button Cloth album, but at the time, I wasn’t digging it.
As it turns out, the REO Speedwagon cover is from a limited edition EP release for the single “It’s All True.” The EP contained not only the REO song, but also covers of Metallica’s “Fade to Black,” and also Oasis’ “Live Forever.” The Metallica and Oasis covers are pretty solid – and the REO cover is a bit sketchy, but it’s interesting to know from the above Popdose excerpt that the cover wasn’t done from a “goof on REO” perspective.
The Lemonheads – Keep on Loving You
The Lemonheads – Fade To Black
The Lemonheads – Live Forever
Relevant Links:
Thanks to Moody Places for the EP!
A related “It’s All True” link
Official Lemonheads Website
Shopping List:
Collector’s edition reissue of It’s A Shame About Ray
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