Die, Evan Dando, Die!

Every Wednesday when it's time to write my portion of the "We're Obsessed" entry, I spend at least a minute or two staring at my iBook screen and counseling myself, "Don't write about Rock of Love. DO NOT WRITE ABOUT ROCK OF LOVE." It's a great struggle but I manage. So instead of blowing my cool and writing about Rock of Love in this post, I'm going to speak of another long-blonde-haired mimbo rock boy from my youth. That would be Evan Dando, whose lovely Lemonheads just reissued their 1992 record It's A Shame About Ray.

I've already talked about my own personal teenhood encounters with Evan, but since that post I've been on a bit of a Lemonheads kick - not just Ray, but also '93's Come On Feel The Lemonheads and '96's Car Button Cloth. (And, lord have mercy, when I just searched for "Evan Dando" on nogoodforme to get the link in that last sentence, guess which Google ad randomly popped up in the sidebar? One for BRET MICHAELS RINGTONES. See, I'm totally onto something.) They're both probably less perfect albums than Ray, but my fave songs off each - like Car Button Cloth's mega-heartachey "Break Me" (mp3!) - have really got that extra something special. And I almost just wrote something to the effect of "Tis a shame that we pay vastly more heed to Evan's good looks and charms than to his songwriting abilities," but then I got a grip on myself. Would I love Evan the same if it weren't for the pretty? No, I would not. However, I still believe him to be quite adept at whipping together brilliantly catchy pop songs, full of lyrics that usually do this cute little pogo-dance on the line between genius and uber-goofball.

But I digress, a lot. I'm supposed to be focusing on It's A Shame About Ray here, for the sake of timeliness and all. I don't know if I'll end up going out and grabbing the reissue, but I've given the original CD a spin or two lately and the songs hold up damn well (though, I must confess, the cover of "Frank Mills" from Hair might forever be my favorite track). And if you want to fall in love with Ray-era Evan all over again - or maybe for the first time - do watch this little clip from his appearance on Regis & Kathi Lee. He's such a beauty queen here, I kind of can't believe I ever actually exchanged words with him.

P.S. The title of this post is a reference to an early-90s zine, and nothing more. I don't really want Evan to die! I love Evan very much! Also, what is wrong with me that I actually feel sorta bad about calling Bret Michaels a mimbo?

P.P.S. The creepy picture below comes from a '93 issue of Details. Here are my favorite parts of the interview:

Are you the sensitive face of grunge?
Huh? Wooow. Um. No. I'm gonna go for a glam-grunge look in '93. But it's a fun thing to be asked: "Hey, are you grunge?" And you sniff your jacket and go, "Yup!"
What's the grungiest thing you've done all week?
(thinks for several hours) The grungiest thing I did all week was pull the tablecloth out from under four place settings and they all stayed there.
That's not very grunge, but it's pretty good all the same.
Yep. I was proud.
Do you consider yourself a poet?
Not yet. I would love to be, though I don't think I'd like calling myself a poet. That's like grunge, y'know. Grunge poetry! Yeah: "I was bustin' my pencil! I blew up the word processor!"

Posted by Liz in Music
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