I'll Be Out Here If You Need To Find Me

Evan Dando's musical career- sole ever- present member of Lemonheads and a solo album too- has been a very stop- start affair. In the early 90s he crashed into the popular culture with It's A Shame About Ray and Come On Feel The Lemonheads after some under the radar albums as a three piece- their third, Lick in 1989, got some music press attention in the UK partly due to their cover of Suzanne Vega's Luka but they were just another American indie band, a little bit punk, a little bit country, ragged guitars, ripped jeans and Converse. After grunge exploded and their cover of Mrs Robinson gave them a hit they started selling records and Evan hit a rich vein of form. 

Exhibit A) My Drug Buddy from 1992's It's A Shame About Ray

My Drug Buddy

Exhibit B) Into Your Arms from 1993's Come On Feel The Lemonheads (a cover of a 1989 song by Australian band Love Positions)

Into Your Arms

Evan also developed some serious problems with crack cocaine and Lemonheads went on hiatus after 1996's Car Button Cloth. In 2003 he put out a solo album, Baby I'm Bored and a Lemonheads re- union followed in 2005 with a couple of albums and some appearances and disappearances. I've very much dipped in and out but am often curious to hear what he'd been up to. Evan's a talented writer and singer. 

Now living in Brazil Evan has got things back together and an album Love Chant is due in October. In Maya new song, Deep End, came out, three minutes thirty seven seconds of riffing and growly vocals, a song that recalls former glories but also sounds like a new Evan Dando. Julianna Hatfield is back and J Mascis turns up for the guitar solos.

And then two weeks ago another one, In The Margin, short and sweet and on fire, more riffs, more guitars, more choruses and Evan sounding great. 

Breathe

At the end of January Dinosaur Jr main man J Mascis released a digital single on Sub Pop, a cover of The Cure's Breathe. Over a wall of acoustic guitars and an occasional lead line J sings in that wracked, half asleep way of his, his voice wandering around the tune. It's less than three minutes long and very nice indeed. You can buy Breathe here. 

Breathe was a B-side to Catch, a single in 1987, one of four taken from the eighteen track double album Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me (an album that was no slouch when it came to great singles- Just Like Heaven and Why Can't I Be You? were two of the remaining three singles, the other being Hot Hot Hot!!!). 

Catch

Catch is a lazy, woozy, wonky song, lit up by a violin and rattly drums, a Spanish guitar solo and Robert Smith singing of lost teenage love.

Forty Five Minutes of Sonic Youth

One of the evenings out in Fuerteventura, while pottering around, having a drink and getting ready to go out for tea, I had a sudden urge to hear Teenage Riot by Sonic Youth. One of the wonders of the internet age and mobile phones is that almost any song is only a few seconds and clicks away and within a few seconds the sound of Sonic Youth's 1988 masterpiece, the New York band's imagining of an alternative USA with Dinosaur Jr's J Mascis as President, was filling our hotel room. From there a worked my way through a few of my favourite SY songs, some of which I've pulled together into a forty five minute mix here. This could easily have been twice the length- or a part two could appear at some point. It focusses mainly on their 80s and early 90s output, the Sonic Youth of my youth- and their singles mainly too, not too many deep cuts. There's lots of 21st century Sonic Youth that's worth investigating and maybe I'll come back to it. 

Forty Five Minutes of Sonic Youth

• Teenage Riot
• Youth Against Fascism
• Computer Age
• Kotton Krown
• Death Valley '69
• Kool Thing
• Bull In The Heather
• Sugar Cane
• Dirty Boots

Teenage Riot is from 1988's Daydream Nation, a standard setting 1988 double album, an album which felt like the culmination of something, everything coming together. I could have included half the songs from it on this mix- Silver Rocket, Eric's Trip, Candle, Hey Joni... all indie- punk songs blending the art, noise and alternate tunings with  verse/ chorus melodies. Teenage Riot- one of the songs of the 80s.

Youth Against Fascism- how apt eh? A 1992 single and song from Dirty, the album from the same year, and one that shows the band engaging with politics, twelve years into Republican presidencies in the USA, Kim Gordon's bass a constant grinding menace, Thurston and Lee's guitars distorted and buzzing and Minor Threat/ Fugazi's Ian MacKaye guesting and doubling up on vocals. Sugar Cane is from the same album, the video filmed at a New York fashion show which had a Marc Jacobs grunge collection. It is also Chloe Sevigny's first appearance on film.

Computer Age is a cover of a Neil Young song, one from Neil's mind blowing 1982 album Trans. Sonic Youth take a song with vocoders and keyboards and reverse it into Neil's Crazy Horse backyard, a squealing lesson on how to do a cover version. Their covers of Within You Without You, Electricity and Superstar and as Ciccone Youth, Addicted To Love and Into The Groove are all similarly good. Computer Age was one of several highpoints on The Bridge, a 1989 Neil Young tribute album that also featured Pixies, Psychic TV, The Flaming Lips, Loop, Nick Cave, and Dinosaur Jr. 

Kotton Krown is from Sister, their album from 1987, an album loosely based around the writings of Philip K. Dick. Sister is one of the art rock/ noise milestones of the 80s. Kotton Krown is a blur of dreamy psychedelic noise.

Death Valley '69 is on 1985's Bad Moon Rising, written by Thurston who duets with Lydia Lunch, screwdrivers rammed into the necks of guitars, The Stooges summoned up, along with Charles Manson and the Spahn Ranch.

Kool Thing is from 1990's Goo, the first album released after singing to a major label, one of the album's standout songs. Kim wrote it after an uncomfortable interview with LL Cool J, two people coming out of New York music with very different perspectives. 'Are you gonna liberate is girls from male white corporate oppression?', she asks. Public Enemy's Chuck D responds. 

Bull In The Heather is from 1994's Experimental Jet Set, Trash And No Star, produced by Butch Vig. Kim wrote it with a viewpoint of seeing passiveness as a form of rebellion- 'I'm not going to participate in your male- dominated culture, I'm just going to be passive', she said of the lyrics. By 1994 Sonic Youth were big business in the indie/ alt- rock/ fashion/ video/ MTV worlds. Bikini Kill's Kathleen Hanna stars in the video. 

Dirty Boots is from Goo, the opening song and one that features every SY hallmark- tunings, noise, distortion, drawled vocals, building to a massive release several minutes in when the chorus finally hits, 'I got some dirty boots!'

Strange You Never Knew

Out in town on Saturday night we ended up in a pub at the northern end of the city centre with a decent selection of music playing. Mazzy Star's 1994 single played, the sort of song that can silence a pub- it didn't silence us, we discussed the various attractions of the song and its singer.

Fade Into You

Lovely isn't it? Acoustic guitar, a slide guitar part, a lazy drumbeat and Hope Sandoval's wondrous, hazy vocal. A song that is is much more than the sum of its parts, its all about the playing, the performance and the dust and heat that it evokes. Deserts and lust and suchlike.

In 2013 J Mascis recorded a cover version which is pretty wonderful in its own right, twin acoustic guitars and J's cracking, weathered voice.

Fade Into You

See You At The Movies

I can't imagine J Mascis is getting very many new fans at this stage in his 'career', that the youth are getting into his records or even that Dinosaur Jr are on the verge of a re-discovery (despite their reunion). His band and solo career seem to play to people who got into him between the mid 80s and mid 90s and have stuck. This song sneaked out a while ago, a solo song ahead of a new solo album.



In lots of ways it's as good as anything he's done for ages, all the J Mascis elements present and correct- timeworn vocal, lovely acoustic guitar backing, blistering lead guitar parts and a general sense of lethargy (but with that electric jolt still there). Sonic Youth wrote Teenage Riot about J Mascis, imagining him as president of the USA in an alternate reality. What seemed nonsense in 1988 now seems like good common sense- J would be a million times better than the current incumbent and his support for medieval theocracy, whatever the cost.

Dinosaur Jr wrote, recorded and released an album in 1987 called You're Living All Over Me. If you don't know it, this is a good place to start.

In A Jar

Away Again

A quick turn around and I'm off again, with the family this time, down to the Dordogne in South West France for the next couple of weeks, stopping off in the Loire for three nights on the way back. It's looking good.

I'll leave you with a couple of songs to speed us on our way and to keep you happy. Rikki Turner's new band The Hurt released a cracking song a few months back, the moody and epic Berlin. The new one is a cover of Nico's One More Chance and is a stately throb.



The new Hardway Bros ep Pleasure Cry is one of my records of the year thus far. This song, Argonaut, was written specifically by Sean Johnston to be played on the boat at Croatia's Electric Elephant Festival. It starts off like Weatherall's mix of Come Together and then heads off into the sunset putting its arms around you and doing a little dance.



And just so's there's some screaming guitars and drawled vocals here's J Mascis and The Fog covering Teenage Fanclub's Everything Flows with Mike Watt on bass. It then diverts into Pavement's Range Life and The Ruts' In A Rut. Is it any good? Of course it is. It is seven minutes of good.



See you in August.

Slow Boy

There's a whole load of shouting and squally guitars and a blistering guitar solo in this recent collaboration between J Mascis and Kim Gordon (pictured above with Sleater-Kinney's Carrie Brownstein), done with or for Converse and free to download. It starts noisy and gets progressively noisier, sounding not unlike both their previous band's late 80s peaks. But who is the slow boy?

Sometimes I Don't Thrill You

In 1988 the world's most dysfunctional rock group released their definitive song, Freak Scene. The song practically invents slackers and grunge. J Mascis' guitar sound is brilliant- controlled but chaotic, spinning distorted notes off all over the place. His vocals are resigned, almost bored to tears with the whole thing but it's a love song of sorts too- 'when I need a friend it's still you'. Post-indie punk, pre-grunge, with a pop tune. And swearing too. I've got its parent album Bug but never really play anything off it except Freak Scene.

Dinosaur Jr were a nightmare to each other by all accounts; passive aggressive, J controlling Murph's every drum beat when recording, not communicating. Bassist Lou Barlow wrote the lyrics to the final song on Bug, the only one he sings. Over ear splitting noise, aimed solely at J Mascis, he screams 'why don't you like me?'

I don't know what's going on with my Boxnet bandwidth but either it's not reset at the end of May or June is already over the limit. I'll try to sort something out. In the meantime you can watch the video for Freak Scene, filmed in John Robb's back garden in bohemian West Didsbury. It looks like it cost less than the price of a pint of lager and a bag of chips.

Fade Into You

A dangerously fragile, acoustic guitar-led, somewhat enervated cover of Mazzy Star's beautiful Fade Into You by J Mascis to start Monday and the first week of autumn. The ghost of Neil Young never far away, memories of Dinosaur Jr beyond reach. Bizarrely, cheapeningly, this cover version was done for a trainer advert, released on limited 7" single as a sop to the purists.

Fade Into You

Back to work tomorrow- Tuesday's coming like a jail on wheels, to misquote Mr Strummer.