Show Preview and Comment: The Lemonheads

There will always be those that we revere; people who, during a time in our lives, we hold in a regard which crosses the River Jordan from adulation to veneration. My memory offers no stronger example of such apotheosis than how I felt about Dustin Jones, a friend in high school. Usually, the object of such deification is removed, by time, space or interpersonal connections, from he or she compelled to exalt. Not in this instance; he was just another kid like me, with a locker and a book bag and a bad hair cut. But he was my Apollo of cool.

He barked with dry humor; He played guitar in a band that beat Weezer to the cheeky lyrical Green Day reference by years; In the era when suburban music knowledge was gained only through endless cryptic experimentation with the Sub Pop, Taang!, and SST mailing order sheets, his knowledge of the underground seemed effortless and preternatural; He had a Pavement tape and talked about starting a band that sounded like My Bloody Valentine; He had a Hate Your Friends T-Shirt.

To me, he was straight from my defining image of slack-rock cool from the Alternative Nation years: the band portrait of The Lemonheads from the Shame About Ray LP. Huddled together, dressed as though they had just painted their dingy Boston apartment, they were beautiful. I can’t remember ever thinking it was cool to smoke cigarettes or drink beer before seeing that picture, and is the only explanation I can think of for why I drank so much Michelob in college.

And there, in college, I found other Lemonhead fans. Though we named ourselves for a tea we saw on the wall at a restaurant, it shouldn’t be that surprising that every member of a band called Lemonzinger owned the entire Even Dando catalog (plus bootlegs). “I wonder if Dustin would like us” I mused about the even-then-long-lost friend.

I bought Car Button Cloth and saw them on that final tour. Lemonzinger evolved and broke up. I no longer thought about my high-school deity or dreamed about a Juliana Hatfield of my own. When Dando’s solo, Baby, I’m Bored, was released I couldn’t even be bothered to steal it from the internet.

Now I am older. I no longer deify people here or there. Yet I am nostalgic, and I miss days of sunshine goofball wordplay about stoves and park rangers and King Street. I feel that I should trade my nights of whiskey for afternoons of Michelob. I still would like very much to paint my apartment with a girl who takes time off from her band to play bass in mine. Maybe that is why I will make the long journey into the wilderness to see The Lemonheads play tomorrow – to close my eyes and wonder, in wonder and awe, if it is possible to go back again; To play notes and say words and do things and feel fresh about something done a thousand times since that first time in your life. That is why I will cheer – for hope that long ago can still be right now, for Evan, for Dustin and for me.

The Lemonheads with Vietnam
Thursday, February 8th
The Scout Bar - Tickets