Music News

Here's Five: Roy Irwin Shares His Favourite Evan Dando Songs

Thursday 1st June, 2017 2:55PM

This weekend Lemonheads frontman Evan Dando will be hitting New Zealand soil for two shows to celebrate the deluxe re-issue of his debut solo record Baby I'm Bored. Originally released in 2003, the 12-song album came a full seven years after the last Lemonheads album, Car Button Cloth, amid a lengthy hiatus by the band that stretched from 1997 to 2005. During this break, Dando sobered up and married Elizabeth Moses - the woman whose face graces the album's cover - and penned a beautifully crafted album loaded with vulnerable lyricism, which is now being re-released in a two LP set containing previously unreleased b-sides and rarities. In anticipation of his upcoming shows, we asked local artist and long-time fan Roy Irwin to select five of his favourite Dando tunes....

1. In The Grass All Wine Colored - Baby I'm Bored (2003)
I got this album not long after it came out in 2003 and it's accompanied me through many hangovers ever since. I remember someone making fun of this song because of the repeated lyrics. At the time if somebody made fun of The Lemonheads I'd take it really personally as if they had just come to my house and stabbed my entire family.

2. Sneakyville - Hate Your Friends (1987)
Hate Your Friends was everything I needed as a bored 15-year-old. I once got into a bidding war on Trademe for an original Taang! pressing of this record with another user named something like "Ramonesfan77". It ended up getting really expensive and I won it out of spite because I didn't want anyone else to have it.

3. Stove - Lovey (1990)
I put this track on mix CDs and gave them to girls I had crushes on when I was a teenager. It's a bittersweet love song about a stove.

4. Keep On Loving You (REO Speedwagon cover)
I just like that it sounds like somebody having a good time, doing lots of coke and recording a song on a four-track. It also sounds like your drunk uncle at a wedding screaming karaoke before throwing up on your cousin's newborn baby.

5. Style - Come On Feel The Lemonheads (1993)
Come On Feel was the first Lemonheads album I owned. I found it in an op shop for $1 in Warkworth and I had it on full volume for weeks when I lived in Maungaturoto. It was my soundtrack for getting drunk by myself and shooting bottles with an air rifle.