Review of Baby I'm Bored
From Delusions of Adequacy 2003
Evan Dando may have slipped off
many people's radar sometime after The Lemonheads' sloppy drug-damaged swansong
Car Button Cloth (1996), but few of us really doubted that he'd be back for
a second bite at the big rock candy eventually. After all, what else could
Evan Dando really do? Can you really imagine the one-time indie heartthrob
packing your groceries at Wal-Mart or flipping greasy burgers at your unfriendly
neighbourhood Burger King? No, like it or lump it, this man was made for rock
'n' roll, in all its twisted and radiant forms.
Even though a staggering seven years have passed since an album of all-new
Dando material last surfaced, it's clear that the downtime hasn't done him
any major disservice - quite the contrary it seems. Dando is now (a little)
wiser, somewhat calmer, and, above all, drug-free. And instead of clinging
to the clunky guitars and shabby songwriting that drove even loyal listeners
to distraction on Car Button Cloth, Dando has homed in on his three greatest
gifts - his honeycombed voice, his gift for melody, and his talented friends.
In fact, without the latter it's unlikely that Baby I'm Bored would have made
it to the finish of Dando's wobbly production line as soon as it has done.
Thus Chris Brokaw (Come, Pullman) adds drums and guitars, Royston Langdon
(Spacehog) provides yelping backing vocals and hand-claps, Jon Brion (session
man to Aimee Mann, Badly Drawn Boy et al.) twiddles some studio knobs and
co-pens/plays a handful of songs, Giant Sand append proceedings on two tracks,
and long-time Dando disciples Tom Morgan and Ben Lee donate some previously
unrecorded material. The musical beddings are then, as you might expect, a
far cry from the bubble-gum fuzz of Come on Feel the Lemonheads, but that's
not to say that Baby I'm Bored is Dando's much rumoured all-acoustic country
album either. Instead, Dando conjures up a combination of The Lemonheads'
It's a Shame About Ray, Buffalo Tom's Smitten and Wilco's Summerteeth - fashioning
this year's most essential post-rehab record in the process.
The net results are, for the most part, beguiling and beyond expectations.
Jon Brion's well-honed professionalism is a good guiding influence, steering
Dando into sumptuous 3 am ruminations ("Shots is Fired"), harmony-fuelled
power-pop ("It Looks Like You"), and biographical storytelling ("Why
Do You Do This to Yourself?"). Giant Sand's gorgeous backing tracks on
the album's atmospheric centrepiece "Hard Drive" (written by Ben
Lee) and it's rustic closer "In the Grass All Wine Colored" are
beautifully well measured. The narcotic chug of "Rancho Sante Fe"
could pass as one of the better tracks from Car Button Cloth. The adorable
"All My Life" (another brilliant Ben Lee composition) shows us that
beneath Dando's dishevelled demeanour, there still lies the same consummate
interpreter of song that previously did magically bittersweet things with
Smudge's "The Outdoor Type" and Gram Parsons' "Brass Buttons"
(amongst many others).
Baby I'm Bored isn't all so well formulated however. There's a strong feeling
(confirmed by a surreptitious spin through one of the Dando demo CDRs that
have circulating amongst A&R men during the last few years) that some
of these songs have been tampered with way too much. Whereas the demo incarnations
of "Repeat" and (deep breath) "The Same Thing You Thought Hard
About is the Same Part I Can Live Without" were lush, lilting treats,
arguably on par with the best of It's a Shame About Ray, these final finished
versions are horribly scolded by the same unnecessarily messy guitar noise
that made The Lemonheads such underachievers prior to Lovey. Moreover, the
album sometimes lacks the sonic and stylistic cohesion needed to make it a
fully rounded and totally re-energised return to form. This facet is no doubt
brought to bear by recording the album in three different studios, with four
or five different engineers/producers over an ill-disciplined self-funded
four-year stretch. A full-album of Giant Sand-backed/Jon Brion-produced recordings
might have made for a more considered and consistent listening experience.
Gripes aside though, the fact that Dando has returned with an album as strong
as Baby I'm Bored is cause for celebration in itself. The fact that it also
contains a handful of his finest ever recorded moments is two in the eye for
his detractors and doubters. The fact that he's finally found a direct route
to the core of his burning but beautiful sadness illustrates that this weathered
wonder-dog still has more than just legs to keep running on. What comes next
could (and should) be magical, but in the meantime Baby I'm Bored is a remarkably
pleasant distraction from the grinding day-to-day gloss of the corporate music
world.