Kris, Dick Stein and Evan Dando

After my first year of college I got a summer job through one of my father's friends at an environmental laboratory in Redmond, Washington. It was my job to clean and disinfect the beakers and tubes and carboys before the soil samples were tested for toxins and metals. I did all this in a small 6x8 room without much ventilation for 8 hours a day for three months. I didn't mind it so much because just at that moment I had discovered KPLU, the local NPR station that played the news every morning and afternoon and in between there was a DJ named Dick Stein who guided me through the back alleys of straight ahead Jazz. I listed to that station on a little transistor-type radio every day for those three months.

There was this late 20's lab technician with long, greasy brown hair who I used to take smoke breaks with. He was a typical Seattle music scene guy with the black t-shirt and the Doc Martens. He would ask me questions about what kind of music I listened to and what sorts of things I was into and then not really listen to the answers. One day we were out smoking Camels and he told me about a big concert he had gone to to the weekend before. I don't remember what he said about any of the other bands, but he stopped in the middle of his story and asked if I liked the band The Lemonheads. At that point all I knew about the Lemonheads was that remake of the song "Mrs. Robinson" which I really liked. He was pretty antagonistic about his question so I just shrugged me shoulders not wanting to really pin myself down. When he saw that I didn't care either way he finished up his story saying how Evan Dando had played last on the bill and had fucked up the whole show because Evan Dando was a pussy. For the next couple years I was sure Evan Dando was a pussy.

Kris lived about ten blocks from me in down town Santa Barbara for about a year. He lived in this old Victorian style house dubbed "The Mother Ship." I think it was Ian who had first introduced us, but then Ian moved to L.A. leaving Kris and I to maintain the friendship. Somehow it worked out that Kris came over to my place on Pueblo Street one night and we sat on my porch and Kris brought his guitar and was playing some songs. At the time that porch was also my bedroom, since my roommate in the house snored like a jigsaw all night long. I think I slept on that porch for close to four months. Kris played me Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne" and that flowers song by Wilco on his guitar. I had never heard Leonard Cohen or Wilco before that and I was pretty excited. Then Kris went into "Frank Mills" and that just about knocked me off the porch. When I asked him who sang that song he said "The Lemonheads" and it sealed the deal.
Later on I found out that "Frank Mills" is from the musical "Hair" but after that night I never thought of Evan Dando as a pussy again.