Search - Lemon Drops :: Crystal Pure: Classic Collection

The Best Band You Never Heard Of!

Chris Hall | 02/25/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Well, let's put it this way. You've probably never heard of The Lemon Drops, but after listening to this CD a few times, you'll wonder why you didn't! They have many good, psychedelic-like songs that are catchy and sound great, even today. Good song-writing, effective use of sound effects, fun lyrics, lots of imagination...they have it all....GET IT!"

So-so psychedelia followed by shaky demos

Jersey Kid | Katy, Texas, America! | 06/20/2009

(2 out of 5 stars)

"The Lemon Drops were a band from the northwest Chicago suburbs in McHenry County. Formed in the mid-1960s by the Weiss brothers and some other like-minded high school students, they were the recipients of a rather unique gift in that the older brother of two of the band members was a partner in the local label. This allowed the group to 1) record material in a far more professional environment and 2) manufacture records for sale.



But, even with this advantage, success eluded the band. By the end of the decade, the band - after bouncing between the East and West Coasts with records companies like RCA - foundered. The end of the story - as described in the liner notes - finds most of the surviving core members - back in Illinois where they record an album's worth of material sans drums.



The Collectables Records being reviewed here contains 24 songs that were to have been two albums by the band. The first twelve constitute sessions done in New York City for RCA that were never produced and released; the second twelve are the so-called basement tapes.



Most of the music is decidedly psychedelic in nature, replete with "nudge, nudge, wink, wink, then smirk" titles and lyrics about drugs. This includes a song where " Hi! How are you?" transforms into "How high are you?" Looking back on it, one has to wonder just how idiotically naïve and simplistic we were at the time.



The earlier material is very directly linked to the 1967 timeframe with a spoken intro lifted (in)famous 78 rpm cut on Moby Grape's "Wow." The songs themselves are pretty harmless, lightweight fare; some of the material sounds a bit like The Association trying to be overly hip. The standout cut on the `first' album is "I Live for the Springtime," written by the band by the older brother/label owner at a time when band-written original material did not exist. Not psychedelic in the least, the above excellent harmonies evoke a Beach Boys feel more than anything else. Of the rest little can be said beyond it's being more-or-less emblematic of the output one would expect from a group of teenagers at the time.



The material of the `second' album sounds like demos, workups and, frankly, fragments that are performed in a manner that suggests fractured morale and ego. The Hi/High song appears again, as does a cymbal on a couple of tracks. Why someone had a cymbal but not a drum kit is an issue lost to history.

"