Sat. Dec. 22

 You might call Evan Dando's group The Descendents of the Lemonheads, as that the Descendents - the California punk group that played a reunion tour last year - have joined Dando in this latest edition, which Dando, really just calls Lemonheads. There are two Descendents, drummer Bill Stevenson and bassist Karl Alvarez. They made an album last year called - who thought of this one? - "The Lemonheads" and Dando described the making of the music this way: "We started out in Jam, Buzzcocks territory. We've got some psyched-out country on here as well. I wanna make a loud record and these are the guys to do it with," adding it was "way less introspective." Dando was talking about the album the trio recorded together, "The Lemonheads," the eighth under that moniker. There have been at least a dozen different Lemonheads combos since Dando formed the group out of Cambridge back in '86. Dando - who went through all sorts of tabloid, girlfriend-drug troubles during his semi-teen idol days, and later fronted (for a bit) the re-formed MC5 - is happy to be part of a band again after some years as a solo artist. "I wanted to make a rock record, a melodic rock record," Dando says, and "also I'm sick of selling solo T-shirts. (They've got another disc slated for next April - certainly, we can expect some tunes from that as well as catalog cover favorites like "Mrs. Robinson" and "Luka.") Rock bands, they do have strange lives, but we're happy to report that Dando's on his feet and making great music again. There are way too many rock burnouts out there, and it seemed at some points Dando was making his bid for that territory. Welcome him back, again. The Lemonheads are with the Dutch power pop quartet, Racoon and the New Rivals at the Middle East Downstairs Saturday Dec. 22. Starts around 9 p.m. Tickets: $20.

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