I’ve come across a few videos of Dean & Britta’s recent show at Tanned Tin where they played a set of Galaxie 500 covers…
Ceremony:
Snowstorm:
Blue Thunder:
Also spotted this rather lovely picture on flickr by Nathan Wind
Damon & Naomi's 1001 Nights
This weekend Damon & Naomi are performing two special shows in New York City and Boston. The events will feature a theatrical screening of Naomi’s tour film diary Song to the Siren and will be followed by a Q&A session hosted by Haden Guest, director of the Harvard Film Archive. This will be followed by an opening set by the excellent Sharon Van Etten and finally Damon & Naomi will perform a set accompanied by guitarist Michio Kurihara.
The show in New York will take place on Saturday the 30th January at 92Y Tribeca and tickets cost $20. The show in Boston will be on Sunday 31st January at The Brattle Theatre, Cambridge and tickets are $15.
The Galaxie 500 Mailing List has moved from its home of 10 or so years on Listbox and is now hosted on Google Groups. I’ll post a bit more info about the move over the w/e but this is just a quickie to let you know where to go to sign up…
A List Full of Wishes: The Galaxie 500 Mailing List
Come and join. The list will be 15 years old this summer.
Naomi has just launched a new site to make some of her photography avaialable to view and buy/download in high quality. Naomivision has galleries of photos from her trips around the US as well as to Japan, Morocco, Portugal and many other countries. There’s also a gallery of protraits available to view, although the portrait pictures are not available for download.
More galleries of new (and old) photographs will be added.
Other Damon news in Damon & Naomi’s January update finds Naomi added as an endorser of Nord Keyboards and a reminder of the two special shows coming up in NYC and Boston at the end of the month.
Here are some videos of Dean & Britta’s New Year’s show at Southpaw in Brooklyn…
I had a nice full year for A Head Full of Wishes so here’s a short summary just because I feel like it. Obviously this is from a very personal perspective… feel free to comment on your own AHFoW related ‘09 highs…
January…
Damon & Naomi were in London for the second time in three months, this time for a proper show at the lovely Luminaire.
February…
Dean & Britta’s Double Feature Records released its first non Dean & Britta release with A Thousand Wild Flowers by Sand Pebbles.
March…
Dean & Britta spent a week guest editing on Magnet Magazine’s website and declared affection for Badlands and Bread Pudding.
April…
Sean sold his Jazzmaster on eBay and 13 Most Beautiful arrived on DVD.
May…
Black Postcards got a paperback release (with fixed final page), Galaxie 500 got its music back.
June…
The funniest video of the year turns up on YouTube and Damon & Naomi celebrated 20 years of Exact Change.
July…
The Galaxie 500 albums got a vinyl release on 20|20|20 and 13 Most Beautiful had its UK premiere in Dunfermline.
August…
Damon & Naomi release their Sub Pop Years compilation.
September…
Damon & Naomi came back to London for a show at Cafe OTO.
October…
Dean & Britta head down under for some shows and Dean turns up in the trailer for the new movie (untitled).
November…
Dean & Britta make a second UK visit, this time playing in a London church.
December…
Both Damon & Naomi and Dean & Britta give away seasonal tracks and news arrived that Galaxie 500’s albums will get re-issued on Domino Records in March 2010.
On Sunday night I trekked out into the wilds of South London to catch the UK premiere of Matthew Buzzell’s film document of Luna’s farewell tour. The film, Tell Me Do You Miss Me, was first seen in 2006 at the Tribeca Film Festival and was released on DVD shortly after, but had never had a big screen airing in the UK until Sunday night. The viewing was hosted by The Dream Machine and took place in the lovely Victorian pub The Half Moon in Herne Hill.
The weather (and I suspect the location’s rather tricky transport links) meant that the audience numbered probably only about 40 or 50 souls who settled down to watch Luna’s last months. I’ve seen the film already a number of times on DVD but this was my first time watching it with other people. Hearing the laughs and the whispers and being among people who were watching a film rather than watching the demise of their favourite band made it a quite different experience.
The film show was followed by a short set of Luna songs as performed by “The Dream Machine All-Stars” picking a nice mix of classics (Crazy People, 23 Minutes), covers (Season of the Witch, Indian Summer) and the obscure (It’s Bringing You Down). All in all it made for an enjoyable evening only let down by waiting 20 minutes for a train and freezing my toes and fingers on the walk home.
Another A Head Full of Wishes survey comes to an end, and comes to an end with precious few surprises. It looked for a while as if an upset was on the cards for favourite Luna track but a flurry of last minute votes restored the status quo.
So here are some highlights, head over to the results page to see the full details.
More than 100 responses for the first time since 2006. There’s been one voter from the Lebanon in all but one survey since 2002
On Fire topped the favourite album poll with almost half of all votes cast. Fourth of July just beat Tugboat for favourite track.
Until the last week of the survey California (All the Way) was topping the poll but a strong finish saw 23 Minutes in Brussels retain the top spot it’s held in every survey since 1998. Penthouse was comfortable album winner as usual.
More Sad Hits always runs away with the favourite Damon & Naomi album and This Car Climbed Mt. Washington does the same for favourite track.
I slipped 13 Most Beautiful into the list despite it having only been released as a DVD, no one complained and it picked up a healthy 15% of the vote. L’Avventura was comfortably top. Night Nurse was the favourite track.
Thanks as usual to everyone who voted, and thanks especially to everyone who took the time to write in the comments field. I might put another post together with some of the interesting points raised.
On 22nd March 2010 Domino Records will be reissuing Galaxie 500’s catalogue outside of North America. The three albums will be released as heavyweight vinyl and in deluxe double CD packages. The CD packages of each album will include one of the three additional albums released after the band’s break-up. Today will come with Uncollected, the collection of bonus material originally released in the Box Set in 1996. On Fire will be released with the band’s Peel Sessions and This Is Our Music will be coupled with the excellent live album Copenhagen.
From the liner notes have been written for the Domino reissue of Today comedian (and long-time fan) Stewart Lee writes…
I saw Galaxie 500 three times in 1990, every gig a transcendental experience, and I clocked the back of my own head bobbing on live TV footage of a show in Ladbroke Grove. Soon, previously hardcore strummers the world over had taken note, slowed down and blissed out, but Codeine, Low, Bedhead, Bay, and the rest of the slowcore scene never packed the punch implicit in the fuzzy felt-wrapped fist of Galaxie 500.
At the same time in the USA and Canada 20|20|20 will release the three albums in paper “mini LP” replica sleeves and the three bonus albums will be released for download through the Galaxie 500 store at fierybreeze.com.
Another recording pulled out from the not enough I have of Galaxie 500.
In 1991 Galaxie 500 headed out on what was to be their last tour of the US supporting The Cocteau Twins. This recoding is from the second night at the Warfield Theatre in San Francisco and was probably a couple of nights after the accidental or pre-meditated use of a spotlight signalled the beginning of the end of Galaxie 500 (see BOTH Damon & Naomi’s Ptolemaic Terrascope interview and Dean’s Black Postcards
The recording is not too bad, and the seven song set is a gem. Within a couple of months it would all be over. I first read about the split in the Melody Maker at the beginning of May. I was sad.
Download Galaxie 500 at the Warfield Theatre – 21st March 1991 (via Mediafire 60MB zip)
The picture is (obviously) not from the show the recording is… I wonder if you still need to prop your amps on beer crates when you play in the big venues?
Upcoming shows Recent links…
