A Head Full of Wishes

North American edition Galaxie 500 reissues shipping now

March 14, 2010 – 12:47 am

This was just sent by Damon & Naomi to their mailing list and gives details of the Galaxie 500 reissues and what the differences are between the 20|20|20 (North American) versions and the Domino (rest of the world) version. Sorry for the big cut and paste…

The new CD reissues of Galaxie 500 on 20/20/20 are in stock and shipping now from our website. These are 2-CD editions, pairing each of the three original Galaxie 500 albums with a bonus disc of archival material –

Today, with second bonus disc Uncollected (rarities and outtakes)
On Fire, with second bonus disc Peel Sessions (recorded for BBC Radio 1’s John Peel Show)
This Is Our Music, with second bonus disc Copenhagen (recorded live by Danish National Radio)
Price is $15 each, plus shipping.

To anticipate a question some of you might have: the tracklists and mastering of these CDs are identical to those out later this month from Domino Records in the UK (and to the previous editions of these discs released by Rykodisc), but the packaging differs slightly — the 20/20/20 booklets feature a color reproduction of the complete original LP art for that album, plus liner notes by Byron Coley discussing all six discs in the collection, illustrated with black and white photos of the band. The discs are housed in thinline 2-CD jewel cases.

Domino’s packaging, also in jewel cases, will look the same from the outside, but they elected to omit the back of the original LP covers from the booklet, and instead added images taken from Rykodisc’s previous packaging of the bonus discs. They also added liner notes by UK music writers, which can be found on their website. Other aspects of the booklet design, including the images of the band, differ as well.

Damn looks like I’ll need to buy both sets!

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Galaxie 500 reissues reviewed in The Guardian

March 11, 2010 – 4:21 pm

There’s a rather lovely five star review of the Galaxie 500 reissues in The Guardian by Alexis Petridis

Heard 20 years on, Today, On Fire and This Is Our Music prove not every aspect of that era’s indie rock as been stripmined in recent years. No one is currently offering Galaxie 500’s melange of trebly guitar, serpentine basslines, fragile vocals and oddly jazz-inflected drumming (This Is Our Music borrowed its title from Ornette Coleman). Certainly, no one currently sounds like singer Dean Wareham. Listening to his high voice floating wildly off-key in a way that simply wouldn’t be allowed these days for fear of upsetting daytime radio play, you’re reminded of a vanished age before Auto-Tune, when alt-rock’s aims and ambitions and audience were noticeably different.

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Pre-order Galaxie 500 deluxe reissues and get the music early

February 24, 2010 – 9:53 pm

On 22nd March Domino Records will be re-issuing the three Galaxie 500 studio albums on vinyl (with download voucher) and double CD packages. If you pre-order the albums from Domino by March 7th you will be able to download the tracks on March 8th (two weeks before release).

The CD issues are all released with bonus discs: Today comes with the Uncollected disc that was first made available as part of the Ryko box set and was subsequently released by Rykodisc as a single CD; On Fire comes with the Galaxie 500 Peel Sessions album (previously released in the US on 20|20|20 and This is Our Music comes with the Copenhagen live album previously released by Rykodisc. The vinyl editions don’t include the bonus discs but do include a download voucher for mp3s.

Even if you have already all of this it’s worth heading over to the Domino site to read the three essays written for the albums – in particular the lovely one written for Today by Stewart Lee…

I had a new life in a shared flat way out west, and a walkman primed with a tape of Today soundtracked a year of snowy winters, data input jobs in offices on industrial estates, and cigarettes smoked on night bus journeys back from unpaid open-mike stand-up gigs in far flung corners of the city. 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.

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Dean & Britta songs for charity…

February 9, 2010 – 1:13 pm

Sing Me to Sleep

Dean & Britta have provided a remix of the track International Velvet Theme to The Right Track: Tunes to Target Cancer which is “a series of concerts, events, and music download[s ...] to help raise funds for rare and underfunded cancers”. The series also includes tracks by Ween, Linda Thompson, Buffalo Tom and The Cowbly Junkes (and more).

And while we’rementioning Dean & Britta’s sharity contributions a quick reminder that they have also have a track on the forthcoming Sing Me to Sleep compilation of “Indie Lullabies” for The Valerie Fund. You can hear and download Dean & Britta’s contribution, Making Me Smile, on Muruch.com and pre-order the album from American Laundromat.

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Video: Dean & Britta playing Galaxie 500

February 8, 2010 – 7:18 pm

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

UPDATE:
Another video (thanks Nathan!)

Dean Wareham plays Galaxie 500 – Temperature’s Rising (Live at Tanned Tin 2010) from Nathan Wind on Vimeo.

Posted in Dean & Britta, Galaxie 500, Pictures, Video | 6 Comments »

Two special Damon & Naomi shows this weekend in NYC & Boston

January 28, 2010 – 2:44 pm

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.

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The Galaxie 500 Mailing List has moved

January 16, 2010 – 1:03 am

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.

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Naomi launches new photography website ‘naomivision’

January 5, 2010 – 1:50 pm

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.

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Video: Dean & Britta on NYE in NY

January 3, 2010 – 11:03 pm

Here are some videos of Dean & Britta’s New Year’s show at Southpaw in Brooklyn…

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‘09 Full of Wishes

January 1, 2010 – 10:41 pm

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…