This Friday, October 2nd, Dean & Britta‘s record label Double Feature will be hosting a release party for the new album by My Robot Friend. The party is at 92Y Tribeca in NYC and kicks off at 9pm. Featuring sets from My Robot Friend and (Double Feature recording artist) Cheval Sombre (with Dean & Britta sitting in) as well as a DJ set by Dean Wareham. Tickets are $10.

The new My Robot Friend album Soft Core will be released by Double Feature on 13th October and features contributions from Dean Wareham and Alison Moyet. You can currently stream the complete album on Soundcloud (or right here on A Head Full of Wishes!).

Soft-Core by myrobotfriend

Sean Eden is selling his black Fender Jazzmaster on eBay. The guitar was used extensively while he played with Luna and can be seen being used to great effect throughout Tell Me Do You Miss Me.

I am the original owner, and for those of you out there who might be fans of the band Luna, this guitar was one of two Jazzmasters used by me on tour and in the studio since 1999, and features very prominently in the Rhino/Warner Bros. documentary feature film “Tell Me Do You Miss Me”.

The starting price is $500 and the auction ends on the 2nd May see the listing on eBay for more details and more technical information and pictures.

Far from prolific blogger Sean Eden finally made good on his promise (of last March!) to “place some links [to] recent developments that deserve attention in an upcoming post”. His blog post yesterday filled us in on some of his recent musical projects including Gramercy Arms (with Dave Derby) and Night People with Matthew Buzzell and Lee Wall). He’s also offering guitar lessons so if you’re in the NYC area and fancy being taught by Sean then zip over to his MySpace page and contact him a bit sharpish because he only has a room for three new students!

Britta Philips, once of Luna and currently of Dean & Britta, provides a remix of ‘Troubled Mind’ which creates a bleary cloudy atmosphere which is brilliantly broken and carries along with a languid bluesy swagger. Absolutely, perfectly gorgeous.

The limited edition release is available to pre-order on the Trensmat website where you can also listen to short samples of a couple of tracks including Britta’s mix.

It was definitely a slightly emotional and strange moment for me and for Dean and Britta….! We hadn’t decided we were going to play anything until late that afternoon. no rehearsal or soundcheck for it.

There are a bunch of pictures from the whole show at Brooklyn Vegan – none of the three of them together but plenty of Dean & Britta and you can see Sean backing Simone White.

[It] was something i agreed to do for a friend in Austin Texas, who came to Luna shows and threw some good parties. His brother had made a low-budget movie called “Radio Free Steve”, and they wanted a cover of this song with lyrics slightly changed for the last scene of the film. I was given $800 for the recording cost and Lee, Dean and I did it in an afternoon for about $400. The other $400 remaining was used to fund the video for “Superfreaky Memories” done by my friend Christian Moore. I play the bass and all guitars on the tune, Lee’s on drums, and of course Dean is singing.

In other Sean news he has recently recorded with Dave Derby’s new project Gramercy Arms – the album is getting lots of good reviews (in the UK for some reason) and…

…is a collective of New York-based artists comprising former members of Guided By Voices, Luna, Joan as Police Woman, The Dambuilders,

And talking of Elk City, while at the American Laundromat web site I noticded that they’re also selling (exclusively through iTunes so I won’t be buying it!) an Elk City cover of REMs Everybody Hurts with Sean on guitar.

Pinko: So what’s up next from Dean and Britta?
Britta: We have a few shows coming up at The Zipper Factory in NYC on July 24th, August 21st and September 20th. The Zipper Factory is an old zipper factory on W. 37th St. It only holds about 200 people and it’s seated (the seats are old car seats). We’re thinking of having different themes for each show (maybe all G500 songs for one, our first album, “L’Avventura” for another, covers…??)

Tomorrow I leave for Spain with Elk City. The dates are listed below. I’ll be doing a couple of my songs in the Elk City set each night, too. I’m looking forward to a little travel and adventure in one of my favorite countries.

The post also has a bit about what Sean’s listening to and watching…

• 13th March 2008 @ Club Midway, 25 Avenue B, New York, NY – 7:30pm
  Reading, book signing, Q&A and a short performance
• 18th March 2008 @ Union Hall, 702 Union Street, Brooklyn, NY – 7:00pm
  Reading, book signing, Q&A and a short performance
• 20th March 2008 @ Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard Street, Boston, MA – 7:00pm
  Reading, book signing and Q&A
• 21st March 2008 @ Lizard Lounge, 1667 Mass Avenue, Boston, MA – 7:00pm
  Reading, book signing, Q&A and a short performance
• 26th March 2008 @ Book Court, 163 Court Street, Brooklyn, NY – 7:00pm
  Reading, book signing and Q&A

If you can’t make it to one of the signings you can buy the book from A Shop Full of Wishes…

• Pre-order Black postcards from A Shop Full of Wishes (US)
• Pre-order Black postcards from A Shop Full of Wishes (UK)

The 12 Bands of Christmas is an annual charity CD released in Augusta, Georgia in aid of “The Children’s Medical Center at The Medical College of Georgia”. This year’s release, volume 5, is of interest to Luna (and Galaxie 500) fans as it features Night People performing a cover of Galaxie 500′s cover of Yoko Ono’s “Listen The Snow is Falling”. Night People is a project of Matthew Buzzell who is of course the director of the Luna documentary “Tell Me Do You Miss Me” and includes contributions from both Sean Eden and Lee Wall.

The CD is launched on 20th November in various retailers around Augusta and will hopefully show up on iTunes at some point. You can read a bit about the CD at The Augusta Chronicle (that’s a link to a Google cached page as the Chronicle requires you to register).

Night People are hoping to have an EP together for release in the spring. Here’s what Matthew had to say about the project…

The project is called Night People. I am handling the bulk of the song writing and vocal duties as well as grounding the tunes on electric tenor guitar and baritone ukulele. Sean is, of course, contributing atmospheric leads and Lee the percussive elements. Lee’s ultimate contribution to this project is his skilled and detailed production of the tunes. We are hoping to have an EP ready by springtime.

• www: 12 Bands of Christmas
• myspace: 12 Bands of Christmas

They have a few dates in France and a couple in NYC over the next few weeks.