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.

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.

General

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

Galaxie 500

On Fire topped the favourite album poll with almost half of all votes cast. Fourth of July just beat Tugboat for favourite track.

Luna

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.

Damon & Naomi

More Sad Hits always runs away with the favourite Damon & Naomi album and This Car Climbed Mt. Washington does the same for favourite track.

Dean & Britta

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.

Dean & Britta are not Galaxie 500, just like Luna were not Galaxie 500 and sometimes that makes it hard for me to be rational. Nothing is better than Galaxie 500 were and if I try and measure anyone up against that yardstick they’re all going to come up a bit short. I just need to stop measuring.

The Dean & Britta show last night was a gem. There were flaws but those were caused by the venue and me not by Dean & Britta (and support Cheval Sombre) who put on a great show.

Firstly the venue. I’m fond of churches, which for an atheist is an odd thing to say. But I do like the cold and air and atmosphere and space, I like the respect that people have for that sort of environment and I like the sound that music has in these big stone spaces. Particularly rock music. But there was no stage, the band were set up on the small step up to the altar. The way the PA was positioned such that only the people lucky enough to sit down the centre would get a view of the whole band, and thanks to the celebrating Algerian football fans who kept me on a stationary bus for 20 minutes, I wasn’t one of the lucky few. There’s no raked seating in a church so all but the front row had their view impaired by the heads of the folk in front.

So I arrived shortly before Cheval Sombre took to the stage, hooked up with David and settled down in a pew with as good a view as we could expect at this late stage. Cheval Sombre played seated, accompanied by a seated Sonic Boom. I think Britta (who accompanied them) may have been standing… but she was standing behind the PA (except when she sat behind the drums). Dean played guitar on a couple of songs and stood… in my eye line. But I never saw too much of the set. It was a good show of Cheval Sombre’s spacey (in feel not in content) songs with Sonic Boom’s drones washing all over it.

For Dean & Britta I decided to stand up against a pillar at the side of the church, this meant I couldn’t see Britta at all but at least I could see the rest of the band. They launched straight into Tugboat and proceeded through a nice mix of Galaxie 500, Luna and Dean & Britta songs. Highlights were the Galaxie 500 songs, because, once I accept that Dean & Britta are not Galaxie 500, then Hearing Voices was lovely and even Snowstorm (which was previously on the receiving end of a sacrilegious rant) was beautiful. The keyboards were less intrusive and the drums seemed better suited.

They encored with Night Nurse and a fantastic Ceremony and it was all done in little over an hour. Two and a half years wait and it all seemed over so quickly. I went and shared an uncomfortable few minutes with Dean & Britta and then spent the journey home thinking of all the clever/insightful/interesting things I could have said. I wish I was better with people… particularly people as nice as Dean & Britta – they deserve better.

Here’s a shot at the setlist – the order is almost certainly not right and there maybe some tracks missing. Please feel free to correct any mistakes/omissions.

• Tugboat
• Singer Sing
• Silver Factory
• Hearing Voices
• The Sun is Still Sunny
• Tiger Lily
• Snowstorm
• I’ll Keep it With Mine
• Moon Palace
• You Turned My Head Around
• Blue Thunder
• Night Nurse
• Ceremony

There are a few photos on Flickr (and a couple extra on Songkick) and there’ll be some videos on YouTube later. I took quite a few but my FlipHD struggled with the low light and the sound and so they’re all rather disappointing.

Damon & Naomi

I arrived at Cafe OTO shortly before opening act Amor de Dias took to the stage. The venue was already fairly crowded so I shuffled in and found a spot near the front but tucked in behind a pillar. Most of the folk around me were sitting so I felt a bit conspicuous but held my ground, reasoning to myself that if I wasn’t obstructing their view the pillar would be.

Amor de Dias is the new project of Alasdair MacLean of The Clientle and Lupe Núñez-Fernández of Pipas. They played a short but very beautiful set of tropic-tinged folk guitar music accompanied on a couple of tracks by “Anne” on a huge recorder. Alasdair introduced the first track as “someone born in Aberdeen trying to play guitar like Caetano Veloso.” I think a couple of the numbers were tracks from Bonfires on the Heath, the new album by The Clientele coming out next month.

Amor de Dias

In the break before The Left Outsides, Damon came over for a chat and gave me a copy of the new Sub Pop Years compilation. I’m such a fan that I still get a glow just for being recognised (Alasdair patted my shoulder and said “nice to see you”… I love how the Internet has put me, albeit only in my head, in the same ball-park as cool and talented people.)

This must have been the fourth or fifth time I’ve seen The Left Outsides, they seem to be pulled in to support most bands I go and see these days. They make a lovely sound although they struggled a little tonight and the set seemed short and not as sweet as usual. Still lovely… just not as lovely as I know they can be. Maybe my appreciation was coloured by the time (more of that later).

Before Damon & Naomi took to the stage I had a chat with Joakim who was over for the show with his girlfriend, who was too shy to say hello (which as someone who has often been too shy to say hello I completely understand – so this is by way of a “hello” to her now). They knew of me through A Head Full of Wishes and under the name “And Suddenly” had contributed a lovely lo-fi cover of Luna’s “Tiger Lily” to the Decomposing Trees tribute CDR I’d released many years previously (and still available to download for free here). I can’t help get a warm buzz when I think of all the nice people I’ve met through AHFoW.

By now I was checking my watch obsessively. Leaving my bike at Acton Central meant that the only way I would get home at anything approaching a reasonable hour would involve me catching the last train west from Dalston Kingsland… that train left at 23:03 and Damon & Naomi never started until almost 22:10 so I was already resigned to having to skip out before the show ended.

Obviously a real fan (or at least a younger one) would have shrugged off the thought of a late night and worried about getting home after the show was over. But I’ve reached a stage in my life where getting home easily, quickly and as early as possible seemed more important.

Damon and Naomi opened with Song to the Siren and played through a set mixing tracks from their Sub Pop years with more recent tracks. Highs, and it was all up there, were New York City, which never fails to move me and Lilac Land. But by now time was getting on. In my head I was trying to work out how long it had taken me to walk from the station… how long… then Damon & Naomi, as if hinting that I was cutting it fine, played “How Long.” They finished the song and I bolted for the door, passing Alasdair who I assume was heading for the stage and a guest appearance. I paused at the door for a second and then left… ran to the station and had a five minute wait (at least one more song) before the train showed up.

The journey home was uneventful except that I learnt from The Sub Pop Years liner notes that Song to the Siren was a fake live album! A lovely evening but annoyed that I couldn’t see the whole show.

If anyone cares to fill me in on what I missed… please do… just don’t make it sound too great because I’m miserable enough already!

More pictures on Flickr.

Dean and Lou have a drink together

Quick post to wish a Happy Birthday to Dean Wareham, who reaches 46 today. Anyone in the area can spend the day celebrating with Dean at the Celebrate Brooklyn festival in Prospect Park from 7:30 or at The Bell House in NYC from 10:30. If not… you can grab a bottle of coke and drink to him. That’s what I’ll be doing.

Happy Brithday Dean.

Lou Reed in 13 Most Beautiful

Hazel and I arrived in Dunfermline for last night’s 13 Most Beautiful in plenty of time. We headed up to The Carnegie Hall and milled around for a few minutes hoping to bump into Dean & Britta – because I can do “bumping into” I’m just no good at “hunting down”. Having failed to bump we headed for a stroll around the town taking in the sights – the Abbey, Carnegie’s birthplace – before heading back up to the hall. This time we did manage to bump into Dean (as well as a friend from Edinburgh who’d come to the show). We chatted with Dean and Britta for a while and then headed into the venue.

The Carnegie Hall is a smallish theatre on two levels, the circle wasn’t open for the performance but, despite my worries and someone on Twitter’s suggestion that attendance would be low, the stalls were pretty close to full by the time Richard Rheem’s surly demeanor appeared on the screen to its drony electronic accompaniment. The show progressed beautifully until about 30 seconds into Susan Bottomly’s screentest when a loud pop was followed by sudden silence and the vague smell of burning electrics (although Hazel thinks the smell was in my head). The band pulled back and the house lights came up while the crew fixed the blown fuse and rewound to the beginning of Susan’s test for a second attempt.

Dean and me after the show

No more unexpected drama accompanied the rest of the films and the show was exquisite. Ann Buchanan’s tears made me sad, and Paul America’s good-looking cool made me smile, and just seeing the way that Ingrid Superstar couldn’t leave her face alone… I’d seen all the films before on the DVD but with the band beneath them made it a different experience – it was hard to know whether to watch the films or watch the band… I think I mostly watched the band!

Finally, Jane Holzer smiled and spat out the last of her toothpaste, and 13 Most Beautiful’s only UK performance was over.

The band were summoned back for an encore of Tugboat and Strange, which, as you can possibly imagine, left me fairly weak with delirium. A fantastic show.

We hung around in the bar afterwards hoping, once again, and Dean came over and chatted to us some more. I am genuinely chuffed that Dean & Britta (and in fact everyone I’ve met connected with A Head Full of Wishhes) are such nice people. Finally Dean headed off to load their taxi and Hazel and I headed back to our “taxi” (Hazel’s dad – it was like being 14 again!)

There are some not very good pictures on Flickr.

Winner #1 in the making imaginative use of the Internet section is Deanna…

Not bigger by surface area...

Winner #2 in the taking advantage of their location section is Ro…

also not bigger in height

And here’s my poem…

Dear doggie,
I know you’re likely to ignore this biscuit,
You’d probably prefer a rack-of-lamb or some brisket.

…

I’ll be in touch with the winners to offload some duplicate CDs – you’ll both get a Mahogany double CD because I have THREE of them! Thank you both for entering and by doing so making me not feel so much of an idiot… although the poem might have ruined your good work on that front.

If you can see some enjoy the fireworks.

Luna on Songkick

Almost a year ago a friend of mine put me in touch with Ian Hogarth one of the founders of gig tracking site Songkick. Ian told me that they were planning a new version of the site and was interested in meeting up to talk me through what they were planning and how I, or more specifically A Head Full of Wishes, might be able to help. I met Ian and Michelle from Songkick over a lemonade in a pub in Shepherds Bush where they outlined, with huge enthusiasm, what they planned to do. A Head Full of Wishes’ role in the new Songkick was to be one of the many sites that Songkick planned to trawl to create their huge archive of past concerts.

I met Ian & Michelle again a few months later to have a look over the alpha of the new Songkick and got a warm glow seeing that their database was filled with hundreds of Galaxie 500, Luna, Damon & Naomi and Dean & Britta gigs. I couldn’t wait to get in there and start building my own personal database of gigs I’d attended over the years.

This morning Songkick’s new site was rolled out to the world and is a joy for all gig-goers. The ability to keep a track of all those past (and future) concerts, and to interact with people who were also there (or will be going), as well as uploading pictures and videos make the site a huge amount of fun. And with it already full of gigs that you probably went to it’s a fairly trivial process of building up your own gigograohy. Head over there and feel free to track me down and check out my shady heavy metal past and keep an eye on what I’m up to.

A quick summary for those of you who just want headlines…

• Galaxie 500 album: On Fire
• Galaxie 500 track: Tugboat
• Luna album: Penthouse
• Luna track: 23 Minutes in Brussels
• Damon & Naomi album: More Sad Hits
• Damon & Naomi track: This Car Climbed Mt Washington
• Dean & Britta album: L’Avventura
• Dean & Britta track: Night Nurse

Thanks to everyone who voted and to all the folk who used the comments field to say such nice things about A Head Full of Wishes…I do it for my own sad satisfaction but if I were to need justification for the insane amount of time I waste/spend on it then I know I can find it.

Have a great Christmas if you care, or a great whatever you do care about if you don’t

-=Andy=-

The excellent blog The Sound of Indie recenly posted a lovely sounding track from Dean & Britta’s “Galaxie 500 show” from a few weeks back (see previous post), I was among a number of people who pleaded for an opportunity to hear the whole show. Sadly Howard Wolfson a pundit for the vile “media” outlet Fox News apparantly also contacted the blog asking for more. The Sound of Indie responded…

I appreciate your interest in the Dean and Britta show and congrats on your new blog. I am in a bit of a quandary since it seems you are associated with Fox News. I, for one take to heart the simple axiom: “You are only as good as the company you keep”, which in the case of Fox News, as a company, doesn’t get any worse. Regardless your politically leanings or good intentions, you are simply another tool for the colossal super-conducting super-colliding horseshit/noise-generating machine that is Fox News.

[...]

So concerning the Dean and Britta show: If Obama wins this election, you and all TSOI readers will get a copy of the truly sublime recording. If, however, the unconscionable happens – that those other two are elected – no one will hear that full recording and Fox News will largely be to blame.

Saddened as I am not to be getting my paws on this recording (yet) I have to admire the stand taken by The Sound of Indie and point out that there are lots of reasons to vote Obama/Biden, and lots, LOTS more NOT TO VOTE FOR McCain/Palin…but just in case you needed another one…

In the meantime The Sound of Indie has posted another track from the show to whet your appetite…

Dean & Britta – Don’t Let Our Youth Go to Waste