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.

Facebookers can head over to the event page for more details.

Here’s a clip of Luna playing 23 Minutes in Brussels from the film so you can imagine how great it will be to see this in a room full of Luna fans watching it on a big screen.

Lost in Space (photo by Andrea)

Luna stopped off in Manchester for this session on Mark Radcliffe’s BBC Radio 1 show on the 13th December 1995. I remember staying up to record this. I went through my box of cassettes a while ago to try and find it but couldn’t track it down, which is a shame as I remember the interview being quite amusing… and at one point touched on the subject of, if memory serves, Angel Corpus Christi faxing intimate self-portraits to Dean.

Luckily the three tracks turned up on the Season of the Witch CD single put out by Beggars Banquet in 1996 (without the interviews but certainly better than my crappy FM recording).

Mp3s via box.net

• Indian Summer (6.3MB)
• Lost in Space (4.8MB)
• 23 Minutes in Brussels (7.7MB)

UPDATE: There were some digital blips in my rip so I’ve taken new rips from the CD – not sure they’re any better…

Back in the early 90s I used to record shows until I realised that often I was worrying more about the recording and not enjoying the show as much as I should. I recorded two Luna shows, their first one in London in 1992 (my first recording with my new Walkman Pro and I had it set up all wrong so sounds pretty poor) and this one from 1993.

Firstly here’s how I described it when I shared it on easytree a few years back…

I just listened to this for the first time for ages and I hadn’t realised just how good a recording it was (despite the standard issue SONY tie-clip stereo mic I used).

Luna were in town supporting The Velvet Underground on their reunion tour and threw in this headline show at The Borderline. The band seemed in good humour and put on a damn fine show. I remember the “I Want Everything” girl pissing me off at the time but I now find it quite funny and it led to some nice banter from the band “Can we get some Valium down here please”.

And a couple of Galaxie 500 tracks just to make a great show complete.

And for a bit more on the “I Want Everything” girl here’s a story I posted to The Galaxie 500 Mailing List shortly after Luna’s last show in London in 2005…

At the ULU gig there was some heckling going on and Dean said “are you from Colchester?” – which struck me as being an odd thing to say – but hey – who knows what goes on in Dean’s head.

While listening to a London gig [from 1993] the band were being constantly screamed at by a girl – the “I Want Everything girl” (IWEG) as she is now officially known (in my head) – and at one point she screams (and this is just a rough guestimate rather than an accurate transcription as I don’t have a copy with me at work today)…

IWEG: “We’re from Colchester”
DEAN: “Colchester? Where the hell is that?”

So it seems that Dean either…
still remembers the endless ear-bashing the IWEG gave him back in ‘93 (possibly waking up in cold-sweats in the middle of the night)
    or
has been constantly plagued by hecklers from Colchester for the last 12 years

if IWEG is on the list I’d like to say that while I was pissed off with you back in 93 – listening again to that show made me appreciate your contribution to a very good night – Thank you!

Having subsequently read Black Postcards its clear there are other reasons that girls at gigs might be memorable.

Download Luna @ The Borderline, London 1993 (94.3MB via Mediafire)

Dear Paulina

OK – a ridiculously long post so skip to the end if you’re just here to leech a couple of Luna rarities!

In Summer 1997 I had this half-baked idea to release a kind of Beatles Fan Club single only with Galaxie 500 rather than The Beatles. I had no idea, when I kicked off, just what I thought it might be like. So… I wrote (on paper with stamps and things) to Damon & Naomi just to test the ground. I got a lovely letter back from Naomi saying that they’d rather not get involved as Damon & Naomi, and that apart from The Peel Sessions they didn’t have any Galaxie 500 unreleased material that they wanted to release “we were never that prolific” so, with that knockback I forgot about it.

In October 1997 I spoke to Dean Wareham after Luna’s show at the LA2 in London, it was little more than a “hi you were great… would you sign my ticket” but it was the ice-breaker. Later that week he called and left a phone message for me (see Dean Wareham moment #2) and that lit the fire under my plans again… after all… we were mates now!

The idea cooked away for a year (nothing moves particularly fast in my world) and in the spring of 1999 I emailed Dean and asked if I could put out a Luna single. He emailed back saying yes and suggested that he’ll talk with the band and pull out a demo I could release (I, sadly, have long since lost the email so I can’t remember the details).

A couple of months later a package arrived at the door with a DAT and details of the tracks that I should put on the single. No demos or live tracks for me… these were genuine… unreleased… luna rarities. The a-side track Dear Paulina was taken from the (cult but actually pretty unpleasant) film Thursday and featured during a scene in which Dallas (played by Paulina Porizkova) rapes Casey (you can see the scene on YouTube but it’s obviously NSFW). The b-side, Seven-Eleven, was some near-instrumental music also from the film.

So I had some music but absolutely no idea at all what I was supposed to do now… so I got in touch out of the blue with Dom from the London indie Earworm records who had been putting out lots of lovely singles… he in turn pointed me towards a company that would arrange the cut and press the single, Key Production, and another that would print the artwork.

On the 9th of August Hazel and I went to Abbey Road Studios (yes that Abbey Road) to oversee the cutting of the masters – of course we knew nothing and just went along for the ride with little more than Dom’s advice which was something along the lines of “don’t let them mess with it.”

I knew nothing about the film and had no idea who Paulina might be so for the sleeve art I threw together with my very limited Photoshop skills a picture of Hazel overlayed with a what was supposed to be the reflection of a computer monitor showing an email being written. A reference to the Galaxie 500 Mailing List… and you know… “Dear Paulina” sounded like a greeting at the beginning of an email. I’m no designer or artist so I didn’t expect great things and all I really intended was that it would be better than a cat nailed to a board. I had help from my designer friend Julian preparing it for print and sent it off.

Over the next few weeks everything but the singles turned up at my house. It was odd having 500 sleeves, 500 plastic covers, 500 mailing envelopes and a strange nagging doubt that the record was a bizarre dream. In mid September I finally received a batch of test pressings. While they were good to hear they were also worryingly not perfect. Key reassured me that the production run would be just fine… and not having anyone else to trust I chose to trust them.

On the 27th September I took delivery of 546 seven inch singles – I’m still not entirely sure why 546, 46 more than I had printed sleeves for. Over the next few weeks I mailed out 250 or so of these. In the days before Paypal, taking orders over the Internet was a headache and the singles were sold for a “carefully concealed 5 dollar bill.” I eventually sold quite a lot of them but nowhere near enough to cover the costs.

The single got the Tower Records Single of the Week in Irish paper Hot Press, which led to Tower Records desperately getting in touch with me to get some copies into their shops (which the bastards NEVER paid me for). I paid Luna in singles which they sold at their shows or put into shops in NYC. In February 2000 Hazel and I went to New York City to see Luna and gave them most of the copies that I had left – they had more chance of selling them than I did.

Looking back it all seems like a dream and only looking at Hazel’s face on the sleeve and our address on the label reassures me that it all really did happen. I lost a stack of money but then it wasn’t about making money and I didn’t really expect to make any. It was all an absolute blast.

Trivia:

• The run out groove on the a-side has the old URL of A Head Full of Wishes – it doesn’t work any more
• I gave away some of the test pressings to people who helped out with the single – I still have a few and periodically wonder if test pressings have any value. Don’t think I’ll sell though
• Just before the single was released I saw Luna in London and asked Dean if he wanted to approve the sleeve art before I released the single – he said “don’t worry… as long as it’s not a cat nailed to a board” (or something along those lines)

Downloads (via Box.net)

• A-side: Luna – Dear Paulina
• B-side: Luna – Seven-Eleven

I’ll post the content winners this evening – so if you want to enter you still can – and there’s a pretty good chance that you’d win something!!

Galaxie 500 – original & best:

Luna:

Mp3: Dean & Britta – Fourth of July

Mp3: Galaxie 500:

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.

It’s Bringing You Down was released on an EP on No.6 Records which was the label run by Terry Tolkin who features in depth in Black Postcards and got a name-check in justin’s fake-telegram at the last Luna shows. As far as I’m aware the EP has never been released digitally and the only hope of laying your hands on it is second-hand – not that it’s a rarity mind you, there are 6 copies currently on Amazon.

I hadn’t listened too much to this EP for years but was inspired to recently because one of the tracks on it, The Enabler, has been revived to accompany Dennis Hopper in 13 Most Beautiful. It’s Bringing You Down is a cracking lost Luna track. I hope you enjoy it.

Mp3: It’s Bringing You Down by Luna (on Box.net)