A Head Full of Wishes

The A.V. Club has an interview with Dean Wareham covering the two roads that Dean & Britta are currently going down.

On 13 Most Beautiful…

I’m not sure I would’ve actually liked to be hanging around the Factory. I have something of a work ethic—well, those people did too, I guess, because they were on spee [...] Sometimes you hear about these people in these incredibly productive periods where they’re just working all the time. It’s the same with Bob Dylan. How’d he do this? Then you find out they were on speed. You’re sleeping four hours a night, and I’m sure it can make you very productive for a short period. Obviously then it destroys some people as well.

And the upcoming shows playing Galaxie 500 songs

I know I get a real kick, an emotional charge, out of playing a song I haven’t played for 10 years. It just takes you back to that point in your life. I think I should’ve been playing more of these songs all along [...]
The songs are more difficult to play than I remember. I listened to the live Galaxie 500 album from Copenhagen, and I realized that’s at the end of a tour, after we had been touring for a couple of months and had gotten pretty good at it. In terms of chord structure, the songs are incredibly simple. For example, a song like “Don’t Let Our Youth Go To Waste” is only one chord, but there’s a whole lot going on in it.

Read the whole interview on The A.V. Club website
Upcoming "13 Most Beautiful" and "… plays Galaxie 500" shows

Dean & Britta performing Galaxie 500's Strange

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Dean & Britta are coming to London to play the songs of Galaxie 500. The show is at The Garage on the 8th December. Tickets go on sale on Monday 9th August. Full details on the ATP website.

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Today (Sunday 1st August) is Dean Wareham's birthday so here's a hastily compiled journey through his career using promo photos/postcards.

Happy Birthday Dean!

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Hazel and I arrived at The Barbican and tracked down our tickets. Shearwater were about to start their support set but we nipped outside to eat first. We caught the second half of Shearwater's interesting set. They were a wee bit prog and I found the singers voice a little hard to be comfortable with but otherwise they made some nice noise as the five of them revolved around the array of instruments they had… I was also liked that they had a member who seemed to be called Thor!

Dean & Britta's performance of 13 Most Beautiful was again lovely. The sound wasn't as good as I'd expected/hoped – the drums seemed a little too much and the rest occasionally seemed to lose a bit of definition. Perhaps it was my imagination but they seemed to have polished the timing since we saw them in Dunfermline. The songs and films seemed to be better synchronised. That impression may have been influenced by the seats we had – sitting further back gave the opportunity to see the whole show rather than having to switch between band and film – I certainly noticed the films more this time. Noticing that Paul America and Edie Sedgewick above all the others lived up to the "beautiful" tag… noticing that Dennis Hopper seemed to be looking down at the band… noticing that Billy Name was just trying too too hard.

The band returned to the stage for an encore of Galaxie 500's Strange and then, all too soon, it was all over. Hopefully they'll be back at the end of the year for a whole evening of Galaxie 500.

After the show I chatted to a couple of Galaxie 500 list members who were nice enough to come over and introduce themselves and then hung around to have a chat with Dean & Britta who were patiently chatting and signing autographs… including one, it seems, for Andy himself…

Had a nice (and short, and uncomfortable) chat with Dean & Britta, dipped into the after show party, where Hazel and I just nabbed a drink and some peanuts and olives, and then made our excuses and headed home. Thanks to Richard, and Darren and Beth for coming and chatting, thanks to Dean and Britta for being here and being so sweet.

There are a few more pictures on Flickr

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A couple of videos of complete songs from Dean & Britta's secret Copenhagen show from 2007 have just appeared on YouTube.

First them doing Luna's Chinatown

And then doing Adam Green's We're Not Supposed to be Lovers

If you look back through the morkygorky's earlier videos you can find some short clips of other songs from the show earlier in the day.

Previously:

• MP3: Dean & Britta with Nikolaj Nørlund play Ceremony
• Review: Dean & Britta in Copenhagen

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