A Head Full of Wishes is a site for Galaxie 500, Luna, Damon & Naomi, Dean & Britta and Dean Wareham. With news, articles and lists of releases and past and future shows.
My record collection
[300] Galaxie 500 - Galaxie 500 (aka Box Set)
Since this is post 300 in the series I thought it might be good to pull out a particularly special item from my collection, previous milestones have just come randomly from the backlog but today I’ve picked out the Galaxie 500 box set from 1996…
… although, special is a bit subjective since I’ve already had a post about one copy of the Galaxie 500 box set - so “how and why is this special?” I hear you ask. Well, this might be a long story, and one that has already been touched on in a number of earlier posts.
In early 1980 Sinclair launched the ZX80 - a computer for less than £100. I talked my dad into buying me one. It was a frustrating machine to use but it planted the seed. I worked y way through a number of computers (ZX81, TRS80, C64, Amiga A500) and slowly got the hang of things, I was never a computer whizz, but I knew what I was doing and was patient and methodical.
Things changed in the early-90s with three significant developments:
- The Commodore Amiga A1200
- Demon Internet for a tenner a month
- Turnpike offering free web space for anyone who asked
And so out of this A Head Full of Wishes was born. first as a web page in late 1994, and then as a mailing list in July 1995.
In May 1991 Rough Trade’s distributuion arm went into administration and the labels collapsed leaving many bands and artists in difficulties. Galaxie 500 had by then already split up, but it meant that their three albums were now in limbo, In late 91 or early 92 a lot of Rough Trade’s property was put up for auction to raise money to pay debtors and Galaxie 500’s masters and contracts were amongst the lots on sale. Damon bought them back on behalf of the band.
In the meantime Galaxie 500’s records were getting harder and harder to find. Discussion on the mailing list often arrived at either trying to find copies of the records, or speculation that they might finally get re-released in some form. In early 1995 there were some string rumours that Sub Pop were going to re-release them but this came to nothing. In late 1995 the rumours turned to Rykodisc and in early 1996 it was confirmed that there would be a Galaxie 500 CD box set containing all three albums, plus an extra disc with some rarities.
The box set was released in September 1996 to much clamour. I ordered myself a copy as soon as it was announced, from the US, but around release date news that the album was selling out and that Ryko hadn’t been prepared for the level of interest. In the Ptolemaic Terrascope interview from 1996/7 Damon confirmed this was the case:
That's true, Ryko was extremely cautious with the press run, and consequently sold out on the first day. They then ordered a second run, however they now seem to have sold out of those too! They are making some more, but we have no word yet on how long they will continue to do this, our agreement gives them the right to delete they want.
Damon Krukowski (Ptolemaic Terrascope #23)
So… I waited and there was still no sign of my box set arriving. The weekend after release day I was in the West End and while browsing the stacks of the Virgin Megastore I saw a copy of the box set had made it there and, despite already having one on order, I bought the box (my memory is that it was £42).
Eventually my order from the US arrived, I had to cycle out to the Royal Mail depot in Park Royal and pay the customs duty and VAT on it - but that explains why I also have an unopened copy of the box set.
The copy of the box set that I played therefore is the one I bought in the Virgin Megastore on the corner of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road.
Despite already having all three albums this was my first CD copy of Today, since until then I only had it on the Shimmy Disc Europe LP. I tried to play the videos one of which was included on each of the discs - although my Amiga wasn’t really geared up for it. Although, it turns out problems playing the videos wasn’t strictly an Amiga issue, lots of people were having problems to the point that Lars from Rykodisc sent a rather terse email to explain…
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 1997 14:45:00 -0600
From: Lars Murray <lmurray@rykodisc.mhub.com>
Subject: Videos--One More Time
Amazing how the various myths about the videos persist.
If anybody is running a G500 FAQ, please include a bit about the
Rykodisc Enhanced CD page
(http://www.rykodisc.com/3/central/enhanced.html) All of the existing
answers are there.
To debunk some recent misleading info:
1) The videos are NOT Mac-only. They will play on a
properly-configured PC (see web page for details).
2) NET TOOB may display the videos, but it is not a substitute for
the proper CD-ROM drivers, without which you will not see them. Nor
is it necessary to use NET TOOB to view them.
3) The videos are QuickTime, not some proprietary format.
Enjoy,
Lars Murray
Rykodisc
Email from Lars at Rykodisc - 2nd April 1997
Obviously point 3 is a nonsense because Quicktime is a proprietary format! But…
I did eventually manage to see the videos. although possibly by taking the discs into work and using one of their Windows machines.
I remember us being so excited at the enhanced CD with the videos… this is the size of one of those videos playing on my laptop today…
One minor concern expressed by fans on release of the box set was the decision to not have the original artwork on the individual discs, instead Naomi chose to continue the astronomical design of the outer box through onto each jewel case. I wasn’t bothered by this (and I normally am bothered by things like this!) but because the box artwork was so beautiful it seemed a perfectly sensible thing to maintain the consistency.
Rykodisc generally released their CDs in those greenish jewel cases and the pegs would always break off, my box set CDs are all in clear cases with intact pegs so I guess I changed them when they broke. My Ryko copy of The Wondrous World of Damon & Naomi is still in it’s original jewel case, and has the broken pegs to prove it.
These days I’ll either listen to Galaxie 500 on LP or streamed but… time to dig out the box set and give the whole thing a spin…
Disc One - Today
Bonus track: King of Spain
Video: Tugboat
Disc Two - On Fire
Bonus tracks: Victory Garden, Ceremony and Cold Night
Video: When Will You Come Home
Disc Three - This Is Our Music
Bonus track: Here She Comes Now
Video: Fourth of July
Disc Four - Uncollected
Video: Blue Thunder
The booklet
Probably as important as all that music, most of which I already had, was the booklet containing essays by all three band members. This was the first look we had at the story of the band as told by its protagonists. In the three essays we got some of the band’s history, although not the full story.
We were delighted with the recording and decided to press a 7" single of "Tugboat" and "King of Spain" - this was still our goal, to have a 7" single that would end up in some future bargain bin,
Damon - Box set booklet
In October [1989] we went off to Europe for six weeks. We finished the tour in London at Subterranea [sic]. Everett True was there. "Play slower, quieter" he yelled.
Dean - Box set booklet
But if I remember one of the happiest moments, it must have been the night after we finished On Fire. I remember so clearly being in my room at my parents' house in New York listening to the dub of the final mixes while lying in bed in the dark room [...] I was so happy and proud of what we had done.
Naomi - Box set booklet
I’m not sure when I last sat down and listened to all four discs in a sitting, I’d imagine not too long after I bought them, although obviously I’ve listened to them quite a lot individually since then, as my top albums on last.fm can testify.
I guess because of the long-term impact of Galaxie 500 on my life, listening to them even now gives me the sort of emotional hit that not much else is capable of doing. Last.fm suggests I’ve listened to Snowstorm over 300 times since November 2004 - that’s more than once a month - and doesn’t include the many LP plays that haven’t been scrobbled, and quite a few live performances! But, despite that it still affects me as it did on first listen, on a pre-UK-release cassette in autumn 1989, and later when I saw them play it on Snub in January 1990:
Obviously the Uncollected disc was the most exciting addition, this was where the new (to us) music was appearing, although I already had a few of the tracks either on releases or bootlegs - but there was still some beautiful surprises on there.
I genuinely don’t think I’ve had the same level of excitement for a release as I had for the Galaxie 500 box set, of course that was because the weeks before and after the release were spent in the online-company of a large number of people with the same feelings as I had. I know I keep saying this, but the late 90s - in the days before “social media” - were the most gloriously social time the Internet ever achieved - check out my post on The Galaxie 500 Mailing List on Substack:
I really miss the camaraderie we had back then, it was a small community but active and (for the most part) fun and friendly - the list was as much a general music list as a Galaxie 500 / Luna / Damon & Naomi one - and was all the better for that - I discovered so many bands I still love to this day thanks to the mailing list. Modern social networks have nothing on what we had back then. I know this makes me sound like the old, old, man I have become but DAMN! I MISS THOSE DAYS SO MUCH!
The Galaxie 500 Mailing List (Est. July 1995)
As this series has proved I already have many, many copies of all teh Galaxie 500 albums and probably don’t need another… but, I have the money waiting for a 4xLP version of this box set (or maybe a 6xLP extended version with Copenhagen and Peel Sessions included)! I’d love Naomi’s beautiful artwork on (and in) a 12” box! Dean, Damon, and Naomi - next September will be the 30th anniversary of the release of the box set… I think that would be a good time to revisit it!?