A Head Full of Wishes

Damon & Naomi have just released details of their new album A Sky Record. The album will be released digitally and as a booklet/download package on 6th August.

Every audio format has its strengths and weaknesses… but those without liner notes are really missing out. We thought we’d take advantage of the persistence of physical media for words and images and print a booklet to accompany what will be, inevitably, a digital album for many.

The accompanying booklet A Sky Record Companion has essays by Damon and Naomi and contributions from Jarvis Cocker, Soichiro Nakamura, Michio Kurihara, Susanne Sasic, Richard Youngs and Lindsay Zoladz.

The booklet can be pre-ordered now over at Damon & Naomi’s Bandcamp.

The album was announced and introduced in a lovely video made with, and at, The Peabody Essex Museum and can be viewed over on their YouTube now - it contains live performances of a number of songs on the album interspersed with interviews discussing the making of the record and the influence of the pandemic on it.

Forgive me this indulgence…

I was born about 8 miles away from where I’ve spent the last 27 years of my life, but since Monday I’ve no longer been calling London my home. Hazel and I had always planned to leave at some point but now that point is here it feels very strange.

I’ll never stop being a Londoner, but it’s time to start a new adventure somewhere else - and that somewhere else is about 290 miles from where I was born! Newcastle-upon-Tyne is almost as far from London as you can be yet still be in an English city and we’re headed a (very) few miles further on from there.

So, here are some songs about (or just mentioning) leaving, moving or home - just because.

Home is made for comin’ from, for dreams of going to

So ride me to the station and I’ll be on my way, there’s a greyhound goin’ somewhere and I just want to say I’m leavin’

Back in July 2010, while they were touring their 13 Most Beautiful show, Dean & Britta popped into WNYC’s Green Space for an interview and to play a couple of songs.

I grabbed this at the time but it’s pretty low-res - but … maybe just because it was 11 years ago!

They open with Dylan’s I’ll Keep It With Mine with Nico looking icy cool.

After a short interview they then perform Cheval Sombre’s I Found It Not So which was supposed to soundtrack Mary Woronov’s screen test but someone pushed the wrong number on the DVD and it ended up soundtracking Baby Jane Holzer’s toothbrushing. Quite sweet watching Dean’s mildly annoyed eye-rolling.

Happy Birthday to the lovely Britta Phillips…

On 23rd June the Peabody Essex Museum will be hosting an online, virtual presentation of songs from Damon & Naomi’s new album A Sky Record

The show is a pre-recorded film from the Plummer Hall at the museum and will be streamed at 6pm (local time, 23:00 UK). Registration for the event is free (with optional donation to the museum).

Back in 2017 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the begining of Galaxie 500 I threw together the first issue of Everything’s Swirling - it was a messy, mostly hand-made affair with loads of great contributions from lots of talented fans. The initial run of 100 sold out in no time and a second run of 50 went almost as fast… and that was it - it was in the hands of 150 folk.

Now, I’d been meaning to make a downloadable version but I just never got myself organised enough to do it.

Well, this week I got organised!

Here’s how I described the fanzine back in 2017

The 32 page booklet is limited to 100 copies and includes articles, photographs, art and memorabilia by fans from all over the world. It will come with a numbered, hand printed, and hand-stamped sleeve, and will include a badge (button) and a high quality photograph of the band in either London in 1989 or Frankfurt in 1990 (most 15cm x 10cm but a few random issues will have larger 21cm x 14cm photos)

So here is a PDF - I’ve tagged a few extras onto the end to make up for the fact that you won’t be getting a badge or a high quality photo!

Everything’s Swirling - A Galaxie 500 fanzine (PDF, 6.3MB)

And… because I can barely believe it happened…

So - his Bobness reaches 80 - here’s a few times he’s touched A Head Full of Wishes over the years.

In 2006 Bob released Modern Times in an eerily familiar sleeve - it used the same Ted Croner photo that Luna had used on the insert of Penthouse and on the sleeve of the Chinatown / 23 Minutes in Brussels single released 11 years previously.

Dean & Britta recorded Bob’s I’ll Keep It With Mine for the 13 Most Beautiful project - here’s Nico’s screen test with the Scott Hardkiss remix of the track as released on the DVD…

At the first Terrastock festival in Providence in 1997 Damon & Naomi were joined by Tom Rapp for this wonderful cover of Bob’s I Shall Be Released.

For Luna’s comeback covers album A Sentimental Education, the band covered Most of The Time - here they are soundchecking it in Santander in 2017.

Damon & Naomi released this splendid live version of It’s All Over Now Baby Blue. It was performed with Kurihara and Batoh and released on Grimsey records in 1999.

Around the time she was recording her solo album Britta recorded Bob’s Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright with Dean, Roger Brogan and Raymond Richards - it eventually turned up on a Great Pop Supplement split single with Dean’s cover of Hey Paula on the flip.

This is from Cheval Sombre’s half of the Dean Wareham vs Cheval Sombre album – but Dean’s playing on it so here’s their cover of Tommorow is a Long Time…

… and just because it came up in a search here’s Joakim’s fantastic Bob Dylan story as recounted in his review of Luna’s London shows from 2015 …

I once met Bob Dylan on the streets of Paris before one of his shows, it was close to the Bastille, where Avenue Daumesnil meets Rue de Lyon. I said hello to him and thanks and good luck tonight Mr Dylan, he was carrying a white box with both hands, I’d like to think it was a cake for his band mates. He stared back, lifted the white box up and made clear the he couldn’t shake my hand, because he was carrying a cake. Didn’t say a word, but that look. I still today can’t let go of that moment, a good moment, but scary. It’s almost the same with Dean. I wonder if Dean’s ever given his bandmates a cake. Joakim Bengtsson - I once met Bob Dylan… (AHFoW, August 2015)

Not too sure how this has slipped through the lost tracks net but it seems it has. Early Morning’s only appearance was as the b-side of Luna’s cover of In The Flesh when it was released on Trade2 records back in 1997.

It’s another of those relentlessly trippy instrumental that the band seemed to be able to trot out at will (cf. The Enabler, Seven Eleven, Bob le Flambeur and more recently most of A Place of Greater Safety)

Apologies for the crackly vinyl rip - I can’t remember when I did this and since my vinyl is all packed up ready for the move it’s the best you’ll get (unless someone has a better copy and shares it with me).

I thought it might be fun to sit down together and re-watch Luna’s live streamed concert before it slips off Veeps and into the ether on Sunday night so… I’ve scheduled two events where we can all hit play together and watch and banter (it looks like the Veeps chat still works) … or just watch.

You need to have already bought a ticket for the show - you can probably still do that - and you can rewatch any time you like up until Sunday night.

Luna live stream re-watch (Saturday)

This is the first of two live stream re-watches I’ve scheduled - this one is for Saturday

• Los Angeles Sat 13:00
• New York Sat 16:00
• UK/Portugal Sat 21:00
• Most of EU Sat 22:00
• Aus/NZ early on Sunday morning!

Everywhere else go here and find out when Saturday’s rewatch is for you.

Facebook event for Saturday’s re-watch.

Luna live stream re-watch (Sunday)

This is the second of two live stream re-watches I’ve scheduled - this one is for Sunday

• Los Angeles Sun 14:00
• New York Sun 17:00
• UK/Portugal Sun 22:00
• Most of EU Sun 23:00
• Aus/NZ early on Monday morning!

Everywhere else go here and find out when Sunday’s rewatch is for you.

Facebook event for Sunday’s re-watch.

On Saturday night Luna played their first show for over a year - sadly no one could be in the room with them. Happily we could all be in our room with them. Unlike Dean & Britta’s cosy live stream shows from their living room last year Luna’s was a multi-camera shoot in a real club, Gold Diggers in Los Angeles.

The show opened with a couple of pre-recorded videos. The first was their fantastic take on Television’s Marquee Moon that crept out last year just about when we all really needed it. The second video was the world premiere of the band’s cover of David Bowie’s Starman - no sign of this turning up on YouTube (or Bandcamp) yet - but … fingers crossed.

Pre-recorded segment over and we cut to the band live on-stage (and spilling off the stage) in Gold Diggers. Lee was the one confident that they were live and counted in - the band started Slide - well, all except Sean who seemed to be expecting something else - but he was soon inline and the band were off and running and sounding as tight as we know they are.