A Head Full of Wishes

A New York Times article 5 Notes From a Quiet Year: How Music Survived the Pandemic contains a piece from Damon talking about how the inate social nature of musicians led them to take advantage of the pandemic to form the Union of Musicians and Allied Workers (UMAW) when it became clear just how much of an impact the pandemic was having on musicians income.

Britta has contributed bass and vocals to the track Spacewoman on the new EP from Slow Arrow.

The whole of Echoes is a spacey/dreamy synth-driven gem and worth throwing some of your pennies at.

As it should have been Tom Rapp’s 74th birthday today’s artefact is a recording of Damon & Naomi at the first Terrastock festival in Providence, RI in 1997

The cassette was recorded by Tom and he sent it to me unannouced shortly after the show - he also joins the duo on stage for a fantastic cover of Bob Dylan’s I Shall Be Released. That track (more professionally recorded) was released on a Terrastock tribute CD - but there’s always something a bit special about an audience recording so…

… here’s the full show to download - it’s a treat.

Dean & Britta have just started a Patreon account where fans can support them financially in return for monthly rewards. Each month the duo will be publishing unreleased music, chapters from an audiobook and early access to news and merchandise.

There are currently two tiers of membership:

Found myself watching this again last night and it’s a treat. A fantastic multi-camera video of Dean Wareham playing Today at The Chapel in San Francsico back in July 2017 from the excellent 3.Cameras.and.a.Microphone YouTube channel

Happy Bandcamp Friday! For today’s celebration I’ve reduced prices of the two Galaxie 500 tribute albums I released in 2019 and 2020!

On Fire 30

All the deluxe editions of On Fire 30 are now sold out but the CD only edition can be had for just £2 (plus postage) - the album was released on the 30th anniversary of Galaxie 500’s masterpeice second album On Fire and contains a track-by-track tribute (inlcuding the Blue Thunder EP).

14 tracks by a range of great artists from around the world including the wonderful Britta Phillips covering Leave The Planet, legendary Robert Scott of The Bats playing Tell Me, fab Frnech pop band Vacance’s first ever release with a cover of Strange and much more - and all for just £2!

Buy On Fire 30 on CD for £2 (plus postage)

This Music Is Ours

The follow up to On Fire 30 was a track-for-track remake of Galaxie 500’s final album This Is Our Music - there are just 12 copies left of this and these are now available for just £5 + postage!

includes badges, stickers, postcards and a booklet of art and words. Another great album with splendid covers from around the world - Melbourne’s Annual Leaf do a brilliant cover of Spook, Miguel M. Matallín from Valencia does a beautiful Way Up High and so much more - and all for just a fiver!

Buy This Music Is Ours on CDR for £5 (plus postage)

I hope Dean & Britta don’t mind me raiding their live streams for some gems - but it made me sad that this only existed online for such a short time and that some fans never got to see them doing this lovely cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s Homeward Bound to wrap up their early evening show back in Spetember.

In 2017 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the birth of Galaxie 500 I produced a fanzine (with the help of lots of folk) called Everything’s Swirling - it had photos, sketches, poems and reminscences - it was a bit rough and ready (but … fanzine) but I was proud of it.

The fantastic fanzine Kitten Frenzy was the work of fab Glasgow band Urusei Yatsura’s Graham Kemp. Issue no. 2 was released in Winter 1993 and had a lovely obituary of Galaxie 500

A while ago AHFoW was sort of featured in a book, Net, Blogs and Rock ‘n’ Roll by David Jennings - the world has moved on a lot since 2007 but David’s book is still an insightful and interesting read and a snapshot of the world trying to come to terms with music in the digital age - something that it is still struggling with 14 years on!