A Head Full of Wishes

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.

<-- back to home


Categories:

Substack
A Head Full of Wishes newsletter #15

In this weeks post:

  • My record collection - Mint Humbucker CD
  • My record collection - Indian Summer 7” split single
  • This week in history
  • Happy birthday to Dean Wareham
  • Discoveries and rediscoveries

[271] Various artists - Mint Humbucker (CD)

Mint Humbucker was a compilation released in 2001 purportedly to celebrate it’s 11th (!) anniversary but also to flag its shortlived ressurection. Dean Wareham touches a few of the contributions.

Mint HUMBUCKER - the mint label family album
Mint HUMBUCKER - the mint label family album

Mint was launched in 1991 and it’s first release (on it’s Mint Sauce imprint) was Justin Harwood’s studio project Mutton Gun’s first album Amplexus on which Dean Wareham appeared and has previously been visited in this series. Dean doesn’t play on the one track from Amplexus on this compilation and the other two Mutton Gun tracks are from their second album Into The Hogger which Dean (probably) didn’t play on… but did it did have DEAN WHERE ARE YOU? scratched into the run out grooves.

Mint also was the first home of Mercury Rev whose first album was released on its Mint Films imprint, it later released the Car Wash Hair single that featured Dean Wareham and is included on this compilation, and also has appeared in this series.

And, of course, Dean Wareham’s first post-Luna release Anesthesia was released on Mint’s Mint Tea imprint, this compilation has Anesthesia, and Tomato Poodle which was only ever released on the Mint version of the Anesthesia single, and on this compilation. I’ve written about both the CD version and the 12” version for this series.

Mint were selling this compilation cheaply for ages through their website, and then through Discogs, and you can still pick up copies for almost nothing and it’s worth it for all the above… and the Radial Spangle tracks it also includes.

  • Catalogue Number: AHFOW 10/097
  • Artist: Various artists
  • Title: Mint HUMBUCKER - the mint label family album
  • Format: CD
  • Bought driect from Mint/Jungle way back… around the time of release I think.

Previously in my record collection:

[272] Dean Wareham - Indian Summer (split single)

There were two releases credited to Dean Wareham that were released during Galaxie 500’s lifetime, both in 1990, I’m not sure which came out first but I think that Dean’s solo outings added to the problems that were already tearing the band apart. This is a cover of Beat Happening’s Indian Summer that would later be recorded by, and become a live staple of, Luna.

Chemical Imbalance #7
Chemical Imbalance #7

The single is a 33rpm 7” that was released with Mike McGonigal’s Chemical Imbalance fanzine (Vol.2 No.2), I don’t have a copy of the magazine and I’m not sure there was any actual Dean/Galaxie content apart from the track on the single (or at least none is implied on the cover). Dean’s Beat Happening cover is followed on the single by Beat Happening playing Foggy Eyes (a different version than the one on their debut album) and the other three tracks on the EP are from Shimmy Disc Alumni Bongwater, Uncle Wiggly, and The Tinklers.

Dean Wareham - Indian Summer (play on YouTube)

As often happens, listening to a Beat Happening song sends me down a BH rabbit hole - one of my fave clips on YouTube has been of Beat Happening playing Cry For a Shadow on the street outside a record shop in Memphis and this time I discovered that someone has uploaded the whole of that show - it’s digitised from a VHS tape so neither the sound nor the vision is all that great, although that seems to matter less with Beat Happening, and there’s something very beautiful about watching Memphis life go on around them.

  • Catalogue Number: AHFOW 11/022
  • Artist: Various artists
  • Title: Chemical Imbalance #7
  • Format: 7” at 33rpm

This week in history

1st August - Happy birthday Dean Wareham

Dean Wareham in Groningen
Dean Wareham in Groningen

I spent Dean’s birthday with him in 2015 when Luna played in Leeds - here’s a recording of them playing Speedbumps and Tracy I Love You, with some birthday banter in the middle.

Here’s this year’s birthday post with some recent pics and videos - and links to lots of previous birthday posts with more pics, videos, and mp3s

This week’s discoveries and rediscoveries

  • Dean & Britta played at a Bob Dylan tribute in Tulsa earlier in the week Dean posted a few pics on Instagram.
    Britta reported on what they played:
    • I’ll Keep it With Mine (Britta)
    • She Belongs to Me (Dean)
    • Love Minus Zero (Dean & Britta)
    • Just Like a Woman (Dean & Britta)
    • Like a Rolling Stone (The full company with Dean & Britta singing the last verse)
  • John Peel’s original copy of Galaxie 500’s debut album sold for £340 in the John Peel auction earlier this week. The copy of This Is Our Music sold with two other records sold for £140.
  • Since things have been pretty quiet in the Damon & Naomi camp here’s a sweet video from 2008 of them playing Sandy Denny’s No More Sad Refrains:
Damon & Naomi - No More Sad Refrains (play on YouTube)
  • Actually not that quiet: