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.

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Categories: substack

Substack
A Head Full of Wishes newsletter #21

Luna / Cheval Sombre - Lonesome Cowboy Bill

Last time out I managed to write a lengthy post that mostly wasn’t about this single so, as promised I’ll try and make amends…

Luna / Cheval Sombre - Lonesome Cowboy Bill
Luna / Cheval Sombre - Lonesome Cowboy Bill

Back in early 2016 Dean Wareham and Chris Porpora (aka Cheval Sombre) went into Palmetto Studios to record their wonderful (but sadly now a little lost) album of “cowboy songs” Dean Wareham vs Cheval Sombre and at some point during these sessions Luna recorded a cover of The Velvet Underground’s “Lonesome Cowboy Bill” that was released on this 7” single with a cover by Cheval Sombre on the other side.

But… these weren’t Luna sessions!? The session was to record for a Dean and Cheval Sombre album, and, ironically Cheval Sombre’s version wasn’t recorded during these sessions!?

So, were Sean and Lee just passing through? <shrug>

Dean shared the track on his newsletter a year after the single came out so… I guess I can share it too:

Luna - Lonesome Cowboy Bill

Source: Lonesome Cowboy Bill (Feral Child, 2017)

In December 2018 Dean and Britta and Cheval Sombre played three shows in support of the Dean vs Cheval Sombre release and the New York show as Le Poisson Rouge was recorded and in 2022 a few recordings from the show were released on D&B’s Patreon… including this lovely take on Lonesome Cowboy Bill:

Dean Wareham vs Cheval Sombre - Lonesome Cowboy Bill (live)

Source: Dean Wareham vs. Cheval Sombre - 7th December 2018 Le Poisson Rouge, New York, NY, USA

Mike was at the show and shared this clip of them performing the song:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkzNvmpc_pY

There are also a stack of beautiful pictures from that show by Ellen Qbertplaya.

So… a post about a Luna song with very little Luna content - so, I better fix that. Here’s Robert’s lovely clip of Luna playing the song in Bristol in 2018:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwj_KLD6oN8

Previously in my record collection:

Dean / Britta - Don’‘t Think Twice… / Hey Paula

This is a single that is nominally a split with the a side having a cover of Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright credited to Britta and the aa side has Hey Paula credited to Dean. It was released on Great Pop Supplement in 2015.

Britta and Dean - Don't Think Twice / Hey Paula
Britta and Dean - Don't Think Twice / Hey Paula

While I’m happy to accept that Don’t Think Twice is a Britta release, to credit Hey Paula, a song that is a man/woman duet, just to Dean is a bit of an odd stretch! It was later released on an ACLU benefit album credited more appropriately to Dean & Britta.

Is it just me or does Britta’s voice on the Dylan cover sound like it was recorded after a full packet of fags? It is certainly… gruffer than on most of her other recordings.

Before Heavy Metal and Punk overtook my life I went through a very classic rock and roll / rockabilly (and then psychobilly, although the less said about that the better) phase - and bought/acquired lots of rock and roll comps and it was always puzzling to find Hey Paula turning up. Just a look at the first page of Discogs compilations finds it included on “Solid Gold Rock ‘n’ Roll Vol 2”, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Gold”, “64 Original Rock ‘n’ Roll Greats”, “Heroes of Rock ‘n’ Roll”… but, it’s not Rock ‘n’ Roll. Is it?

I have always rather loved the song though. So maybe it is rock ‘n’ roll because even rock ‘n’ rollers like sweet love songs sometimes?

One album I had that I can remember it being on was the soundtrack to Lemon Popsicle which I had on yellow vinyl and was a rock and roll filled compilation from 1978. But… I never saw the film. And, since it was an Israeli film… in Hebrew, it seems unlikely that anyone in the UK saw it, although I guess this trailer shows it was dubbed into English so maybe it did get into some cinemas. I was 14 at the time of release, and it was X-rated so I wouldn’t have got to see it anyway! And that trailer doesn’t suggest that my life is any less for having missed out on it. It can be found, in its original Hebrew, on the Internet Archive (and the subs can easily be found so… maybe I’ll give it a go?

It was also used in the awful, overated juvenile nonsense National Lampoon’s Animal House… and even the lovely Karen Allen can’t make that film watchable!

Anyway… back to the single. It was released in a saucy cover with a warning card obscuring it “remove with caution in the presence of minors” - maybe it’s just because I’m a prude but I prefer this alternative sleeve! The painting is by Brian Calvin whose work later turned up on Dean & Britta’s Quarantine Tapes.

I do have another copy of the single… maybe by the time I get to writing about that I’ll have made my peace with the sleeve? Although I doubt it!

This week in history

This weeks discoveries and rediscoveries