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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A Head Full of Wishes newsletter #22
Dean Wareham covers Lou Reed’s ‘A Gift’
Dean Wareham has just released a cover of Lou Reed’s ‘A Gift’ as a (digital only) single, and you can likely find it on your streaming platform of choice, or… on YouTube here:
The track was produced by Kramer and mixed (and has additional vocals) by Britta.
A demo version of the track had previously been released on a Patreon only single by PIAPTK back in April, but Dean points out that he “re-recorded my vocal (with a better microphone and better attitude) and Britta did this re-mix”.
Available to buy on Dean’s Bandcamp.
My record collection: Luna - A Sentimental Education (LP)
Anyone reading between the lines of my post about A Place of Greater Safety might have noticed that I was a little cool on the post reunion Luna releases. Actually you don’t really need to read between the lines, I think “I did have reservations - particularly with regard to these releases” is fairly explicit.
Of course, my views weren’t about the music but more about the releases themselves, maybe ten years of silence being broken with a covers album and an EP of instrumentals couldn’t help but seem a little disappointing. But Dean is a master of the art of the cover version, both in selection and interpretation so maybe I was just being a bit churlish and should try and separate it from the way it came into being.
“A Sentimental Education” was announced in May 2017 and released via Pledgemusic, a direct-to-fan platform that shortly after Luna’s campaign folded with many artists never recouping the money - fortunately I believe that Luna (and Britta who had released her Luck of Magic through the platform) managed to make it through the process unscathed. When I asked Dean how it was going (in July 2017) he seemed pretty upbeat on it:
It’s a ton of work (mostly for me and Britta) and there are things about Pledge I find cheesy [...] but the great thing is that on the day our record releases, we will have recouped all the album costs and paid for manufacturing, and publicist and radio promo etc.
Dean Wareham (email 4th July 2017)
Of course, despite any reservations I may have had I did buy the “deluxe bundle” and also shelled out for a handwritten lyric sheet to enhance my Dear Paulina museum exhibit:
The band’s selection of covers is of course as idiosyncratic as we’ve generally come to expect. Yes there are covers of Yes, Bowie, The Stones, and The Velvet Underground but such obscure selections that you could almost convince yourself they weren’t covers at all. I had probably heard less than half of the originals (I almost wrote that I was familiar with them but that would be an exxageration for most of them), and the rest were completely new.
It is a beautiful sounding album¸ and all the covers end up sounding perfect for Luna - does that mean the selection is perfect or that literally anything can be Lunafied!?
It has been a long time since I sat down and listened to the whole album, maybe that absence has softened me but I think I can forgive them for releasing it.
Songs I knew:
- Friends - The VU’s “Squeeze” was an early snag from Audiogalaxy or Napster in the early 00s.
- Sweetness - I’ve mentioned my surprising Yes love before so Sweetness was on my radar - I was unaware of its use in “Buffalo 66” because I’d never made it to the end of that nonsense! (Sorry I know there are fans… I’m just not one of them!!)
- Letter to Hermione - I think I picked up the 1969 Bowie album on a discounted CD when it was remastered and released (as Space Oddity) in the late 90s.
- Car Wash Hair obviously!
So… while I still think that maybe the decision to release a covers album was questionable I think the execution, and therefore the finished product, was flawless so, I guess I’ll shut up about it now (although I do have a CD copy later in this series… who knows what nonsense I’ll spout then!)
- Catalogue Number: AHFOW 12/059
- Artist: Luna
- Title: A Sentimental Education
- Notes: Translucent yellow vinyl
- Format: LP
- Bought in a deluxe Pledgemusic bundle for a lot of money!
- Buy ‘A Sentimental Education’ on Bandcamp
Previously in my record collection:
My record collection: Cheval Sombre - Time Waits For No One (LP)
This was the first of the two albums by Cheval Sombre released in early 2021 on Sonic Cathedral. I’ve already covered its partner Days Go By which was released a few months later.
Dean plays guitar on one track “I Could” and Britta plays bass on “No Place to Fall” and adds vocals to “Curtan Grove”.
I do rather love the sleeves of these two albums, and the Art Nouveau typeface used which reminded me of the one on The Moody Blues Every Good Boy Deserves Favour.
The sleeves were by artist and printmaker Craig Carry based in Cork in Ireland, this is what his website says about them:
Both albums "Time Waits for No One" and "Days Go By" are intended as a pair: envisioned by Chris [Porpora aka Cheval Sombre] like Blake's books of innocence and experience, "…but releasing experience first, with a light at the end of the tunnel, with innocence second". Art direction is following the concept of time, with earthly/celestial journeys represented by an austere, minimal bird in flight with horizontal/vertical stained glass-like flight paths over both records.
Colour palette for [Time Waits For No One] inspired by the paintings of Georges Rouault, the horizontal orientation details "the sensual journey between birth and death" [...] "Days Go By" comprises the minimal austere bird flying vertically, to indicate a more heavenly, celestial journey, this celestial colour palette sourced from a magazine photo of a chapel's stained glass windows.
Crucially, the pair of LP covers overlap to form a super-imposed cross "linked together, suggesting the wholeness of human experience. Two birds flying in different directions, but the trail they leave behind, telling a subtle important story".
My copy is the limited edition “frosted clear and blue splatter” vinyl that was exclusive to Bandcamp and limited to 150 copies.
- Catalogue Number: AHFOW 12/090
- Artist: Cheval Sombre
- Title: Time Waits For No One
- Format: LP
- Bought from Sonic Cathedral for £20 + postage
- Buy ‘Time Waits For No One’ on Bandcamp
This week in history
It occurred to me that it would make more sense to highlight events in the coming week, rather than the last week, so from this newsletter on I’ll be doing that.
Luna in Brazil - September 2001
This week Luna played a few dates in Brazil - I’ve just come across this video of the whole of their show in Sao Paulo on the 19th…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf4Z9hDjCPE
The show on the 21st in Belo Horizonte was also filmed for a TV show - here’s a playlist - not great quality clips sadly but still good to see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1BZUTTokew&list=PL102B7845904DEA05
Galaxie 500’s first London show
Galaxie 500’s first London show was a secret warm-up gig in the White Hart in Tulse Hill on 23rd September 1989:
24th September 1989 - Galaxie 500’s first Peel Session
Galaxie 500 went into the BBC studios in Maida Vale and recorded their first Peel session - it was broadcast on Peel’s show a few weeks later.
24th September 1996 - Galaxie 500 box set released
After years of being difficult to track down, Galaxie 500’s catalogue got released in a beautiful 4xCD box set
Discoveries and rediscoveries
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I raided my collection and posted about some of the finds…
https://aheadfullofwishes.substack.com/p/artefacts-2-some-more-picks-from -
To support my views on Luna’s A Sentimental Education above, here’s an interview with Dean from around the time of release.
A Sentimental Education is no victory lap. Instead of cranking out a new set of originals just to say they did, Luna zagged: a collection of deep-cut covers and ambient instrumentals that no label exec in their right mind would have greenlit. “I thought this would be easier,” Wareham shrugs. “It’s both lazy and money-grubbing—but in a fun way.”