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 #24
Dean & Britta - A Gift / Homeward Bound (8”)
This lovely lathe cut 8” single by Dean & Britta was released as a gift to PIAPTK’s Patreon supporters although a few copies turned up in Dean & Britta’s online store. I was hoping Dean was going to bring some copies to the UK on his recent tour but unfortunately not, so I asked if he could send me a copy… which of course he did! It arrived last week…
The single is a square of white plastic with both tracks cut onto one side, the sleeve is a beautiful picture of Britta and a drum kit, printed onto a transparent piece of plastic - it is lovely, and means that I can make it look like a tiny Britta is standing on my record player while I’m playing it.
A Gift is a cover of the Lou Reed track that was released on his 1975 LP Coney Island Baby, this was later released with a re-recorded vocal, re-mixed (by Britta) and mastered by Kramer, and credited just to Dean Wareham, but this is the Dean & Britta demo version.
Homeward Bound was first performed by Dean & Britta way back in 2010 at a pricey benefit show on the Central Park Summerstage - the event was a star spangled show with all the artists covering songs by Simon & Garfunkel. A short piece in the New Yorker mentions the rehearsals for the show that were at the City Winery in New York…
Dean & Britta were next, doing “Homeward Bound.”
Dean: “We wanted to do ‘The Only Living Boy in New York.’ But Aimee Mann stole that one—and she’s not even a boy!”
Hello, Lamppost (The New Yorker, 5th July 2010)
Some clips from the rehearsal turned up on YouTube but sadly not Dean & Britta’s turn - here’s Shawn Colvin and Paula Cole doing America.
There are a stack of pictures from the show here but, none of Dean and/or Britta - I can’t even spot them in the big Bridge Over Troubled Water finale… maybe you can?
So… come COVID, and come those lockdown live streams and Dean & Britta dust off their cover of Homeward Bound for their shows on the 26th September 2020 and the version that is on this single is from their early show… although… it seems the applause was added later - Roger did add applause a few times during both shows… but my video of Homeward Bound from the early show ends in silence.
I love Simon & Garfunkel, and I love Homeward Bound… but I, like I guess most people, love Only Living Boy in New York a bit more and since Aimee Mann isn’t likely to get first dibs any more, perhaps a cover of that sometime?
- Catalogue Number: AHFOW 11/083
- Artist: Dean & Britta
- Title: A Gift / Homeward Bound
- Format: 8” lathe cut single
Galaxie 500 - Subterania, London - 1989 (CDR)
Back in 2012, Lori got in touch with me and over the course of a few weeks sent me some absolutely lovely Galaxie 500 stuff - some of which I wrote about in a previous post in this series. A few weeks later this CDR of Galaxie 500’s show at Subterania in London in 1989 arrived.
I was, for a while I was sure I was at this gig but from Lori’s description and listening to the show I’m now fairly certain I wasn’t - although, given that Subterania was a local venue, and I was already a fan by late 1989 I’m genuinely surprised that I wasn’t.
Support band for the show was Ride and BBC TV show Snub were there taping some of the show and it’s the source of Galaxie 500’s TV appearance on SNUB TV a month later being interviewed and playing Snowstorm. Ride’s performance of Drive Blind was also on the show.
In her email Lori suggested that the show was “better than the Copenhagen live cd” and it is certainly a great recording, and sounds like it was a great show, although the punter relentlessly pleading for Tugboat might have got a little tiresome, certainly the band were probably getting a bit tired of it, and certainly some of the audience.
Now shortly after I received the CDR I was contacted by a friend of Lori, Josef K who filled me in a bit on the recording and ended his email with this cryptic nugget - “‘Tugboat’ is included on the copy of Subterania […], but I didn’t list it - you’ll know why as you were at the gig!”
BUT! As it turns out I wasn’t at the gig so have never found out the “why” and Josef never replied to my enquiry. If anyone knows I’d love to find out!
I’m not sure how widely this has been shared, Josef said he was planning to put it on DIME, but I’m not sure if that ever happened. I’ve popped the flacs on MediaFire if you’re interested, and if my free MediaFire account can cope.
- Catalogue Number: AHFOW 10/155
- Artist: Galaxie 500
- Title: 1989-12-13: Subterania, London
- Format: CDR
Previously in my record collection:
The coming week in history
7th October 1997 - Damon & Naomi in London
My ‘review’ as posted to the Galaxie 500 Mailing List - 7th October 1997
Jackie and I arrived at the cosy 12 Bar and squeezed ourselves upstairs onto the tiny balcony where Jonathan was holding a prime positioned table for us.
Damon & Naomi arrived onstage shortly after, Damon playing an acoustic guitar and Naomi alternating between bass and sruti (that wonderful drone box that we should all now be acquainted with). They played “one long set with a break in the middle”, opening with “The Navigator” and proceeding through a number of tracks from the two albums (not in set order!) “Information Age”, an exquisite “Tour Of The World”, “Forgot To Get High”, “New York City”, “How Long” etc., they also treated us to the debut live performance of their next single “Kinetoscope” (Blue Rose).
Of the non-originals, they did a quite beautiful rendition of Tim Buckley’s “I Must Have Been Blind”, and an equally gorgeous “Translucent Carriages”, the track they’ve recorded for the Tom Rapp tribute album.
They finished the evening with a quite glorious “This Car Climbed Mount Washington”, and left the stage with so much still unplayed!
We left, after of course, the traditional “inept fan-boy approaches his heroes” routine, having forgotten to ask any important questions, but having chatted briefly about Tim Buckley and Tom Rapp to Naomi, and bored Damon with stories of recent fatherhood.
early October 1998 - Dean sits with Flava Flav!
8th October 2016 - Luna at Butlins in Bognor Regis
I had spent most of my childhood summer holidays in Bognor Regis, so the opportunity of seeing Luna there was too much to resist - so had wangled some guest passes as the weekend tickets were a bit pricey!
We arrived in a damp and overcast Bognor and once we’d managed to track down our passes we wandered around the festival site, a Butlins holiday camp. Caught a bit of Clinic, all of Wire, a bit of Jah Wobble and then settled in for Luna’s set.
This show was my only hope of seeing a non-Penthouse Luna show so when the band opened with Chinatown my hear sank a tiny bit… and then bobbed back up to the surface for Malibu Love Nest!
A lovely and nicely mixed up setlist (both Britta and Sean got to sing) and a decent sounding room (apart from the vibrations from the other stage on the floor below) made for a cracking evening.
Show over, we sadly had to shoot off before Suede to get Ulrika on a train to London so she could get to Antwerp for Luna’s show the next evening. Adam and I pondered returning to Butlins but opted instead for a stroll along the beach in the dark before grabbing some food and heading back to my dad’s to eat it.