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 #34
Best of Luna - UK 2xCD edition
While the US got a single disc Best of Luna and Lunafied as a download, the bands UK label, Beggars Banquet gave us on this side of the pond a lovely two disc edition with a whole disc of Lunafied cover versions.
The discs were named “Best of Luna” and “Lunafied” although this led to the awkwardness of having a “Best of Luna” disc without any cover versions - this could almost be fixed by the fact that the whole package was called “Best of Luna” but then… should a “Best of Luna” package have “Only Women Bleed” or “In The Flesh”?
When I covered the US “Best of Luna” I created a table stating the album origins of each of the tracks… so, lets revisit and compare:
| Best of Luna | US | UK |
|---|---|---|
| Lunapark | 3 | 2 |
| Bewitched | 4 | 4 |
| Penthouse | 5 | 5 |
| Pup Tent | 2 | 2 |
| The Days of Our Nights | 1 | 2 |
| Romantica | 0 | 2 |
| Rendezvous | 1 | 0 |
| non album track | 0 | 1 |
So once again The Best of Luna is heavy on their first three albums which makes up almost two thirds of the album. And Rendezvous doesn’t get a look in! The album that Dean put at number 2 when he ranked Luna’s studio albums back in 2016!
I tried to think of the 18 songs I’d put on my Best of Luna but I’m damned if I could!
The liner notes for Best of Luna had short little pen portraits of each song on the album… although they’re often only superficially about the song… here are a couple of my favourites.
On Saturday afternoons, Channel 55 used to show re-runs of Columbo. One of my favorite episodes, Étude in Black, stars John Cassavetes as a maestro who murders his pianist girlfriend. He carefully stages the murder so it will look like a suicide, turning on the gas, and putting her head in the oven. Columbo doesn't buy it. "Murder is bad," he says, "but suicide is sad. Why would a girl like that put her head in the oven?"
Bobby Peru (Dean Wareham - Best of Luna sleeve notes)
Sean first played us this riff during the Pup Tent sessions, but decided he wasn't ready to record it. He brought it back to us for The Days of Our Nights album. Britney Spears released a song called "Dear Diary" in 2000, just months after we did. It's all about a boy that she saw on the street, who she thinks may have been smiling at her, and she can't get him out of her mind, and she wonders if they could be more than just friends. Which is cool. because my lyrics are about spying a cute girl on the train, and she's reading silly magazines and singing a song, and I can't stop thinking about her.
Dear Diary (Dean Wareham - Best of Luna sleeve notes)
I found that quite interesting because Dean’s version seems to be like one of Adrian Tomine’s most famous New Yorker covers… also on the front cover of his New York Drawings, here’s my copy:
I love Adrian Tomine’s art, and did before it turned up on a Luna album… I can’t really remember how I learnt about him - although possibly through someone on the Galaxie 500 Mailing List.
Lunafied also gets little one-sentence sketches…
- Outdoor Miner - We recorded this for a 7” single on a Spanish label, “Why don’t you choose the artwork?” I told them. “I’m sure it’ll be fine”. They chose a gruesome photograph of a dead cat with a metal stake driven through its eye.
- Only Women Bleed - … Justin refused to play on this ballad, so we waited till he was out of the band - it was recorded during the making of Romantica.
-
Bonnie and Clyde - We couldn’t decide if “Bonnie and Clyde” worked better fast or slow, so we did it both ways.
- Catalogue Number: AHFOW 10/023
- Artist: Luna
- Title: Best of Luna
- Notes: UK version
- Format: 2xCD
- Bought probably from Amazon?
Previously in my record collection:
Damon & Naomi - More Sad Hits (20|20|20 LP reissue)
In 2008 Damon & Naomi reissued their debut album More Sad Hits on LP and CD and this is the CD version and unexpectedly is a nicer package than the LP becasue it was given a rather lovely card gatefold sleeve with a series of Norman Gholson photos inside.
The reissue also came with a new essay by ‘Damon & Naomi’ which is both interesting and, for a fan. a rather hard read. Because it documents not only the beginning of Damon & Naomi as a recording entity, it obviously also touches on the end of Galaxie 500, and it, more clearly than some other articles and interviews, shows how the wounds of the break up were still very raw almost 20 years on.
I started to quote some of the essay but it felt like I was poking at those wounds and that’s certainly something I shouldn’t do.
THe essay also talks about the last song on the album, This Changing World, which in 2008 was still to all of our knowledge, what is described as a Claudine Longet original… but we know better now!
The insert that came with the CD also has a (small) pic of the sheet of paper were Damon has worked out Soft Machine’s Memories… in one case, incorrectly.
I wrote about both of those covers in a Substack post last month.
You can still buy copies of the CD from Damon & Naomi for $12 and it really is a very lovely package. And, of course a very beautiful album.
- Catalogue Number: AHFOW 10/126
- Artist: Damon & Naomi
- Title: More Sad Hits
- Notes: 20|20|20 reissue, 2008
- Packaging: Glossy, gatefold card sleeve
- Format: CD
- Buy ‘More Sad Hits’ on Bandcamp
The coming week in AHFoW history
- 13th December 1988 - Galaxie 500 play at CBGB in NYC, the show is recorded and bootlegged for many years before getting an official release earlier this year
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13th December 1989 - Galaxie 500 play at The Subterania in London - a clip of them playing Snowstorm at this show was broadcast on Snub the following January… and the rest is history!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2haEl7z2Ww -
13th December 1995 - Luna guest on Mark Radcliffe’s BBC Radio One show in Manchester - you can hear the full session and interviews here
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16th December 1995 - Luna play at The Garage in London, it’s the first time I meet Internet friends at a gig! You can listen to the whole show here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FiPS9PRIJQ&t=1634s -
18th December 2010 - Damon & Naomi play at The Borderline in London with The Clientele - I braved the snow and London’s occasionally winter-vulnerable transport system to get to the show!
This week’s discoveries and rediscoveries
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Video of Luna playing 23 Minutes in Brussels in Dallas last weekend:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MocvRZA_EUw -
Damon and Naomi put up a stack of the test pressings in beautiful hand-made sleeves to buy at a fixed price on their website - most have sold already but last I chekced there were a few still available.