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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Substack
A Head Full of Wishes newsletter #52

My record collection [347] Dean & Britta - L’‘avventura (CD)

This is the fifth copy of Dean & Britta’s first album L’avventura in this series and there’s still one more to come! This is the copy bought the week of release in 2003.

Britta Phillips and Dean Wareham - L'avventura
Britta Phillips and Dean Wareham - L'avventura

News of the album’s release was announced in January of that year:

Britta and Dean have completed work on an album that will be released on Jetset in May, under the name Britta Phillips and Dean Wareham. The album, titled LAvventura, was produced by Tony Visconti, who also contributed a number of string arrangements. Britta and Dean trade vocals on a handful of original songs, plus covers of songs by Madonna, the Silver Jews, the Doors, Buffy St. Marie, Opal and Angel Corpus Christi.

Post on Fuzzywuzzy (January 2003)

This next bit is a re-hash/repeat of some of the things I wrote for the AHFoW Substack a couple of months back - I apologise!

I’ve recently started trying to get the Galaxie 500 Mailing List archive into some sort of order so that I can start doing some more in depth looking at how releases were received and discussed on the list. Since 2003 is fairly well represented, and in moderately good order, my first test was with L’avventura. So, here are a few insights I’ve managed to pull from the data.

The album was released in early June of 2003 although it seems that Jetset had distribution problems so there was quite a lot of on-list discussion of members struggling to get a copy. This was somewhat exacerbated by the uncertainty of just where to look in the racks. Since the album was by Britta Phillips and Dean Wareham would it be in the Ps, or the Ws or, since we all called them Dean & Britta (even their own website) would it be in the Ds?

Now of course there is the issue that this is discussion on a fan forum, and as such opinion was likely to be skewed to the positive, and it’s no surprise with L’avventura:

  • “G500 was great, Luna is even better and L’Avventura works beautifully” - Darren
  • “I know I’m unlikely to be the most objective reviewer on this list - but really L’Avventura is well worth the very little “hype” that it has received - it will certainly make my top 10 - Andy
  • “I am hooked on the 1st 2 tracks. I can’t seem to hear Night Nurse and Ginger Snaps enough - I think Ive listened past that point only twice - I am sure will get to “get into” the rest of L’Avventura soon enough” - Elisa
  • “Some of the songs on the album do sound a lot like Luna… I do enjoy hearing Britta sing, and I wish she was showcased on more of the songs. I thought that was the point of the album. Some songs she hardly shows up at all.” - Richard

It also turned up in quite a few users end of year lists… obviously! Here’s mine (posted in no particular order) which shows just what a good year 2003 had been!

  • Clientele - The Violet Hour
  • Nina Nastasia - Road to Ruin
  • Movietone - The Sand and The Stars
  • Dean & Britta - L’Avventura/Sonic Souvenirs
  • The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow
  • British Sea Power - The Decline of…
  • Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci - Sleep/Holiday
  • Tacoma Radar - No One Waved Goodbye
  • The Zephyrs - A Year to the Day
  • Saloon - If We Meet in the Future

I haven’t listened to The Shins for a while (listening now) but the rest still get regular needle time (and of course the Tacoma Radar album got a lovely vinyl release last year).

Dean & Britta did some radio and played some live shows around the time of release - here they are playing Ginger Snaps at The Village Underground in NYC in June 2003:

Dean & Britta - Ginger Snaps (The Village Underground, 24th June 2003)

Source: Dean & Britta - 24th June 2003 - Village Underground, New York, NY, USA

Full disclosure: AI was involved in trying to clean up the data, and in the probing of the content - I wouldn’t have had the time, skills, or patience without it - but it’s still far from perfect, and I don’t have everything! If anyone has any Galaxie 500 Mailing List posts, particularly from the very early days - 1995 to 1998 - please do get in touch.

Previously in my record collection:

My record collection [348] Luna - Bewitched (LP)

This is my second copy of the 2012 LP release of Luna’s Bewitched, the previous copy was sent to me, and signed by, Dean, so I guess I bought this one, although can’t find any email evidence of that.

Luna - Bewitched LP (and Trudy)
Luna - Bewitched LP (and Trudy)

It’s funny, I never voted for Bewitched as my favourite album in the annual survey but invariably the songs I’d pick for favourite song would be tracks off Bewitched. It is chock full of absolute Luna classics! Four of Luna’s top ten songs they’ve played live are from this album.

Since the album never had an LP release until this release most people wouldn’t have heard the album with an A and a B side (although it had been released on cassette so some had) and as such wouldn’t have noticed that the A-side was probably one of the strongest sides of vinyl Luna would ever release (and had all four of those top ten live staples).

  • California (All The Way) - 10th most played live
  • Tiger Lily - 6th
  • Friendly Advice - 2nd
  • Bewitched - 8th
  • This Time Around - 23rd

Not that the B-side is that shabby! Here are a coupld of clips of the other side of Bewitched

Luna - Into The Fold (Alexandria, 2021) (play on YouTube)
Luna - Sleeping Pill (Seattle, 2020) (play on YouTube)

And of course Great Jones Street featured a guitar solo from the late, great Sterling Morrison and you can hear him and Dean playing it for a radio show over here:

Audio: Dean Wareham and Sterling Morrison play Great Jones Street

  • Catalogue Number: AHFOW 12/053
  • Artist: Luna
  • Title: Bewitched
  • Notes: 2012 release
  • Format: LP

Previously in my record collection:

This week in history

  • 2nd May 1987 - Naomi buys her bass guitar, setting Galaxie 500 in motion - so, possibly Galaxie 500’s 39th birthday? https://aheadfullofwishes.substack.com/p/from-the-archive-galaxie-500s-birthdays?utm_source=publication-search

  • 3rd May 1999 - Luna’s Days of Our Nights is released in the UK and Europe, shortly after they get dropped by Elektra so the US release enters limbo before finally getting a release in the autumn.