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: artefacts damon & naomi

Artefacts
#018: Angry Women in Rock Volume One with Naomi Yang

Happy birthday Naomi!

Naomi Yang from Angry Women in Rock Volume 1

In 1996 Naomi was interviewed by Andrea Juno for this book Angry Women in Rock Volume One. The book was published in New York and I never managed to track down a copy and admit that I stopped looking when another fan sent me a photocopy of Naomi’s interview.

I struggled to come to terms with the idea that Naomi was an Angry Woman of rock - I think she did too

Do I have anything to say? Is this even an issue for me?

But, re-reading the interview she manages to be angry about…

  • Music stores:

The sales help tend to treat you like a jerk unless they recognize you from your Grammy award ceremony.

  • Her music teacher

He was making fun of simplicty.

  • Madonna

I think it’s all self-promotion. That’s pop culture and I feel very alienated from that.

  • Major record labels

Dens of evil. They’re about mediocrity not music

  • The industry of music

So much that is venerated is really bad. It makes me distrust popularity.

The interview concludes with Naomi’s equipment list becuase…

it always seemed to me that the equipment list was the best thing about [Guitar Player]

so…

Naomi’s equipment list (1996)

Cherry red 1968 Gibson EB-2DC bass (semi-hollow-bodied bass, shaped like a 335 Gibson guitar), Trace Eliot AH200 amp head and a single 15” EV speaker for playing live, old Ampeg B-18 Portaflex amp for recording, Boss Super Overdrive pedal (used rarely)

I finally saw a copy for real when a pal brought a copy over for me to look at, and I realised that I really ought to own a copy - and eBay made that easy. So now I have this gorgeous picture of Naomi with her dad’s Rolleiflex TLR which in my photocopy was just a black mess!

Naomi Yang from Angry Women in Rock Volume 1

You’ll find more birthday tributes to Naomi here with lots of photos, videos and mp3 downloads:

I thought I’d just go through some of the stuff I’ve acquired over the years and post about it here… how interesting the posts (and artefacts) are will undoubtedly vary!