My record collection
[260] Galaxie 500 - Temperature's Rising / Crazy (7")

(So far) Galaxie 500 have released as many 7” singles since they split up as they did while they were a going concern†. This was the second (and so far last) of their singles from after their split.

Galaxie 500 - Temperature's Rising / Crazy

This single was part of a limited edition version of the Temperature’s Rising oral history book that could only be ordered directly from the publishers and as well as the single contained a print of one of Macioce’s photographs, signed on the back by the photographer. It was limited to 275 numbered copies (mine is number 96).

I’m guessing that there must have been more than 275 copies pressed since six months later Damon & Naomi were selling copies of the single separately on their web site for $10 - long since sold out of course so you’ll have to spend £30+ on Discogs for a copy now.

The single’s sleeve was designed by Claire Dain (about whom I know nothing) and (then) Rookie magazine editor Tavi Gevinson who was 15 or 16 at the time. In that year’s AHFoW survey nobody was under 20, and 90% were over 30… so, it was quite thrilling hearing of someone so young being a fan… and, a look through the Rookie archives, or searching online, does make it clear that she was definitely a fan:

It's just weird how it is both really sad, and really happy. And I think it’s sort of a weird kind of anthem among my friends and me, because it just really perfectly captures this feeling of being like, 'everything is really sad, but it's also really pretty, and its also just generally strange; and being alive is very weird". And it does it in a way, that the lyrics are so straight forward, but it just kind of wraps it all together really perfectly.

Tavi Gevinson on Galaxie 500's Strange (KCRW, February 2013)

You know how you can feel totally underwhelmed by an album the first few times you hear it and then something happens, either an actual event or just in your changing person that you are, and it suddenly sounds completely different? That happened to me with Galaxie 500's On Fire when I was listening to it a couple weeks ago (in a tree house! In Chicago! In March! I don't know about this whole "global warming" thing, but I like what it's doing for my obsessive compulsive Abed-from-Community tendencies to try and live movie moments in real time!). I felt really ~*~inspired~*~ and wanted to make a little book of all the pictures it made me see or whatever but realized that I couldn't relate their music to a specific decade or place or season the way I do with all those other books because it kind of sounds like it exists outside of time or space.

Tavi Gevinson - There are holes in the universe (blog post - March 2012 - archived version)

Yeti’s web site at the time of the book’s release claimed that Temperature’s Rising / Crazy was “slated to be the band’s second single” although I can’t remember having read that anywhere else.

• Catalogue Number: AHFOW 11/021
• Artist: Galaxie 500
• Title: Temperature’s Rising / Crazy
• Notes: Released as part of a limited edition version of the Temperature’s Rising book
• Format: 7”