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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AHFoW style guide

This isn’t meant to scare folk off but - my editing is pretty light touch but this is a rough outline of how to write for the site. If you fancy writing anything for A Head Full of Wishes I am always open for business.

A Head Full of Wishes
The site’s full name is A Head Full of Wishes (note it has an A and a lower-case o in of) and in abbreviated form AHFoW - either is acceptable but using the long form more than once in an article is probably overkill.
Punctuation
Ellipsis - no space before… but a space after.
Try not to over-use exclaimation marks (I know that I’m a serial abuser of this rule)
Dashes should be en dashes (but generally aren’t)
Dates
For full date [ordinal_number] [full month name] [full year] no commas. So, 17th May 1964 or 1st January 2000 - in filenames use yyyy-mm-dd so 1964-05-17 or 2000-01-01
& or and
Always and unless Damon & Naomi or Dean & Britta
Damon & Naomi
Always with an ampersand when talking about the band, if talking about the members then use and so: Damon & Naomi played a show but Damon and Naomi hung around afterwards to sign things
Dean & Britta
Always with an ampersand when talking about the band, if talking about the members then use and so: Dean & Britta have a new single but Dean and Britta are always friendly
Britta Phillps and Dean Wareham
Treat as two individuals rather than a band so always and not &
British English vs American English spelling
Always use British English spelling so rumour not rumor and analogue not analog except when they are used in titles, so: released on analogue formats but The New Analog
Bands are bands!
When talking about bands use the plural form so Luna are a band and Galaxie 500 are a band

Capitalization of song titles

This site uses the Musicbrainz styles for song and album titles.

  • Always capitalize the first and last word of a title. This rule should be followed even if the words would normally be lowercase according to the other rules. If a title is broken up by major punctuation (colon according to subtitle style, question mark, exclamation mark, em-dash, parentheses, or quotes), capitalize each distinct piece of the title as if it were a distinct title. Therefore, for example, always capitalize the first and last words of each section.
  • Between the first and last word of a title Capitalize all words except:
    • Articles: a, an, the
    • Coordinate conjunctions: and, but, or, nor
    • Short prepositions (three letters or less): as, at, by, for, in, of, on, to, but, cum, mid, off, per, qua, re, up, via – except when used as adverbs or as an inseparable part of a verb (as in “Plug In Baby” or “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”).
    • When used to form an infinitive: to
  • In compounds formed by hyphens, capitalize each part exactly as if they were a separate word.
  • Capitalize contractions and slang consistent with the rules above to the extent that such clearly apply. For example, do not capitalize o’ for “of”, ‘n’ or n’ for “and”.

In addition to the MB rules:

  • In song titles and is always and and not an &
  • Song titles not in English use the style of that language so, La poupée qui fait non

For specific songs and any anomlies see:

Galaxie 500 titles

Fourth of July
not 4th of July and not The Fourth of July (on the sleeve of Luna Live it’s spelt 4th of July - this is wrong!)
Listen, the Snow Is Falling
always include the comma

Luna titles

1995
the year is digits
Beggar’s Bliss
one beggar
Four Thousand Days
number spelt out (on the sleeve of Luna Live it’s spelt 4000 Days - this is wrong!)
Great Jones Street
never abbreviated to St.
Malibu Love Nest
not Lovenest
Mr. Jealousy Suite
note the . and the space after Mr
Tracy I Love You
no comma and no e in Tracy

Damon & Naomi titles

(Scene Change)
always include the parentheses
Araçá Azul
don’t forget the accents
Nineteen Sixty-Nine
the year is spelt out
This Car Climbed Mt. Washington
note the . and the space after Mt
Yoo Doo Right
note the spelling
Who Am I
no question mark
How Long
no question mark

Dean & Britta titles

You Turned My Head Around
note past tense, so not Turn - Dean contacted me about this when I was stressing… he wrote: “My original 7” single calls the song You Turned My Head Around, which is how it is registered with the songwriting society also, so that’s what I went with for our CD.”
(Walkin’ Thru The) Sleepy City
note spelling and parantheses,

Other titles