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 fleet of Tugboats
Tugboat was Galaxie 500’s first single, recorded in February 1988 at Noise New York by Kramer and released as a 7” single on Aurora Records.
A good few years ago I started noticing that if some other band or artist decided to cover a Galaxie 500 song Tugboat is the one they would invariably reach for. More recently Strange is getting its fair share of covers, but still Tugboat covers regularly turn up.
For a while I kept a post collecting these covers up to date but it’s been neglected for a few years, but there are still lots of gems to be found there.
Now, I love all Galaxie 500 covers! Mostly because just the simple fact of choosing to cover Galaxie 500 is likely to endear me to you as an artist… but obviously I have favourites, and this post will collect some of those together… but, before that, I guess we should start with the original… and best!
Tugboat was recorded at Kramer’s Noise New York studio at the band’s first session.
I don't think our first "session" was more than a few hours. [Kramer] barely said a word but put a remarkable amount of reverb on the vocals to Tugboat.
Damon Krukowski - essay in the box set booklet (1996)
We didn't have the foggiest idea how to record a song.
[...]
"Tugboat" was comprised of a single repeating chord change (one that Damon came up with) to which I added a very simple guitar line. Kramer drenched my voice in reverb and echo, and sent me out to play some kind of guitar solo. I was given one take. The song explodes in ecstasy a little over halfway through, riding out with cymbal splashes and a guitar phrase that repeats over and over before the song breaks down and it feels like the clouds have lifted.
Dean Wareham - Black Postcards (2008 - p44)
Damon was asked about the making of Tugboat in an interview in 2010:
Galaxie 500 songs all started with a simple rhythm guitar pattern, either from me or from Dean. Then we would “jam”, though with our lack of chops it was more that we would simply play the pattern over and over, until something more developed; rhythmically, melodically, or structurally. I think you can hear that best in a song like “Tugboat”. In fact, there’s just that simple two-chord pattern, but we all play with it until something like a song emerges. Some of the songs, especially later, started as more complete ideas, but neither Dean nor we ever really brought a finished work into rehearsal, so far as I remember.
History Lesson: Damon & Naomi (The Dumbing of America, 2010)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe_21Z7wKQU
A few years back I was asked to make a list of my top 10 Galaxie 500 songs and my first thought was “Galaxie 500 have such a rich catalogue that I don’t have to be so predictable as to include Tugboat”… turns out I was wrong:
My natural, and occasionally obsessive, contrariness meant that Tugboat had quite a battle to get in this list. Surely no one could leave “Tugboat” out of a Galaxie 500 top ten, so I decided that I could. But then I listened to it again. Turns out it’s true, no one can leave “Tugboat” out of a top 10. So, I didn’t.
A Head Full of Wishes’ Top 10 Galaxie 500 songs
The rest are in no particular order - or at least in an order that is in constant flux!
Sea Power
Sea Power’s cover of Galaxie 500’s Tugboat (back when they were British Sea Power) was first released on the Rough Trade compilation LP Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before… released in 2003 to celebrate the label’s 25th birthday. The song then put in fairly regular appearances at their live shows.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PPvD793jgU
Earlier this year Dean Wareham performed two Galaxie 500 sets with Sea Power and both finished with an absolutely storming version of Tugboat, with Dean sharing vocals with Hamilton from the band. This is them playing it at Hebden Bridge:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YChAe16xiq0
Now, I know that I do keep going on about that week back in August but… wouldn’t you? If you need to know why I guess you should read my earlier post on that week.
https://aheadfullofwishes.substack.com/p/dean-and-dean-and-britta-in-the-north
BMX Bandits featuring Angel Corpus Christi
BMX Bandits lovely cover was released on the fantastic Elefant Records comp Snowstorm back in 2001 and features some lovely phoned-in(?) vocal augmentations from Angel Corpus Christi. It’s an album loaded with lovely Galaxie 500 covers (it also had another Tugboat cover by Portastatic). Tugboat was later also released on a BMX Bandits retrospective.
https://bmxbanditsmusic.bandcamp.com/track/tugboat-with-angel-corpus-christi
Joanna Gruesome
Joanna Gruesome’s cover is so gloriously punchy. It was released on a single by Fortuna Pop! in 2013. Damon commented on Twitter when it was posted by Pitchfork:
I think they got our primitivism - thank you @JOANNAGRUESOME
@dada_drummer on Twitter (13th November 2013)
https://indietracks.bandcamp.com/track/tugboat
It became a regular, and invariably awesome part of their live set. There are plenty of clips on YouTube and all a pretty breathtaking… here’s one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvQG_gmbGAA
The summer after it was released Joanna Gruesome and Dean Wareham were both scheduled on the same day at Indietracks and Dean joined them on-stage to perform it. It’s perhaps not as breathtaking as the performances above partly, I think, because Joanna Gruesome’s set up until this point had been plagued by sound problems and they had perhaps lost some of the Indietracks spirit. Add to the unrehearsed appearance of Dean was perhaps a little… distracting. Still… pretty special anyway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bnSlMPFLzs
Submarine
I don’t really know a great deal about Submarine, although I have vague memories of seeing them in the early 90s… maybe supporting someone… and maybe in Brighton? Although that being 30+ years ago there’s a fair chance that I’m thinking of someone else!
They released their cover of Tugboat on the b-side of a mail-order only singles club release. They also recorded it for a Peel Session on 23rd March 1993 which was broadcast a month later. Both the single version, and the Peel Session featured contribution from Claire Lemmon of Sidi Bou Said whos album from around that time, Brooch is worth spending some time with.
Here’s the single version of Tugboat:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIhCBsx4h_w
And here’s the Peel Session complete with John’s intro and outro:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdUTZv0AZX0
“Mittenfingers” and “Jecks”
Know nothing about this but… look these sweet young (so young!) kids sitting on their couch doing a lovely Tugboat cover
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8hJboQCEaY
… it’s from eight years ago so they’ll be grown ups now. There’s more, and more recent. music on the YouTube channel.
The Jazz Butcher Conspiracy
This was one of the earliest Galaxie 500 covers, I was sent this on a cassette back in the early 90s. According to the very excellent Jazz Butcher website the band played Tugboat live a few times during 1992 and this version was released on a live album, as “Tugboat Captain”, in 1992. I think I mostly love this because Jazz Buthcer were covering this so soon after Galaxie 500’s break-up. While researching this I came across this Western Family DAT pre-master…
This release was made entirely from live to-DAT recordings I made as I followed the merry Conspiracy through the USA and Canada. During the tour, it had not yet been decided ifa live recording was actually being made - I was simply doing what I love to do; preserving the moment for my own amusement.
As it happened, Pat decided to go ahead and construct a live release from my master tapes. After the tour, Pat and Martin Stebbing (Rev. Botus Whiteblood Fleming) went into Battery Studio in Chicago and worked my tapes over.
Somewhere in the process, my master tapes were lost and what was sent to Creation Records for the pressing was worked over further by minions unknown, and the final release sounds, basically, rather poor.
I had resigned myself to this let-down until a sort-of miracle occurred:a pre-master for Western Family has surfaced - tunes from beyond the grave.
David Whittemore - jazzbutcher.com
… so I guess you should go listen to it there.
Pat Fish (who was The Jazz Butcher) revisited Tugboat at this live show in 2006.
He also covered Dean & Britta’s The Sun is Still Sunny for a Covid-era live stream. Go to Fishy Mansions #8 and skip to 1:07:55 to hear this lovely version.
Sadly Pat passed away a couple of years ago, he was such a legend and is still much missed.
Venice is Sinking
Back in 2010 Lucas from Venice is Sinking got in touch with me to say that they had covered Tugboat for an album they had coming out later that year and sent me a preview. The song was recorded in the Georgia Theatre in Athens, Georgia and has a beautiful brass and strings arrangement.
https://veniceissinking.bandcamp.com/track/tugboat
There are a couple of lovely clips of the band performing Tugboat live
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mca4J5ymXvc
So, as you can see Tugboat has been well served with cover versions over the years, and there are so many I’ve missed out, and no doubt someone, somewhere in the world is right no recording themselves playing Tugboat ready to upload to YouTube - go and enjoy some of those.