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 Head Full of Wishes newsletter #41
My record collection [325] Luna EP (No.6)
This was the first of two EPs released by Luna that were both called “EP”, this one was released in 1996 on Terry Tolkin’s No.6 Records and contains some tracks not released elsewhere.
The opening track however is the Penthouse version of Seaside by the Seashore, and the second track is Luna’s cover of Talking Heads’ Thank You For Sending Me an Angel, that had been released the previous year on the Bonnie and Clyde single.
The next two tracks were only ever released on this EP and are both Luna rockers! I must admit it’s been a while since I’ve listened to this EP but both of these tracks were really familiar - The Moviegoer has a similar feel to Rollercoaster, a song I’ve dissed on a number of occasions over the years, I’m slowly coming round to it, but would say that The Moviegoer is better!
I like It’s Bringing You Down even more. Back in 2009 John of Dream Machine Records got in touch and told me that he would be putting on the UK première of Matthew Buzzell’s Tell Me Do You Miss Me in a pub back room in Brixton. After an initial postponement it finally happened on a cold December evening. After the film John and the “Dream Machine All Stars” put on a lovely and enjoyable set of Luna favourites and very surprisingly dug out this obscurity to cover.
The next track The Enabler is also only available on this release although it will be quite familiar since it was re-purposed into Herringbone Tweed, the track that accompanied Dennis Hopper’s Screen Test in Dean & Britta’s 13 Most Beautiful: Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests in 2009, here they are playing it live in Pittsburgh in 2012
The final track is the cover of Tom Rush’s No Regrets that was previously released on the 23 Minutes in Brussels / Hedgehog single
The sleeve of EP is a riff on the poster for the film Kids which I have never seen and will never see.
- Catalogue Number: AHFOW 10/110
- Artist: Luna
- Title: EP
- Format: CD
- Bought at the time wherever I bought my CDs and for whatever they cost back then.
My record collection [326] Damon & Naomi - 1001 Nights’
1001 Nights was a DVD released by Damon & Naomi in 2009 and was a collection of films, the first run was packaged with the first vinyl release of the fake live album previously only released on CD in 2002. My copy is, of course, the version with the LP.
The films on the DVD are
- Song to the Siren - Naomi’s video diary of their 2001 European tour previously released in 2002 on the Song to the Siren / Live in San Sebastian release.
- Japanese Scrapbook - Naomi’s video diary of Damon & Naomi in Japan with Ghost in 2002.
Factory 25 put Japanese Scrapbook on Vimeo to celebrate the re-issue of With Ghost in 2012… and it’s still there:
- Three films by Cedrick Eymenier - films for Within These Walls, Defibrillation, and Cruel Queen.
- Live at O-Nest - which are extracts from the two previously released DVDs of live shows in 2005 and 2008
The LP is white vinyl… now, I must admit that I do still feel a little… cheated by the deception behind Song to the Siren and tend not to listen to it that often because of that - not that it’s not lovely it’s just that it’s not what it was meant to be.
In case you don’t know the story behind the album, while on their 2001 tour of Spain, a dispute with the promoter led to the tour being cancelled - here’s how D&N described it in the liner notes to The Sub Pop Years in 2009:
Naomi chronicled the trio's first adventures in Europe with a video tour diary. That trip finished in Spain, on a somewhat disastrous note: after consulting with our record label there, Elefant, we cancelled a gig in San Sebastian in favor of a promotional appearance on television. Angered by the loss of income from San Sebastian - or maybe it was a loss of face - the tour promoter cancelled all our subsequent shows in Spain, and withheld the money earned from those we'd already played.
We had a week remaining until our flights home. Elefant gamely found us venues for a few impromptu shows, and places to stay. The Spanish misadventure had thrown the entire tour into debt, but we left Europe feeling that our playing together had reached a special point.
Back in Cambridge, Kurihara and we decided to document the arrangements we had developed on the road, before he returned to Tokyo. So we set up in our living room, just as we had every night on that long tour, and played another show. "Live in San Sebastian," we labeled the tape, as a black joke.
Damon & Naomi - The Sub Pop Years sleeve notes (2009)
I guess that this is the TV show that caused all the problems:
Of course… what is a live album? Most live albums are often only nominally live and very rarely a true record of an actual show, but they are normally based on a real live show, this somehow felt worse than doing some studio overdubs, or splicing a couple of performances together. I do understand the frustration that led to Damon & Naomi and Kurihara (and Sub Pop) doing what they did, but calling it “Live in San Sebastian” rather than “Live in our living room in Cambridge, MA” is only deceiving the people (the fans) buying the album.
I do of course appreciate that they have admitted the deception (albeit seven years late).
The release was packaged as an LP in a gatefold sleeve with the DVD living in the middle of an LP sized, folded piece of card that also contained an interview with Damon and Naomi by Haden Guest (Director of the Harvard Film Archive). It also had what was described as a “threedimensional 1001 Nights calendar” which was just a thin glossy sheet with a cut-out template to build a cube, which has 1001 tiny and virtually unreadable numbers - I can’t imagine the cube would have been very sturdy and I have no idea what use the “calendar” would be… so I, like I suspect everyone who bought a copy, just left it in the sleeve.
Wow, that all sounds like me being very negative about this release but I don’t mean to be. The LP is good (despite my reservations) and the video collection is a lovely thing!
- Catalogue Number: AHFoW 12/005
- Artist: Damon & Naomi
- Title: 1001 Nights
- Packaging: Gatefold sleeve
- Format: LP/DVD
- Bought direct from Factory25
- Buy ‘Song to the Siren (Live in San Sebastian)’ on Bandcamp
This coming week
14th February 2005
Damon & Naomi release their beautiful The Earth is Blue
- My record collection:[082] Damon & Naomi - The Earth is Blue / Beautiful Close Double / A Song For You
- My record collection:[220] Damon & Naomi - The Earth is Blue (CD)
- My record collection:[250] Damon & Naomi - The Earth is Blue (promo CD)
- My record collection:[269] Damon & Naomi - The Earth is Blue (LP)
14th February 1994
Dean Wareham and Sterling Morrison popped into the Modern Rock Live studio in NYC to be interviewed and perform a live version of Great Jones Street.
15th February 2008
Dean, Britta, and Keren Ann play Bonnie and Clyde live on KEXP
16th February 2011
I took my dad to see Dean Wareham in Brighton… he told Dean what he thought of it!
Andy Aldridge brought his Dad along to the show and we enjoyed meeting him. Andy’s Dad told me after the show that I should let Britta sing more and it’s true she has a lovely voice.
Dean Wareham newsletter 10th March 2011