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 #44
Another late and hastily thrown together newsletter… I’ll try and get better.
New release - Damon, Naomi, and friends play Galaxie 500
Back at the beginning of the year Damon & Naomi played three shows at Cafe Oto in London, each of these shows ended with an encore that saw them joined on stage by various guests to play from the Galaxie 500 songbook. Today they have released a (download-only) album of those encores onto Bandcamp. What’s Past is Prologue is now available for pay-what-you-want on Bandcamp and, since it’s #BandcampFriday whatever you choose to pay all reaches them.
Our three-night residency at Café Oto in January was so much fun, and to close the show each night we were joined on stage by friends for a series of - for us - surprising “covers”! On March 6, we are releasing live recordings of these encores as a Bandcamp exclusive. Huge thanks to Laetitia, Mark, Richard, Jess, Alabaster, Gina, Marie, and Stewart, as well as the great staff at Café Oto and everyone who came to share those special evenings with us.
Damon & Naomi (Bandcamp newsletter)
I wrote (well gushed) about the shows back in January, you can read my gushings here and there are a few clips from those encores on YouTube.
Dean and Britta restart their Patreon
Dean & Britta have decided to restart their Patreon after a year or more of (mostly) silence. All patrons will get a couple of tracks a monthly and in addition Penthouse level patrons will be getting a 7” single at the end of the year.
Britta and I have been doing some home recording and have decided to re-activate our Patreon page. We don't know exactly what we're gonna do each month, but thought a good base level would be one new recording from the home studio and maybe one live track or a personal essay or tour diary (as I have read Black Postcards in its entirety and there are no chapters left to read). Those of you who are actively subscribed at the Penthouse level can get your 20% discount on all our merchandise, and will receive a special gift at the end of the year, that will be another 7” vinyl EP.
Your can find Dean & Britta’s Patreon here.
Video: Luna live in Barcelona in 1997
Just before Christmas Jacobo got in touch with me and related memories of Luna’s visit to Barcelona in 1997 and their show at Bikini and also passed along a video of a BTV broadcast of the show.
The video has most of Luna’s set (although it opens with the encore) and has lots of backstage, offstage, and soundcheck clips as well plus interviews with the band members. I was surprised that this didn’t seem to have made it to YouTube so… it has now.
It’s a lovely record of Luna around the time of the release of Pup Tent and always lovely to see some Justin-era Luna!
I had to cut out a 40 second clip of the Bobby Peru video since it was causing the whole video to be blocked in certain regions (including Europe and the US!?) but otherwise the show is complete.
I excerpted an amazing version of Time to Quit if you fancy a taster:
A long, long, shot
I’ve spent a bit of time (with the help of AI) organising the Galaxie 500 Mailing List archives which have been chaotically living spread across multiple mailboxes (and in various online repos). What I always knew was that there was as significant gap in my archive most notably between the list’s launch in July 1995 to 1998 - there was some cross-posting to alt.music.galaxie-500 usenet group so I have managed to salvage some but if anyone has any old, old mailboxes that might have anything from the mailing list from those years please get in touch. I suspect there are gaps right up to August 2004 when I moved to GMail - if you have anything please shout!
Just to give this a bit of content here’s a post from (just over) 25 years ago:
Date: Mon 29 Jan 2001 16:47
From: Andy Aldridge
Subject: g500 cover
I'm still flicking around the spin site and came accross a band by the name of
Rainer Maria who do a live performance of "Hearing Voices".
if not wonderful still nice to hear...
http://www.spin.com/new/features/spinlive/index0103.html
http://www.grange85.co.uk
Still nice to hear:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlftyuOZmS4
My record collection [331] Britta Phillips - Luck or Magic (CD)
This is the CD copy of Britta’s lovely debut album that was part of the “super bundle” on Pledgemusic that included the (damaged) LP a signed accordion of postcards, and a T-shirt.
The disc came in a nice, simple digipack although it’s missing the photo that was on the LP inner sleeve (that I preferred to the one used on the front). Britta has signed the actual disc in silver pen.
Britta played some live dates around the time of release including a US west coast tour with Teenage Fanclub. There are a few videos on YouTube but almost everyone decided to video Drive which, I’m sorry, is still my least favourite song on the album… not because it’s not good but because of what it is. Even Britta seems a little embarrassed by it? Dean & Britta played it at Krankenhaus and she almost apologised for it…
Dean: We didn’t write that song
Britta: No… but it’s different the way we do it
Here’s a clip of Britta (with Dean) playing Million Dollar Doll while supporting Teenage Fanclub in LA in 2017
- Catalogue Number: AHFOW 10/129
- Artist: Britta Phillips
- Title: Luck of Magic
- Notes: Signed on the disc
- Packaging: Digipack
- Format: CD
- Bought in the deluxe Pledgemusic pack
- Buy ‘Luck of Magic’ on Bandcamp
Previously in my record collection:
My record collection [332] For the Dead in Space / This Note’s for You Too
A couple of tribute compilations today the first an LP tribute to Tom Rapp which has already put in an appearance in CD form, and then a CD tribute to Neil Young with a contribution from Tom, with vocals by Naomi and produced by Damon.
I don’t suppose I have too much to add about For The Dead in Space - I bought the LP on Discogs as a collection filler for two quid. The seller described it thus:
Sleeve is NM - very slight corner-wear. Vinyl has been played a handful of times, mostly to see if I get get it to play better after cleaning - I couldn't - it's a poor pressing. S1 is OK, though there's some heavy crackle in places. S2 is hard work with a lot of crackle, and some clicks, some heavy. With insert, but the ink from this has spoilt label S2. Not a keeper - priced to satisfy curiosity.
I suspect, since I have it on CD, I didn’t bother playing it to confirm the issues… but I’m playing it now. Side one is indeed quite crackly. And yes, side two is worse… but maybe the content means it doesn’t matter? Actually… it’s just got worse so yes, it does matter. I perservered and made it all the way through the cracks and pops… but back into it’s sleeve now, likely to never see the light of day again. Still… only two quid!!
Townies do a cover of Dear Miss Morse - I had been in touch with Michael from the band from the earliest days of the Internet having connected over a mutual love of Miracle Legion. In 2010 Michael was in the UK and I met him after work in White City and gave him a tour of BBC Television Centre (where I was working at the time), around then there was a Tardis out the front of TVC and I showed it to Michael… I think he may have been a bit bemused by a time-travelling police box.
The second comp is a two CD tribute to Neil Young and Tom Rapp does a fairly straight cover of After The Goldrush
- Catalogue Number: AHFOW 12/106
- Artist: Various artists
- Title: For the Dead in Space
- Format: LP
- Bought from a Discogs seller for £2
- Catalogue Number: AHFOW 10/081
- Artist: Various artists
- Title: This Note’s for You Too
- Format: 2xCD
- Can’t remember where I bought this… possibly online.
Previously in my record collection: