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 #62
I mentioned last week that I’d been listening to Colin Blunstone’s lovely One Year this week, inspired by that I revisited the excellent Life of the Record podcast which had an episode with Colin talking about the making of the album. That was followed by me falling down a rabbit hole of listening to episodes and then listening to the album it was about. Of course first stop was the episode where Dean talked about the making of Luna’s Penthouse](https://lifeoftherecord.com/luna/). Here’s a list of this week’s listening
- Colin Blunstone on One Year
- Dean on Luna’s Penthouse
- Calvin, Heather, and Brett (and an array of others) on Beat Happening’s Jamboree
- Richard and Linda Thompson on I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight
- Alan and Mimi on Low’s Things We Lost in the Fire
Podcast makers should take a leaf out of this podcast’s book - I don’t want to listen to you bantering for 20 minutes before you start, and stop trying to be funny. I love the way that LOTR just hands the mic over to the protagonists and let them get on with it.
My record collection [367] Luna - A Sentimental Education / A Place of Greater Safety (2xCD)
In 2017 the reformed Luna released an album of covers and an EP of instrumentals. For the records they were treated as two separate releases but they were packaged together for the CD and this is that release.
If you read my previous posts on the separate vinyl releases you’ll have noticed that I was a little… cool on them (I even, rather shamefully in retrospect, expressed that coolness to Dean face-to-face when he and Britta visited me at The National Archives.
You can read them on the site (the links will be at the bottom of the page) but I’ll pull out a couple of quotes just so you’re aware of my coolness.
I almost never listen to A Place of Greater Safety - it’s OK I guess but… it feels like a record full of soundtrack cues (a couple of which are), or unfinished songs - they’re fine but Luna’s discography could easily have lived without it - and the same goes for the covers album.
So… while I still think that maybe the decision to release a covers album was questionable I think the execution, and therefore the finished product, was flawless so, I guess I’ll shut up about it now.
Of course despite my whining I wasn’t really disappointed and I don’t really object to them being in Luna’s discography. Also, I did listen to the covers album a lot on release… I must have done because listening now it doesn’t feel like an album I was unfamiliar with.
The album also produced a couple of videos - the first features Rose McGowan and was (mostly) shot during a special show Luna performed at Gold Diggers in Hollywood in July 2017.
The second is a sweet video of schoolyard love shot by Matthew Buzzell… which is additionally sweet because of the Luna at school clips inlcuding schoolboy Sean wearing grown-up Sean’s T-shirt (and is that a Bewitched era red jacket on schoolboy Dean?)
The album used Pledgemusic shortly before they went under. I understand that bands and the industry were trying to find their feet in an age where people didn’t have to buy records any more but I’m not sure that crowd-funding, and bonus socks was really the way to do that. Although, it was quite nice to see the album taking shape through videos and photos.
The discs came in a lovely tri-fold package and was signed by all four members since it was part of my deluxe Pledgemusic package.
- Catalogue Number: AHFOW 10/149
- Artist: Luna
- Title: A Sentimental Education / A Place of Greater Safety
- Format: 2xCD
- Bought as part of the “Deluxe bundle” for $105 (!)
- Buy ‘A Sentimental Education’ on Bandcamp
- Buy ‘A Place of Greater Safety’ on Bandcamp
Previously in my record collection:
My record collection [368] Shonen Knife - Genki Shock (CD)
Dean guesting on one track on the always wonderful Shonen Knife’s 2006 album Genki Shock might have easily slipped me by…
… fortunately video of Dean recording his vocal while Luna were in Japan on their final tour was one of the ‘deleted scenes’ clips on the DVD of Tell Me Do You Miss Me
The next bit of this post is lifted from a Substack article from last year so apologies if it seems familiar!
Shockingly, for a band as long-established as Shonen Knife I only got to see them live when they played in Sunderland last year. I’m genuinely surprised that in that all of those years living in London and seeing multiple gigs a week that they and I had somehow managed to avoid each other. So, it was quite important that I took the opportunity to fill that gap.
I can honestly say that I have never seen a band enjoy themselves as much as Shonen Knife seem to. They’ve been on this tour for months, and are still the smiley-est band I’ve ever seen… they also rock, much harder than I expected. I mean they were, at times, so close to a metal band that I started to regret my lack of hair. They threw poses, they did the sign of the horns, they came to the front of the stage and head-banged. OK… Raven and Saxon and Girlschool didn’t sing songs about Banana Chips, or Cookie Day, or the power of sweet candy, but the way it made me feel was the same!
They played an hour or so of this beautiful, relentless, power-pop-punk-metal, finished with their lovely cover of The Carpenters Top of the World and left us to go and smile on Glasgow.
Now, they were all so smiley … but not equally so… Risa, played an hour of full-on rock drumming, including occasionally while on her feet, sang a couple of songs, and never stopped looking like she couldn’t believe how wonderful everything is! When she became a member of Shonen Knife 10 years ago she wrote on Facebook that she’d “like to play the drums powerfully and cheerfully with a smile” - achievement unlocked!
Shonen Knife, BMX Bandits, and The Cords
Extra love for Shonen Knife because they still do proper blogging while on tour - here’re the two posts about the Sunderland show:
- Saturday June 7 Sunderland, UK 🇬🇧 POP RECS (Atsuko)
- Catalogue Number: AHFOW 10/175
- Artist: Shonen Knife
- Title: Genki Shock
- Format: CD
- Bought from a Discogs seller for £5
This week’s anniversaries
11th July 2017 - Luna at Gold Digger’s in LA
Luna played a private show in LA to film the video for their cover of Fire in Cairo - Josh was kind enough to go along and write it up for AHFoW:
With a 9pm show time, I arrived at 8:15pm and there was already a nice line down the block. In fact when the video of a track off the new album is released you'll see me in that line. The film crew shot us with a vintage Super-8 Bolex camera a few times entering the club. At the door, there was a sign alerting all who entered that a video shoot was taking place inside and we may be included in the filming. Anyone not wishing to be on camera should not enter. Fat chance. Everyone entered.
...
For their encore, someone in the video crew finally took care of the white hot bright lights set up around the room for the video turned them off and took them away. Instantly the vibe in the room changed. Suddenly there was a mood, a presence, and a feeling rather than just blinding white light/white heat. (How the band managed to perform in that light is beyond me.) Familiar strains of Slide and 23 Minutes in Brussels ended the night. That familiar pent up; ramped up, crescendo took you places far outside Gold Diggers to places elsewhere &endash; the stratosphere, a late-night drive, times gone by. And like that, it was over.
A rolling and rollicking dream: Luna at Gold Diggers in Los Angeles by Josh Mills
16th July 1998 - Luna at Castle Clinton, Battery Park, NYC
Jan from the mailing list went along to this and reported back for the list:
Luna went on promptly at 7pm. I thought it was damned good. Luna played for about 1.5 hours. It was a fairly intimate show. It was the first time I've seen them with Lee Wall behind the kit. His style is different than Stanley's. More syncopated. More hard snaps on the snare. But he's good. And he looks like he's having fun and is part of the band. I know someone will want to know what Dean was wearing. White jeans. Blue checked button down shirt. Tucked in. Justin is still bald. Lee is still bald. Sean was wearing an "Air Miami" T-shirt.
Dean played a lot of solos throughout the set. He may have actually played more leads than Sean. Luna has that ever relaxed yet tight sound live. Around the third song dean said "I feel like I'm in one of those dreams where your naked..." looking a bit wierded out by the small & intimate still sunlit scene. Justin then quipped "you need therapy..."
Jan on the Galaxie 500 Mailing List - Fri 17 Jul 1998
Well I guess that’ll do for this week. The weather’s warmed up again here in time for another quick trip to London next week for my dad’s birthday. Otherwise… life ticks along.