A Head Full of Wishes newsletter #72

2026-09-19
Categories: substack

Substack
A Head Full of Wishes newsletter #72

I’ve been in London this week visiting family and friends, but that hasn’t stopped me keeping an eye on how Luna’s US tour is going. One quite exciting development is that the band have added a new cover to their repertoire. “All the People I Like Are Those That Are Dead” was on Felt’s 1986 album Forever Breathes the Lonely Word. Here’s a nice clip of Luna playing it in NYC last weekend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-Io_b2oQ5c

A bit of YouTube-scouring will find a few other clips from the first week of the tour.

You have nine more chances to catch Luna on their current tour:

Damon & Naomi play a rare live show as part of Something in the Hills on Saturday.

My record collection [389] Dean & Britta - Quarantine Tapes (LP)

So for Dean & Britta’s appearance in the final run in I’ve managed to pick an album that has already made three appearances in the series. I love Quarantine Tapes, both because of what it is, a fantastic collection of great songs delivered with a sweet, low-key beauty; and because of what it represents, a record of a strange and scary time and of the shows that helped us through it.

But, do I have enough to say about it that hasn’t already been covered in the three previous posts, or in the two Substack posts that I wrote about Dean & Britta’s live-streamed shows during COVID? I suspect not. All of those posts are linked below.

I guess while it was lovely hearing the Luna, Dean & Britta, and Galaxie 500 songs performed during their live streamed shows I guess the treats were the unexpected covers that turned up. Now, we are all very well aware of Dean’s ear for a cover version, and how he manages to pick out the most obscure ones he can, so maybe the real surprises might be the ones that everyone already knew!

“The Carnival is Over” spent three weeks at number one in the UK charts for The Seekers in 1965 and even longer atop the Aussie charts. Apparently it wasn’t a hit in the US so maybe that ticks Dean’s obscurity box?

Dean & Britta - The Carnival is Over (play on YouTube)

“Massachusetts” spent four weeks at number one in the UK, and reached number eleven in the US for The Bee Gees.

Dean & Britta - Massachusetts (We Love The Betsy, June 2020) (play on YouTube)

The LP is a lovely package, with Brian Calvin’s lips on the front, and a lovely picture of Dean and Britta on the back, and being an LP it’s a nice big, lovely picture, although since the sleeve doesn’t mention who it’s by or what the album is called, the shrink-wrap was adorned with a pink sticker to fill in those details. The printed inside sleeve has the track listing in large, colourful type, and the credits on the reverse. The LP itself is translucent green vinyl.

The LP was sold in a double pack with Dean’s then new album I Have Nothing to Say to The Mayor of LA for $55 for the two, but postage bumped up the cost by another 50%. Maybe when this series is over I’ll go back and count how many times I’ve moaned about the cost of international postage.

Catalogue Number: AHFOW 12/083
Artist: Dean & Britta
Title: Quarantine Tapes
Format: LP
Buy ‘Quarantine Tapes’ on Bandcamp

Previously in my record collection:

Substack posts:

My record collection [390] Damon & Naomi - More Sad Hits (20|20|20 LP)

It’s just occurred to me that the items I’ve picked for the run-in are (with one exception) all releases that have already had multiple appearances in this series. This is the 20|20|20 vinyl reissue of Damon & Naomi’s first album, and this is the third post in the series to cover More Sad Hits.

The album was reissued in Autumn 2008 and Damon and Naomi were particularly pleased with the release:

The vinyl reissue of More Sad Hits is here! Long live vinyl -- this album really looks and sounds the way it was intended on LP. But the truth is, back in 1992, it could only sound this good in the studio. The remastering by Alan Douches, and LP cutting by Kevin Gray, do an amazing job of translating the original master tape to both CD and vinyl. Some technological advances you can't argue with!

Damon & Naomi newsletter - 2nd September 2008

Whereas the CD had come in a gorgeous, glossy, card, gatefold sleeve, the LP sadly didn’t get the gatefold treatment. The LP package is still lovely but rather surprisingly not as good as the CD. The album is of course exceptional and it seems the reissue garnered some well-deserved reviews, particularly in the UK press.

When the cult 1980s band Galaxie 500 split at the end of that desolate decade, their singer, Dean Wareham, enjoyed commercial success with Luna. Wareham's old rhythm section, the drummer Damon Krukowski and bassist Naomi Yang, set up a surrealist publishing company, finally re-entering the studio at the behest of the producer Kramer. Nearly two decades later, their 1992 debut feels subtly significant, as Damon & Naomi have become modest figureheads to acid-folk outsiders. Pit-a-pat percussion underpins dreamy descending riffs on lazy guitars, bisected by hazy lead lines and, on Astrafiammante, atmospheric samples of Saturday-morning-radio opera broadcasts. The sometimes tremulous vocals only solidify More Sad Hits' somnambulistic sense of disassociation, of lovers confided in a closed and close embrace.

Stewart Lee (Sunday Times, 14th December 2008)

When Galaxie 500 fell asunder in 1991, bookish, romantically linked rhythm section Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang almost quit music to devote themselves to their cult publishing house, Exact Change (which still thrives). Persuaded of their latent songwriting talents by New York Svengali/producer Kramer, the pair gravitated to guitars and keyboards, first as the short-lived Pierre Etoile, then reverting to their given names to unite with Kramer and cut More Sad Hits. Rudimentary of strum and clattering of drum as it is, Yang and Krukowski's sophisticated pop ear is nonetheless much in evidence, notably on opener E.T.A. -- its Velvets-indebted indie chug emblazoned with the duo's soaring, plagal harmonies. Little Red Record Co, meanwhile, comes with medieval woodwinds and This Car Climbed Mt. Washington (first aired on Pierre Etoile's sole EP) rocks out to unlikely but pleasingly anthemic effect.

Dacvid Sheppard (Mojo, January 2009)

D&N posted a load more 4+ star reviews on their website back in the day.

In January 2009 they toured Europe and I saw a great show at The Luminaire in Kilburn. I thought I had a recording of this show but it seems not, but if memory serves the only track from More Sad Hits they played was their cover of Soft Machine’s “Memories”. Alasdair from The Clientele guested.