Selected Galaxie 500 / The Shield Around The K / Happy #Galaxie500Day
A Head Full of Wishes newsletter #010
Happy Galaxie 500 Day
Of course the 4th of July is Galaxie 500 day, if you celebrate, so…
Kids pass their opinions on that video “the lyrics was… discombobulated”
Dean Wareham and his band play Fourth of July in Copenhagen earlier this year
You can find lots more including some excellent mp3s on this post from a couple of years back
You may choose to celebrate something else on this day… but whatever you celebrate, have fun and stay safe!
My record collection #263 - Selected Galaxie 500
The release of The Galaxie 500 box set in 1996 was the first time I became aware that my little web site was on the band’s radar, and this lovely promo CD was, I think, the first physical manifestation of that.
Sadly I have lost a lot of my email communication from back then so this may not all be actually true… it is after all almost 30 years ago now.
I’m not sure exactly when I first heard from Andrea at Ryko about the box set but I do have memories of discussing with her what I would put on a promo disc, I’m not sure if anything I said had any bearing on this release, I suspect not. I imagine I certainly would have made a case for Snowstorm, and possibly Summertime, neither of which are on this - but otherwise it’s pretty close to what I’d have picked.
The CD arrived, unannounced and with a note from Andrea on CD-sized Ryko compliments slip:
OK Andy,
Here if is. Finally. In your mailbox, almost in your CD player....
Oops. You're probably listening by now.
Let me know what you think!
AT
—Note from Andrea Troolin
The promo is beautifully packaged, it would have come in one of those greenish Ryko jewel cases - but as always with those boxes the little pegs that hold the disc in place would have fallen off so it has been put into a clear case. Although that means that you can see the inside back of the sleeve which has the gorgeous astronomical illustration that was on the cover of the box.
The insert was a single page and inside it announced the box set release date (24th September 1996) and some credits and contact details.
While I’d heard most of the unreleased content on the cassette that Matthew sent me this was probably the first time I heard Final Day with Dean’s vocal.
Selected did get an official release in Japan as “Melt Away” but I don’t own a copy of that.
When I interviewed Damon for the Terrascopaedia interview a couple of years ago he explained how Andrea had used my web site, and the Galaxie 500 Mailing List, to help convince Ryko to release the box set - my heart swelled with pride:
But then Jeff hired a young assistant – maybe she was even an intern at first? – named Andrea Troolin, and Andrea found the project in that pile and made it hers. How to rally the company behind finally doing something with it, however? Your web site! Andrea pointed to the Galaxie 500 mailing list, and the activity on it, as evidence that there was interest out there in the band and its out-of-print catalogue. Next thing you know... box set!
Andrea was very good to me, the next treat to arrive was even more jaw-dropping and still one of my most prized possessions:
She also sent me a promo of Copenhagen ahead of its release.
Catalogue Number: 10/012
Artist: Galaxie 500
Title: Selected Galaxie 500
Notes: promo
Packaging: Jewel case
Format: CD
My record collection #264 - The Shield Around The K
I can’t remember when I bought this DVD, Wikipedia says that it was released in 2006, so it was probably then, or not long after that. When I bought it I didn’t know that Dean was a talking head in the film… so, it was bought for my love of K rather than my love of Dean.
The Shield Around The K is a documentary about K Records, and to be honest Dean’s appearances are a little lightweight, and almost seem a little incongruous given that he didn’t really have much of a K connection beyond his covers of Indian Summer. Maybe he just happened to be in town at the time - but, nice to see him turn up all the same.
Dean calls Indian Summer the “Knocking on Heaven’s Door of indie rock, everybody has to do it”, he also says he prefers Beat Happening’s version over his own (solo) cover. Sonic Boom disagrees, he says that Spectrum covered it because of Dean Wareham’s version and that he didn’t really like Beat Happening’s original!
He’s wrong though…
Someone has kindly popped the whole film on YouTube:
Catalogue Number: AHFOW 13/017
Title: The Shield Around The K:
Format: DVD
Video: Galaxie 500 at Subterania - 27th June 1990
OK this is a follow up to the Substack post I made last week… and hopefully this is all correct and accurate but it has all become a bit of a muddle.
About nine months into the my record collection series I decided that I should be including the DVDs and VHSs I have in my collection - the one issue with this is that since the move to Whitley Bay we haven’t had a VHS machine. That was thankfully resolved at the weekend when I picked up a very fancy Hitachi player from a charity shop for a fiver!
This was, I hope, going to clear up some confusions and uncertainties caused by problematic or illegible labels - specifically around Galaxie 500’s live videos of shows in the UK that has become very muddled.
The Manchester show (26th June 1990) had been shared incorrectly as the Subterania show from the following night.
I knew the Subterania had been videoed because I had failed to by a copy at Camden Market the following weekend!
The Subterania show had been shared on YouTube but incorrectly claimed it was from the Camden Falcon in February - this was obviously wrong for three reasons:
It contained songs from This Is Our Music that I don’t believe were being played by the band as early as February,
It was filmed from a balcony which the Falcon (to my memory) didn’t have - being a pub back room!
It’s virtually, or exactly, the same setlist as the Manchester show from June.
This video then went AWOL.
So, with my shiny new Hitachi I started going through the VHSs - I had one that was labelled “Galaxie 500 - Live in London” and I wrote about it in the series back in September of last year - this was one of the tapes I’d sent to Damon when they were looking for material for the DVD release. It was returned with the words “Same as Rough Trade tape” scrawled on the label. This led me to believe that it was the ULU show that eventually turned up on the DVD. But it wasn’t.
This seems to be the AWOL live at The Subterania show - I guess it was decided to include just one London show on the DVD set, so opted for the ULU - perhaps for reasons of quality - or maybe just because it was from later in the band’s life than most of the other included live sets.
Either way - this video rather surprisingly doesn’t currently seem to be online (unless I just can’t find it), so I’ve digitised it and made it available, It isn’t the complete show, it’s missing the beginning, and the end… you can hear them just about to go into Don’t Let Our Youth Go to Waste when it cuts out. The angle is great because you get a much better view of Damon than is usual!
I can’t categorically prove that it’s the Subterania show, although I’m pretty confident that it’s not any of their other London shows, but I guess it may not be London at all? If anyone has any insights I’d love to hear them.
Obviously if I had a better memory I’d know since, if this is that show, I was in the room!
The quality is not that great, particularly the sound, although I’ve done the best I can with my very limited skills. But, as a record of what is (despite my poor memory of it) the best show I was ever at it’s not that bad… if it even is that show :-),
This week in history
29th June 1990
Galaxie 500 played at the Roskilde festival in Denmark - you can stream the whole show here.
2nd July 1998 - Damon & Naomi with Tom Rapp
Damon & Naomi played a show with Tom Rapp at The Tin Angel in Philadelphia, I don’t have a recording of the show (although I know one exists) but here’s Tom playing ‘Morning Song’ at the show with Damon on backing vocals.
4th July 1995 - The Galaxie 500 Mailing List
On this day 30 years ago I sent out the first post to the Galaxie 500 Mailing List - I wrote about it earlier this week.
This week’s discoveries and rediscoveries
Dean will be playing a show at Zebulon in Los Angeles - tickets are on sale now.
Dean & Britta will be playing at Going Electric: An evening of Dylan songs circa ‘65 in Tulsa OK, there are two shows one early one with seats (for the old folk) and a later standing show.
You can see all the upcoming shows here.
Dan has posted a couple of lovely clips of the “Dean & Company” show in Washington DC last month, and Steven posted some fab clips from the last show of the tour in St, Paul - I’ve collected a couple over here - but there’s plenty more clips from recent shows on YouTube so… hunt around.
We [heart] Music reviewed the last show of the tour “A gentle drum intro for Snowstorm had Wareham singing at his highest of the evening, and he did admirably, while Phillips’ bass work was the critical pull through of the song”.
Every so often I come across these ‘Galaxie 500 rail rides’ - beautiful videos shot from the windows of trains from all over the world - here’s ‘Indie Tripper’ departing Katowice Główny to the tune of Galaxie 500’s “Fourth of July.” - but watch them all, they’re gorgeous and fascinating!
Dean was a guest on The Self Portrait Gospel podcast “We touch on our shared obsession with Dylan, his new album ‘That’s The Price Of Loving Me’, returning to his home in LA, and certain events that have taken place, the legacy of Galaxie 500/Luna, and much more”.
Naomi was on the same podcast last year “[Naomi] Yang takes us on an adventure through her early days of attending highschool with futrue G500 bandmates, college as an architect major, pursuing music, the NYC scene of the 1980s, the emotional rollercoaster of being a band”.