And Jojo makes his third appearance in this series (and he’s not done yet!) with a song that Galaxie 500 took form a bleak, 90 second song, sung unaccompanied, and made it their own stretching it out to almost seven minutes.

Here’s The Modern Lovers recorded in the Kim Fowley sessions (probably not from 1972) – Jonathan was not happy with this version

I wrote it when I was 19 like everything else on this record … but would close our shows with it sometimes and I’d cry in the middle of it. I’d start into it as the last chord of “Roadrunner” was still ringing. But this heavy-handed artsy-sounding rendition only makes me cry from embarrassment, not from feeling. I don’t know why I did it this contrived.

There are also a couple of live versions that I suspect Jojo is more happy with, here (for Spotify users) is the heartbreaking rendition that closes the live at Longbranch set.

And here’s a selection of Galaxie 500′s versions:

The song became such a part of Galaxie 500 that the title was chosen for their 2004 DVD collection of videos

Don ‘t Let Our Youth Go to Waste DVD

Don't Let Our Youth Go to Waste (DVD)

And here’s Dean & Britta performing it in Taipei in 2011

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In amongst all the Luna music in the film Tell Me Do You Miss Me were a number of specially composed pieces by each of the band members and here they are, ripped from the DVD for your listening pleasure

MP3: Darkness – Lee Wall

Darkness

Jack’s Theme

MP3: Spanish Odyssey – Sean Eden

Spanish Odyssey

MP3: London Theme – Britta Phillips

London Theme

MP3: Snow Drive – Sean Eden

Snow Drive

Damon & Naomi are home from Australia releasing books and new/old records and publishing e-zines.

Back home, and excited to announce a virtual journey into the unknown – we are launching an Exact Change e-zine, through the auspices of 29th Street Publishing. There’s a sneak preview in a special free number of Maura Magazine (the Maura app is also free, once you have it look for the “Introducing” issue). This is for iPads and iPhones only, so plug in everyone!

Obviously that last sentence is a bit careless because the first phrase makes the second phrase impossible <sigh>.

Dean & Britta meanwhile have headed out west and have been house-hunting and shining up new solo albums – three of them I believe. They’ve also been appearing in the new Noah Baumbach film Frances Ha

My database has been running with mostly just cosmetic changes for years (apart from a misguided attempt at getting it into a wiki), one of the features of it is a list (and an RSS feed) of upcoming shows – this too has been ticking away for years with no problems (and admittedly very few visits/subscriptions) – a few weeks ago it broke, which seemed odd – nothing had changed over the years it had been gladly ticking away… I eventually tracked down what had changed – for the first time in as many years as it’s been running it has had no upcoming gigs to report.

I resisted the temptation to title this post Bands don’t tour and break long-established web site

Here’s a fantastic clip of Bob(by) Darin playing Distractions for Tom Jones in 1969

Dean & Britta’s is the second track in this series to have turned up on the Words You Used to Say single in 2006 (previously their cover of Donovan’s Colors)

MP3: Dean & Britta – Distractions, Pt. 1

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Damon & Naomi’s Record Store Day release – The Wondrous World of Sonny & Cher Damon & Naomi – is now available to (stream and) purchase digitally on Bandcamp

If you’d rather n analogue version for a few dollars more you can still order the LP from theur website
Buy The Wondrous World of Damon & Naomi: Bootleg Edition

In honour of the book of the same name that I got on Wednesday, and the absolute (probably relative) scorcher we’re having in London this week…

Galaxie 500 – Temperature’s Rising (live Commonwealth School, Boston 1989)


Luna – Temperature’s Rising (live Underworld, London in 1992)

Galaxie 500 – Temperature’s Rising (live Falcon, London in 1990)

Dean & Britta – Temperature’s Rising (Annadale Hotel, Sydney in 2011)

Previously:
Friday recycling: My fingers are tingling

I picked up my copy of Temperature’s Rising: Galaxie 500: an oral and visual history from the PO this morning. It sat on my desk all morning while I worked – grr – so didn’t get a proper look until lunchtime. Here are some idle thoughts:

The softback book feels gorgeous. A good size and felt solid and comfortable on my lap as I carefully flicked through it.

I mostly looked at the pictures… and there are so many pictures – the book is just bursting with pictures of all sorts of Galaxie 500 ephemera from original art to snaps, from receipts to postcards.

I feel very lucky, as a Galaxie 500 fan, at just how well I’ve been treated over the years. This website was born in 1994 when the LPs were out of print. Since then we’ve had a beautiful box set, a live album, a Peel sessions album, a double DVD of live videos, Dean’s autobiography, and now a fabulous book of memories and revelations.

The story is beautiful and tragic – I always cry at the end (and at bits in the middle).

Honestly, you were never going to get “objective” from me – but surely even the most objective reviewer would find it hard to not be rather pleased at this stunning piece of work!

Go buy it now - if you haven't already (Amazon link)
Or buy it direct from Yeti

The existence of Luna’s cover of Led Zep’s Dancing Days was first mentioned way back in a post on the band’s official web site (fuzzywuzzy.com – but I think the post got lost in one of the reboots that site got) – it didn’t however see the light until the band released Close Cover Before Striking in digital form in 2011.

Zeppelin’s original appeared on their 1973 album Houses of the Holy

Luna – Dancing Days

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Galaxie 500 sell cars:


Luna sell credit cards:

Luna sells smells:

Luna sells credit cards… again (5mins in)

It’s OK though because Henry Rollins says so… and I’ll not argue!

Dance With Me was recorded by The Modern Lovers in the 1972 sessions with producer Kim Fowley but not released until the Original Modern Lovers LP was released in 1981.

Luna’s version first appeared as the flip of the Bobby Peru 7″ and later on the split 7″ single with (The Feelies off-shoot) Wake Ooloo.
MP3: Luna – Dance With Me

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If while trawling your local shops on Record Store Day you missed out on (or never managed to track down) a copy of Damon & Naomi’s “Bootleg edition” of their second album The Wondrous World of Damon & Naomi just to let you know that you don’t need to trawl eBay for copies but can head off to Damon & Naomi’s web site and order yourself a copy directly from them.

Buy The Wondrous World of Damon & Naomi: Bootleg Edition

When I bought my first guitar – and cheap Washburn acoustic, I got given a book of easy guitar songs and the first song in the book, and therefore the first song I ever played on the guitar was Donovan’s Colours – close to 40 years on I’ve probably not yet mastered it (or indeed anything on the guitar).

Donovan released Colours as a single in Feb 1965 and it reached No 4 in the UK charts and has been a staple of his act and covered by pretty much everyone. Here’s Donovan’s single and a couple of other versions… including Dean & Britta’s which turned up on their single of Words You Used to Say in 2006.

Here’s Donovan with the lovely Nana Mouskouri (I grew up in a house full of Nana Mouskouri’s albums)

Here’s Donovan doing a live version for TV in 1965

And here’s Dean & Britta’s cover
MP3: Dean & Britta – Colours

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Beautiful live video session recorded at The Andy Warhol Museum in November – embedded here but go check it out in HD on the warhol:Silver Studio Sessions web site.

The Rutles were a parody of The Beatles created by Eric Idle and with wonderfully authentic sounding songs written by Neil Innes – such good parodies they were that Cheese and Onions eventually had to be credited to (Innes/Lennon/McCartney). The song first turned up in the TV film “All You Need is Cash” and on the album released to accompany it. It was also released as a 7″ single.


Galaxie 500 covered it for the Shimmy Disc tribute album Rutles Highway Revisited

I’m not sure Galaxie 500 ever played it live, but on his “Dean Wareham plays Galaxie 500″ dates it would occasionally get an airing…

C-H-E-E-S-E-A-N-D-O-N-I-O-N-S

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