The Universe Smiles Upon You

Nothing says Friday like a porcelain Victorian statue in a spa town pump house of a mermaid riding a dopey looking sea creature. Am I right?

Given the ongoing binfire of politics at home here it the UK and abroad it was cheering this week to see the result of the mayoral election in New York. The victory of Zohran Mamdani, a Ugandan born Muslim elected on a platform of rent freezes, universal childcare and free bus travel, is a lovely thing to see- and the fact he did it by sticking a pair of (metaphorical) middle fingers up to Trump even more so. It all put me in mind of this Dean Wareham song from 2021...

The Past Is Our Plaything

Meanwhile Khruangbin, ten years on from their debut album The Universe Smiles Upon You, have suddenly (yesterday) released a new version of that album, the ten tracks re- recorded and re- sequenced, new versions of old songs, the funky, mainly instrumental, gentle psychedelia of the three- piece out as The Universe Smiles Upon You ii. It's at Bandcamp. By coincidence I've recently gone back to last year's Khruangbin album A La Sala with this song especially standing out, May Ninth on November Seventh- and if that doesn't bring a little ray of summer sunshine into dark and gloomy November nothing will. 

May Ninth

That Khruangbin track may well be in my record bag tomorrow as I make my way up to Todmorden for another Flightpath Estate DJ outing at The Golden Lion. The line up is us, Steve Cobby and then A Love From Outer Space (Sean Johnston's autumnal ALFOS at The Golden Lion is legendary). Since we accepted the gig real life has intervened for some members of the Flightpath Estate DJ team so we are down to a bare bones, reduced squad tomorrow- mainly me flying solo with hopefully Dan turning up to bring some dub. If you fancy some afternoon/ early evening sounds with a pint, I'm on from 4- ish, playing the kind of stuff you hear here day in, day out. 

Last time we DJed there I threw Martin completely by leaving him to follow this Joe Strummer B-side, from the 1989 Island Hopping 12". Mango Street is a largely instrumental extended version of the song with spoons percussion, catgut guitar, whistling and Strummer at his most chilled out and playful. 

Mango Street

Monday's Long Song

What a great band Galaxie 500 were. They split up in 1991 leaving three studio albums behind them (Today, On Fire and This Is Our Music) on the verge of a tour of Japan. Singer/ guitarist Dean Wareham calling it a day when the band had a tough time making what was their final album and in Dean's words 'clearly weren't getting along'. Later in the same year Rough Trade went bust and the other two, Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang bought the rights to their own music at auction. The three former Galaxie 500ers have been really careful with what happened to those recordings ever since and last year released a archival album, Uncollected Noise New York '88- '90. 

One of the many highlights of their back catalogue is their cover of The Modern Lovers song Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste, Jonathan Richman's sub- two minute sketch turned into a just shy of seven minute slowcore/ dreampop epic by Galaxie 500. It was on 1988's Today and later released as a B- side in 1990 and re- recorded for a Peel Session too. 

Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste

The bass and drums become an exercise in hypnosis while Dean's guitars (two of them, one chugging away like Lou Reed, the other spindly and bright like Sterling Morrison) create some tension. Dean's brittle, upper register voice singing Jonathan's lovelorn, tragic lyrics at the very edge of breaking down.

Dean Wareham is about to release another solo album, the follow up to 2021's I Have Nothing To Say To The Mayor Of LA. A few songs have appeared ahead of it including this one- That's The Price Of Loving Me is a gorgeously understated song, sublime chord changes and padding bassline, Dean's voice in a lower register now than it was back in the late 80s. Kramer, the man who produced those Galaxie 500 albums, is back at the controls and it shows. 

 

You Were The Ones I Had To Betray

Dean Wareham, ex- Galaxie 500, ex- Luna, solo artist and half of Dean and Britta, has a new album out at the end of March, That's The Price Of Loving Me. A single appeared last week ahead of it, a gloriously Velvets indebted slow paced guitar song, two chords and some cello and Dean's distinctive voice- You Were The Ones I Had To Betray. It's produced by Kramer who was at the controls back when Galaxie 500 were a going concern. It's a beautiful song, one that reveals a little more with each play. 

Kramer had always wanted to make another record with Dean but it didn't happen until last year, the pair recording ten songs in six days in Los Angeles, with Kramer playing piano, organ and synths, Britta on bass and backing vox, cello from Gabe Noel and Dean upfront on vocals and guitar. There's a Nico cover on the album too, Reich der Traume (Realm Of Dreams) from 1981's Luul (recorded with Lutz Ulbrich). 

In 2021 Dean released his second solo album, I Have Nothing To Say To The Mayor Of L.A. The title of the album was the first line sung on the album, in this song...

The Past Is Our Plaything

'The past is our plaything/ We're making it up as we go', he sings in that casual half sung/ half spoken delivery over some Lou Reed/ Sterling Morrison third Velvets album guitar chords. There are nine more Dean Wareham sung and played songs on that album, with Britta on bass, two covers (Scott Walker and Lazy Smoke), the usual deal, excellence as standard. Which reminds that there was a Galaxie 500 compilation out last year with a load of previously unreleased stuff on it, that I never got round to getting hold of. 

Saturday Live

Galaxie 500- Dean Wareham, Naomi Yang and Damon Krukowski- made all sorts of waves with a trio of albums between 1988 and 1990 (Today, On Fire and This is Our Music) before splitting up in 1991. On Fire in particular got acres of coverage the music press, Dean's high pitched vox and slowcore psychedelic guitars matched by the gentle push of the bass and drums, from opening song Blue Thunder through to the closing Isn't It A Pity (a George Harrison cover), forty minutes of reverb- laden, spectral, fragile splendour. 

In 1990 while in London they were filmed playing for MTV's 120 Minutes, a three song excerpt here opening with a cover of The Velvet Underground's Here She Comes Now, a brief bit of self- conscious interviewing, Tell Me and finally Strange (both from On Fire). 

The same year they played Club Lingerie in Hollywood where they performed their cover of Ceremony. On the whole, New Order's songs don't end up being covered well but Galaxie 500's version of Ceremony is stunning, a slowed down version that summons the spirit of both Joy Division and early New Order. A studio version came out on the Blue Thunder EP in 1990

As an extra, in 2021 Dean released his first solo album since 2014, a record titled I Have Nothing To Say To The Mayor Of L.A. which had everything you'd want from a Dean Wareham album, warm indie guitar songs, good lyrics, Dean casting his eye over the state of the USA under Trump (among other topics) and Dean's distinctive voice. 

Red Hollywood

All My Chords Were Minor Chords

I've been enjoying Dean Wareham's singles, three of them, leading up to the release of his second solo album a couple of weeks ago, the snappily titled I Have Nothing To Say To The Mayor Of LA. Last year Dean and Britta put out a beautiful cover of Neon Lights, one of the standouts from their Quarantine Tapes (recordings the couple made from their home during lockdown). Galaxie 500 and Luna are never that far away from me so an album of Dean Wareham solo songs has come at exactly the right time. This song, Cashing In, is a wry, self deprecating and at times very funny take on where Dean sits in the musical landscape. 'I'm not selling out, I'm cashing in' he sings. In a lot of ways there's nothing here Dean hasn't been doing for over thirty years but he's carved out a space for himself and that's what he does. There's some Michael Rother style guitar leading the way on Cashing In among the familiar nods to Jonathan Richman and The Velvet Underground.

Back in 1989 Galaxie 500's second album, On Fire, was a minor sensation- reverb drenched, hushed, shimmering indie guitar pop that hooked me early on and has never let go. Their cover of New Order's Ceremony is legendary and has been posted here before. Previously, in 1988, there was a single called Tugboat. Tugboat is a gorgeous, frazzled, small hours love song (and tribute to Sterling Morrison who quit The Velvet Underground in 1971 to captain tugboats in Houston). 

Tugboat