Comments on: “They Got Nothing Else to Think Of”

By: Matthew Perpetua

Matthew Perpetua — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 21:18:43 +0000

Oh, you know, I figure the Luna best-of album is a pretty decent place to start, as most every Luna song I like is on there. As far as albums go, Penthouse is probably the best one.

By: Matt LeMay

Matt LeMay — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 18:09:04 +0000

“I stood in line and ate my twinkie” = definitely some drugs involved.

By: Cory Brown

Cory Brown — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 10:16:27 +0000

I was late to this band as well and I’m nearly old enough not to have been had I known where to look. “Strange” has become one of my favorite songs of all time. In fact, I played it at a bar tonight. There’s something about the banal (possibly drug-induced) alienation in the lyrics combined with Wareham’s emphatic-yet-blase singing, the treble-heavy guitar tone and the overwhelming amount of space in both the rhythm and the recording that makes the song seem so much larger than any of its parts. When I listen to it, as I have so many times, it’s as if the song is so enormous in the way it never touches the ground that it seems inconceivable that three real people were ever in a room somewhere actually playing this music. There are very few records – scratch that – songs that make me feel this way.

I occasionally like to think that Wareham’s sudden dismantling of the band and seemingly very public disassociation from his bandmates was a cover story, that the three of them had conspired to ignore the laws of physics by tampering with the very fabric of existence in the music they were making, risking the sanctity of space and time itself. I think Wareham liked being an existanaut, but his humanity got the better of him and he could no longer justify the risks. He’s spent the rest of his career making intentionally prettier but far more grounded and restrained music while his old partners tried to keep the voyage going without him but were unable to get there without his missing piece of the formula leaving them drifting through space or time but never both.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 02:42:24 +0000

I really, really miss Galaxie 500.
Funny story, I hunted down their original realease “Today” way back in
’93.

My friend in college got me into them, and he let me borrow the CD for a few days.
Loved it, and over winter break I hunted it down, looked for it everywhere. Finally, I find it
at Musicland for 18.99. I’m a sucker, figuring I can’t find it anywhere else, so I buy it. About a week later, I find it in the cutout bin at a used CD store for $1.99.

Son of a bitch.

also a good “snow song” – Their cover of Yoko’s “Listen the Snow is Falling”…

By: jay

jay — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 22:52:34 +0000

Thanks, Matt. That was great.

I like the idea of On Fire being the perfect snowfall record, and I only wish that it snowed in Phoenix. It’s still a perfect listen though.

As for Luna, most people would probably say start with Penthouse. It’s hard to say where to start though, because album-wise, they were a pretty consistent band (minus, I would say, Romantica) and I have so much nostalgia tied up in each of their first five albums. But Penthouse has “23 Minutes in Brussels” on it, which is probably one of the best, most representative songs of the Luna aesthetic.

By: Matt LeMay

Matt LeMay — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 21:58:20 +0000

I do have that cover of “Ceremony” — and it’s my second-favorite ever, after Xiu Xiu’s cover.

I still haven’t heard much Luna — Matthew, is there a particular album you would recommend?

By: Arianna Stern

Arianna Stern — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 21:56:16 +0000

I agree that one of the things that sets Galaxie 500 apart was their ambition. The multi-directionality of their melodies made the music seems as thought it was almost physically reaching for the audience.

By the way, do you have their cover of “Ceremony” that came on some extended version of On Fire? If you don’t, I can send it to you. It’s my favorite version of “Ceremony.” I kind of want everyone in the world to hear it.

By: Matthew Perpetua

Matthew Perpetua — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 21:54:33 +0000

It’s actually kinda weird for me to hear Galaxie 500 records, because my introduction to Wareham came via Luna, and some very slick Luna music at that. So in my mind, Dean Wareham is this very talented guitarist who happens to have a kinda limited yet occasionally charming singing voice.