Live music: Dean Wareham plays Galaxie 500 (Whelan's)

As you know, Dean Wareham was the singer and guitarist in American indie three-piece Galaxie 500. Galaxie 500 split up after three albums. They were never massively successful commercially but they inspired a fierce devotion among their fans, something that has only grown over time. I think it is probably the case that Wareham enjoyed greater success with Luna, the band he formed after Galaxie 500, but the songs from Galaxie 500 remain the ones that inspire intense devotion, so it is not too surprising that he embarks on tours like this where he plays loads of songs from the band to ecstatic audiences.

Support was provided by Cian Nugent. It turned out this was not some random pairing, as Wareham and Nugent had encountered each other previously in the United States. I am not fully assimilated into the ways of Mr Nugent, for all that I am a great admirer of the first Aoife Nessa Frances album, which he produced. So I enjoyed his set (him playing guitar and singing a bit) while feeling I need to engage more with his music. I'm sorry that union commitments prevented me from attending the launch of his album some weeks after the concert.

And so to Dean Wareham himself. He was not playing solo but was joined on bass by Britta Phillips (Wareham's long-standing musical and life partner, and also former voice of the title character in 1980s cartoon Jem and the Holograms) and two others on drums and other guitar. He started off with a couple of more recent songs from the Dean & Britta album Quarantine Tapes, which seemed very likeable. And then he unleashed "Blue Thunder", the opener to Galaxie 500's On Fire. After that it was all Galaxie 500 songs (or songs Galaxie 500 covered, which means we also got "Ceremony" and "Don't Let Our Youth Go to Waste"). And it wasn't just the songs that Dean Wareham sings on record: room was also found for two tracks originally sung by Galaxie 500's bassist Naomi Yang, "Another Day" and a cover of Yoko Ono's "Listen, the Snow Is Falling". Britta Phillips sang these.

The show's reception was pretty rapturous, with cries of "Dean-o!" from the crowd by the end. That said, it did not reach the levels of near ecstatic devotion that I witnessed last time Wareham was playing Galaxie 500 stuff here, at which concert people were being shushed if they applauded too loudly.

The concert itself and the listening I've been doing since has had me thinking about what exactly was so great about Galaxie 500. When you listen to them the two most striking things are Wareham's guitar lines (alternatively delicate and soaring) and his angsty strangulated vocals. The bassplaying by Naomi Yang (basic but effective) and the drumming by Damon Krukowski (non-standard, jazz-influenced) also impress, but it is Wareham's contributions that stand out. And Kramer's production, obviously, which makes great use of the music's sparseness. And the songs, with their evocation of alienation and isolation, something that will always appeal to sensitive indie kids, and maybe that is where the group X factor comes in. The original songs are all credited to Galaxie 500 rather than to individuals, and there might be some alchemy to them working together here that made the band more than the sum of its parts (I don't think any of its members reached those heights in their post break-up careers). I found myself curious as to how the songwriting actually worked in practice: did Wareham produced the lyrics and melodies on his own, to which the others added rhythm stuff, or were they more of a group effort? From looking at Pitchfork's oral history of the band, it seems like they all contributed elements, with it not being the case that Wareham came up with all the guitar lines. The lyrics seem to have been his though.

So yeah, great gig. At this stage it might be a bit of a pain for Wareham that people are more interested in seeing him perform music from 35 years ago than whatever he is doing now, but such is life. It must also be a bit strange that Galaxie 500's music still inspires such intense fondness, but only from a relatively small group of people (Whelan's is not a big venue; nor was the Workman's, where he last played his Galaxie 500 tunes for us). While I enjoyed the show immensely, I did find myself wondering will we ever be blessed by Dean & Britta performing the music they wrote to accompany Andy Warhol screen tests (appearing on the album 13 Most Beautiful Songs).

More amazing gig photos

Dean Wareham Salutes The Magic of Galaxie 500

So you know Dean Wareham. Or maybe you do not. He played guitar and wrote (or co-wrote?) songs in Galaxie 500, back in the Beforetime. Then that band split up for mysterious reasons he formed another band that plodded away for a long time and then also split up. Now he makes music with his lovely wife, Britta Phillips. And for whatever reason he is now touring playing the songs of Galaxie 500, a band who in their short time attracted adulation from a small number of people. I saw the last few songs he played at Bowlie Deux before Christmas, and was blown away, so I was very excited when Wareham announced that he was playing a concert on the tour here in Dublin city in the Workman's Club, a new venue.

Wareham was playing with the wife and some bloke on drums whose name I did not catch*. If you know Galaxie 500 you will get the musical idea here – angsty strangulated vocals over soaring guitar lines and impressively non-plodding drums. One thing I noticed live bigtime was that although people might think of the 500 as some kind of effete indie band, they would basically pass the Irene's brothers test of rock – as it seems like every one of their songs features a monster guitar solo. These are obviously a lot more impressive live than on record, with the likes of 'When Will You Come Home' being transformed from second division plodders into crowd-pleasing anthems thanks to the increased prominence of live soloing.

We were also interested by the titbits about song-lyrics that Wareham gave us. One thing I had not really picked up on was the extent to which the 500 were a drøgs band, but it turns out that a significant number of their tunes were inspired by acid trips. That is maybe obvious in retrospect with something like 'Decomposing Trees' and its lyrics about having conversation with your toes. More revelatory was the discovery that 'Strange' (the one with the lyric 'Why does everybody look so strange? Why does everybody look so nasty?') is not about alienation but about a time Wareham went to a convenience store while tripping his nuts off. My concert companions were glad that they were not aware of this shocking truth when they first started obsessing over Galaxie 500 as impressionable teenagers.

And that's about it, really. The crowd were very reverential, to the extent of shushing people who were applauding too loudly after songs when Wareham was trying to tell anecdotes. It seemed like maybe the best songs were cover versions, with the most epic moment of the night being the break in 'Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste'.

However, I did acquire some product at this performance. I remember back at Bowlie Deux Wareham mentioned that they were going to be selling his most recent record with Britta Phillips afterwards, and I thought "srsly dude, after listening to loads of Galaxie 500 tunes, why would anyone want that?". It was only subsequently that I discovered that the affecting version of 'I'll Keep It With Mine' (as popularised by Nico) was never recorded by Galaxie 500 and is in fact from the Dean & Britta album 13 Most Beautiful Songs. So I decided to buy it. It is an interesting work, being songs composed or recorded to go with a screening of various screen tests filmed by Andy Warhol (with 'I'll Keep It With Mine' being the song for Nico's own screen test). They tried to trim their musical sails to the person whose screen test they were accompanying, covering an obscure Velvet Underground tracks for Lou Reed's screen test and writing appropriate tunes for the others.

The overall musical effect is not particularly reminiscent of any of the other bands Wareham has been in, reminding me of neither Luna nor Galaxie 500. Looking at the credits I was not surprised to see that Sonic Boom shows up on one or two of the tracks, as there is a narcotic sense to a lot of the tracks that calls to mind the more smacked out work by Spacemen 3 or the material Sonic has thrown onto his sublime Spacelines compilation. I suppose that goes well with the kind of chemical carry-on current in Warhol's circle.

I understand that Dean & Britta have also been touring the 13 Most Beautiful Songs show, playing with the screen tests being projected above them. That sounds rather appealing and could work as much as an entertaining art project as a straight concert. So maybe one day this show will come to Dublin.

*which was a shame, as his drumming was amazing.

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Bowlie 2: Saturday (Part 1)

I am writing about the recent(-ish) Bowlie 2 festival in Minehead, curated by Belle & Sebastian, the people who brought us the original Bowlie Weekender back in 1998. I have italicised the names of artists who played at the original festival. Read on as I talk about artists I saw on the Saturday.

Isobel Campbell* and Mark Lanegan performed songs from the dark country records they have made together (of which I particularly recommend Ballad of the Broken Seas). Gravel-voiced Lanegan is a wonderfullly expressive singer, playing well against Campbell's somewhat weaker vocal chords. It was odd, though, how statue-like the two of them were onstage, singing their parts with very little obvious interaction. I found this a bit alienating, given that the songs are duets and suggest a relationship between the narrative voices; Irene thought it was impressively austere. The aural reproduction of the records was certainly impressive.

Edywn Collins is arguably the man who invented indie pop (so future hataz will no doubt send a terminator back to take him out before he founded Orange Juice). He is also well known for recently having had a massive brain haemorrhage that limited his ability to speak or walk and apparently meant that he had to re-learn how to sing his songs from scratch. I had never seen him before, but there is a wonderful triumph-over-adversity quality to his performance** – these are great songs and for all his problems he can still sing them well. Having Teenage Fanclub as your backing band makes this almost the perfect musical experience. I was also struck by how well 'A Girl Like You' sounded alongside the Orange Juice tracks, for all that various people have accused it of being the crassly commercial big hit from an otherwise credible artist. But whatever, Collins received some of the most appreciative applause of anyone playing that weekend. I feel lucky to have seen him.

I love Julian Cope but I do not really like him when he plays live solo. The music seems a bit thin without the accompaniment of a band. Furthermore, playing on his own he has a worrying tendency to just stop the music and instead start yapping on about pixies and ley-lines. So I was a bit disappointed to find that Cope was indeed playing solo, especially after seeing him with a full band at the Portishead ATP two years ago. He largely stuck to playing the music, but it was not really working for me. Inertia meant that I stayed when I should have left for another stage.

Eventually I tore myself away from the baleful influence of the arch-drude, making my way to the upstairs venue where Dean Wareham*** was playing the tunes of his former band, Galaxie 500. This was amazingly good, and for all that I kicked myself for arriving so late that I only caught the last few songs, they are still among the best live performances I have ever witnessed. Wareham was playing with a band, but he could almost have got away with playing solo, as the power of these songs comes from the interplay of his soaring yet brittle guitar-playing and his slightly strangulated yet emotionally charged voice. Highlight #1 was the cover of New Order's 'Ceremony'****, while highlight #2 was Britta Phillips singing Nico's 'I'll Keep It With Mine'*****. Highlight #3 was 'Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste', which I have recently discovered was also a cover (something that may well trigger some [special voice] comments in the next issue of Frank's APA).

We were eating a pizza downstairs while Dirty Projectors were playing. They seemed interesting enough, so we stayed for a bit to get some sense of them, even though we were expected elsewhere. On a first pass, I like them – they seemed to combine being experimental with also being unproblematically pleasant to listen to. This seemed partly to derive from their having nice lady singers, as opposed to the tuneless squawking more usually associated with the avant-garde.

But we had to rejoin our friends to see some of The New Pornographers (or did we?). I did not see enough to fully judge them, but they seemed pleasant enough. However, they had the misfortune to be playing just before B&S started on another stage, so we (and almost everyone else) flooded away from them before they had finished their set.


*As you know, Isobel Campbell used to be in B&S, before romantic differences hastened her departure. I remember her as a key feature of original Bowlie, walking around Pontins with a striking presence that left me certain that she was more than just an average punter (this at a time when I had no idea what any of B&S looked like), and not just because of her stunning good looks.

** Then again, what else is he going to do – live off disability benefit?

***At original Bowlie Dean Wareham performed music from his then-current band Luna while Irene and I sat at the back of the venue eating veggie-burgers. It was one of the highlights of the weekend.

**** Reader's Special Voice: "I think you'll find that actually it is Joy Division's 'Ceremony' ".

*****Ken Maher's voice: "This was originally written and recorded by Bob Dylan".

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