Maria Somerville / Nashpaints (Whelan's)

Maria Somerville is the neo-shoegaze sensation who has been attracting much attention of late. I went to see her at this sold-out concert, accidentally buying two tickets so I had to bring my beloved with me. Whelan's is pretty unpleasant when it's full and we found ourselves stuck over to one side. I also had an amorous couple press in beside me while they attended to each other, but fortunately they moved away before too long.

The support act was Nashpaints. I do not remember them in detail but have a sense of having broadly approving. Two things though:

• My beloved thought they were a bit like the kind of band you might get playing at the Roadhouse in Twin Peaks: The Return
• Their music was at least somewhat shoegaze adjacent, particularly as they went on.

Both of these are good things obviously so maybe I should take a punt on their album Blindman the Gambler, available for a fiver on Bandcamp

I was there for Maria Somerville, but I found her performance a bit unengaging. That might partly be that this music does not go down so well alive (she is more Slowdive than Ride) but also I think the venue didn't suit it: this kind of relaxing semi-ambient shoegaze isn't really suited to a hot crowded club venue and would work a lot better somewhere seated. I did think that I have enjoyed it more if I had pushed my way up to the front like some kind of Nietzschean overman, but I wasn't finding the music compelling enough to do that.

Before going to the concert I was thinking about how I didn't really know what Maria Somerville looks like as all the pictures of her are "arty". As I left the concert I realised that I still don't really know what she looks like thanks to backlighting. So she could be anyone I walk past on the street. Anyone.

Her album Luster is still great for home listening and is also on bandcamp.

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