Sunday in Phoenicia, NY

Dean Wareham (with help from Britta) is about to kick off the first dates of his upcoming sorta-tour where he'll be "playing Galaxie 500". The August 19th Bowery Ballroom show, and the secret show at The Rock Shop on August 18th, have both sold out, but Dean has added yet another NYC show happening on December 17th at Music Hall of Williamsburg (four months after the Bowery show for those counting). It's also billed as "Dean Wareham plays Galaxie 500" and Tickets go on sale Friday, August 20th at noon.

Updated tour dates, and a video from Sunday's free porch show in Phoenecia (where Dean & Britta performed with Jonathan Donahue & Grasshopper of Mercury Rev), below...

Continue reading "Dean Wareham adds more Galaxie 500 shows, played a porch in Phoenicia w/ Mercury Rev members (video) "

We're not 100% who's playing The Rock Shop on August 18, but I couldn't help notice that the date is the day before Dean Wareham plays Galaxie 500 songs at Bowery Ballroom and that opener Tyburn Saints recently posted a Galaxie 500 video to their facebook page. $5 Tickets are on sale now.

Meanwhile, Dean & Britta play a free show this Sunday in Phoenicia, NY.

Dean, Naomi & Damon (Galaxie 500)

Following the re-release of Galaxie 500's three classic albums on Domino and 20-20-20, Dean Wareham will perform a set of Galaxie 500 songs, backed by the Dean & Britta band (featuring Britta Phillips, drummer Anthony LaMarca and guitarist Matt Sumrow). Galaxie 500 formed in Cambridge, MA in 1987 and recorded three studio albums (Today, On Fire and This Is Our Music). They met with much acclaim in their short time together but disbanded in 1991. Wareham went on to form Luna.

That's the official description of the event that Dean Wareham is bringing to various states across the country before the end of the year. Two of the shows will be opened by Crystal Stilts including August 20th at the Troc in Philly (tickets on sale) and August 19th at Bowery Ballroom in NYC (tickets on sale).

The Bowery Ballroom show is one of two Dean and Britta have scheduled in NYC at the moment. The other is the previously mentioned "13 Most Beautiful...Songs for Andy Warhol's Screen Tests" show happening at NYU on October 22nd. They also have other Andy Warhol tour dates scheduled in support of the July 2th release of that CD too. More info and all dates below...

Continue reading "Dean Wareham (and Britta) releasing & performing Galaxie 500 songs & their Andy Warhol album "

DOWNLOAD: My Robot Friend - Misfits Fight Song (MP3)

My Robot Friend...

Double Feature Records presents Soft-Core, the first US release by My Robot Friend. My Robot Friend is a musical and performance art project born from the ashes of the late '90s NYC band Princess, which almost signed on to the legendary label Too Pure (P.J. Harvey, Stereolab) but broke up just in time. My Robot Friend performs in an elaborate light-up suit while interacting with illuminated objects, wireless video cameras and pyrotechnics. Think lovechild of a three way between Devo, Laurie Anderson....and a robot.

"Soft-Core" is actually My Robot Friend's third album, and anyone that spent any time at Luxx or exploring the electroclash scene probably recognizes that robot suit.

My Robot Friend (who has been known to cover Luna's "23 Minutes In Brussels") is appearing Friday, October 2nd show at 92YTribeca. Also on the bill are Cheval Sombre (with special guests), and DJing by Dean Wareham, who started the new Double Feature label with partner Britta Phillips. It makes one curious about the "special guests" that'll be appearing (yes, Dean & Britta will be there). Tickets are on sale.

Cheval Sombre, also on their label, opened for the Dean & Britta at LPR in June. At that show, the pair announced that it'd be their last non-Warhol show in the US for the year, but they played a regular set in Rochester last weekend (and will do one in San Francisco in October). Plus their New Years Eve show at Southpaw is still technically in 2009...

A My Robot Friend video below...

Continue reading "Dean & Britta's label Double Feature Records releasing My Robot Friend - catch them all at 92yTribeca -- MP3"

photos by Chris La Putt

"Wednesday [April 29th] we played another show, sitting in with Cheval Sombre at Death By Audio in Williamsburg, a club that reminded me of 8BC in years gone by. Once again I watched the first three songs from the audience before getting on stage, and Cheval Sombre played a hypnotizing set." [Dean Wareham]

Dean & Britta played with Cheval Sombre again on June 6th at Le Poisson Rouge. They also headlined that show. According to Dean, it was their "last non-Warhol shows of the year, at least here in the USA." Their next Warhol show in NYC will take place Saturday, August 1st at Prospect Park (the same venue they showed up at to see David Byrne on June 8th). Crystal Stilts open that Brooklyn show.

More pictures of Cheval & D & B from LPR, and all tour dates, below...

Continue reading "Dean & Britta & Cheval Sombre - LPR pics & 2009 tour dates "

Black Postcards: A Rock & Roll Romance

In his grumpy but informative memoir, Wareham, the lead guitarist and vocalist for seminal independent rock bands Galaxie 500 and Luna, recounts the highs and lows of his life as a musician. While Wareham's narrative voice is not particularly warm, he is refreshingly frank (though quite defensive) about the personal conflicts that broke up Galaxie 500, as well as about his later, somewhat more conventional rock and roll antics, which included drug use and infidelity. For most readers, the heart of the book will come in the first hundred odd pages, which focus on the financially difficult but artistically fruitful run of Galaxie 500, featuring Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang, in the late 1980s and early '90s. The stories of nights spent on the floors of college radio station managers and recording classic albums in three days are the stuff of do-it-yourself legend, and at its best, the book serves as a clear narrative of the travails of independent musicians in the days before mp3s and Pitchfork Media (which gets a snarky shout-out). Wareham gets a lot of mileage out of frustration with booking agents, band mates and radio stations, and over the course of the book, one gets a prevailing sense of how truly difficult it can be for some great musicians to break through the mass media wall. [Publisher's Weekly - Amazon.com]

Dean Warehem makes a free promotional book tour stop at Union Hall in Brooklyn tonight (March 18). All dates and stuff below....

Continue reading "Dean Warehem's (Luna) new book & related tour dates"