Last week, we looked at Dean Wareham's band, Galaxie 500, and another group that chose exactly the same name. When Galaxie 500 broke up, Dean went on to form Luna. And... you can guess the rest.
LUNA #1
Free Jazz. 1967. USA. Free Jazz. Jazz Free. FrJaeezz. The composer tells us, "This piece is about getting smaller than getting bigger then getting smaller." JFraezez.
LUNA #2
Boston rockers from 1978, formerly known as Orchestra Luna.
LUNA #3
Italian "Space Rock" from 1983. Clearly Luna-tics.
LUNA #4
Spanish synth-pop, also from 1983. Youtube compares their sound to OMD. Can't really hear it myself.
LUNA #5
"Cult dark-wave band" from the former Yugoslavia. I'm guessing they owned a Joy Division record or two. This is what they sounded like in 1984...
LUNA #6
Japanese duo from 1985 who had clearly taken a couple of French lessons before taking over the asylum.
LUNA #7
Rolling Stone described Dean Wareham's Luna as "the best band you’ve never heard of", though I swear I've heard that epithet applied to hundreds of bands over the years, and I've probably used it myself multiple times. They made some fine records between the early nineties and the mid noughties, and apparently they reformed in 2015 and are still touring today.
LUNA #8
Serbian Euro-pop-pop-popsters, formed in 1996, but have released a heck of a lot of "bangers" since then.
LUNA #9
"Funeral Doom Metal" from the Ukraine. I wouldn't have included this were it not for the song title, There Is No Tomorrow Gone Beyond Sorrow Under a Sheltering Mask, which is about as "Funeral Doom Metal" as you get.
I'm going to stop there, although I could go on. And on. And on. Discogs appears to have more than 150 different credits for the name Luna, although a lot of them appeared to be dead ends. Which Luna sends you into orbit?
At risk of stepping on Rigid Digit's toes (if you've not been following his excellent series on car-related songs, you're missing a treat), this week we're looking at the Ford Galaxie 500. It looks like a pretty nice ride, and I'm sure it's no surprise to learn (even if you didn't know already) that there was a band named after it. But what are the chances of two bands picking that exact moniker...?
GALAXIE 500 #1
Dean Wareham, Naomi Yang, and Damon Krukowski formed the original Galaxie 500 in Boston in 1987. They released three fine and well-respected albums on Rough Trade until Dean went off to form Luna, before pairing up with (and eventually marrying) bassist Britta Phillips. They went on to make some fine Dean & Britta records together, with Tony Visconti twiddling the knobs. I've been getting into Dean's 2021 solo album I Have Nothing to Say to the Mayor of L.A. recently, but here's a classic from the Galaxie 500 days...
GALAXIE 500 #2
Completely oblivious to the fact that there had already been a reasonably successful band with this name within the last couple of decades, a bunch of French Canadian Millennials chose to paint the name of their favourite car on their drumkit in 2001. They released two albums as Galaxie 500 before Dean Wareham's record company became aware of them and sent some lawyers round for a chat. Hereafter they scraped the 500 off their drumkit and became known as just Galaxie. They appear to be still around today, making music that is best described as "aux limites de l’électro keys et appuyé par sa souche stoner-rock fondamentale". I love the fact that the French for "stoner rock" is "stoner rock". Like they couldn't be arsed to come up with anything else, man.
Personally, I think it's a pretty easy win for #1 today, but you are, of course, entitled to disagree...
Film critic Pauline Kael said of Cary Grant that "men wanted to be him
and women dreamed of dating him". The actor’s typically self-deprecating response
to this was, "Everyone wants to be Cary Grant—even I want to be Cary
Grant". It seems Cary Grant was a screen persona that Archibald Leach
became increasingly comfortable playing in real life as the years went by... with
a sly wink and an arched eyebrow.
Lyrical references to Mr. Grant broadly fall into four
categories then.
My baby’s kind of fond of Cary Grant
I tried to act like him, but I just can’t
And I don’t need my name on some marquee
But that’s the kind of man I wanna be
All day, all night, Cary Grant
That’s all I hear from my wife, is Cary Grant
What can he do that I can’t?
Big deal, big star, Cary Grant
Allan Sherman seems to have come back from Camp Granada rather
obsessed with Cary Grant. He mentions him in three or four other songs too. Go
find them yourselves though, I’ve done enough for you this week.
Elle se serre tout contre moi
Je me crois au cinema
Je me prends pour Cary Grant
Et puis on eteint la lampe
Which roughly translates as…
She hugs me tight
I believe myself in the cinema
I take myself for Cary Grant
And then we turn off the lamp
Finally in this category, we have Ray Davies, so enamoured
of Cary that he’s going to use him to create an artificial man.
Tell it to the people all across the land
We’re going to build an artificial man
With the physique of a Tarzan
And the profile of Cary Grant
Superior beings being totally made by hand
Throw out imperfection
Mould you section by section
Gonna make you the ultimate creation
When we go walking along the river
Watch the old men fishing the sunny side of the pier
It’s like a movie and you’re my leading man
The way you woo me, just like Cary Grant
Your talk you learned from great actors
The classics, the best
Your fancy yourself Humphrey Bogart or Cary Grant
Can I hear you? Yes, I can
But you’re not making any sense
I fell in love with the girl on the screen
Just me and Kate
For two hours tonight
We’ll orbit the earth like a satellite
I’m Cary Grant
She’s Sophia Loren
A dozen roses on the table
Wither in a week or two at most
From Cary Grant to Clark Gable
Every rose gives up the ghost
And here’s another lockdown song, from a singer who should
not be confused with the Free and Bad Company bloke, because he had a ‘d’ in
his name. Anyway, this Paul learned a lot during the pandemic...
Did you know that Cary Grant never won an Oscar?
And Paul McCartney wrote “The Fool On The Hill” alone?
I seen people playing poker, making million dollar bets
I’ve seen rednecks raising tigers just for pets
It’s a fact that Cary Grant never won an Oscar for any one
film, only receiving an honorary award after he’d retired from acting in the
late 60s. Which, frankly, is a scandal. As to The Fool On The Hill, I'll let Alyson tell you more about that.
Today a new sun rises
Look in the mirror, there’s no surprises
Things ain’t what they used to be
Cary Grant’s on LSD
Doctors began treating Cary Grant with LSD in the late 50s
in an effort to “make him feel better about himself and rid of all of his inner
turmoil stemming from his childhood and his failed relationships”. And you
think you’ve got it bad. In later years, he world remark, “taking LSD was an
utterly foolish thing to do, but I was a self-opinionated boor, hiding all
kinds of layers and defences, hypocrisy and vanity.” In my head, I can hear him
saying that.
Punk from the other side of the pond now, though they sound like The Pogues...
“A penny for your thoughts,” he says
As he swiftly slips from bed to bed
And the thoughtful ones are charmed by him
And the sexy ones turned on by him
And he’s knighted by Casanova’s kin
And his ladies would never turn on him
‘Cause he’s the Cary Grant of the party kings
And the playboy of your wildest dreams
Followed that with a great band name – Highly Suspect. This
song has an opening line deserving of the Misanthropes’ Hall of Fame, but it
settles down after that…
There's a Cary Grant obituary looking just like me
An eight track tape that taught me we all got to be free
Birthdays cards and get well cards and playing cards, no joker
Books on Greek Philosophy and how to win at Poker
An urn that holds the ashes of my guinea pig, Alfredo
A classic meatball sandwich topped with sweet heirloom tomato
And a penultimate word from our favourite Star Wars fanboy “Geek Rock”
band Nerf Herder…
Celebrities, they come and go
One day you’re Cary Grant
And the next you’re Scott Baio
Note so self: got to do a Scott Baio entry here very soon.
However, I think my favourite tune today comes from a band
I’d rather forgotten about. Luna were the brainchild of former Galaxie 500
frontman Dean Wareham. Rolling Stone called them “the best band you’ve never
heard of”…
And at the weekly meeting of anonymous cads
You shuffle your feet and whistle out loud
Listen to what they’re saying – what a load of crap!
You ain’t no Cary Grant
But then again, who is?
