A Head Full of Wishes end of year roundup

Luna and after Luna
Well that was a year - Luna finally called it a day with a series of dates at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City. The band had been touring the US and a few shows in Europe and Japan since October of 2004. The emotional end came with a teary rendition of 23 Minutes in Brussels and it was over.

Lee headed off to the US west coast to make music for adverts. His guitar playing appeared in a series of (European) Levi’s commercials that also featured an appearance from Britta. He also turned up drumming on the new album by Bill Ricchini. Sean started pulling together plans for a solo album as well as filling time playing with NYC band Elk City

Britta, as well as her appearance in the aforementioned advert (and other work in advertising) has been working with Dean preparing their second album which will start recording with producer Tony Visconti in the new year. Dean was also producing an album for Jule Brown which is a side project of Mark Holland of Jennyanykind.

Also 2005 saw a limited thearical release for The Squid and The Whale - the Noah Baumbach film that featured original music by Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips. A soundtrack album was released that featured Dean performing the Pink Floyd track Hey You (as well as lots of other cool music selected by Noah for the film soundtrack).

Buy The Squid and The Whale soundtrack album

Damon & Naomi
2005 saw the release of a fantastic new album by Damon & Naomi. The Earth is Blue recieved well deserved critical plaudits and the duo expanded themseleves into a band for dates around North America, Japan and Europe. The album was released on their own 20/20/20 label after an amicable split from Sub Pop. They duo also self-released a limited edition DVD of one of their shows from Japan.

Buy The Earth is Blue:

Galaxie 500
The one glaring hole from the Galaxie 500 box set was finally filled this year when the Galaxie 500 Peel Sessions finally saw the light of day. The two sessions recorded for the legendary John Peel show had been kicking around as bootlegs for many years but finally got remastered and recieved a long overdue official release. The album was released on Damon & Naomi’s 20/20/20 label.

Buy The Galaxie 500 Peel Sessions: