A Head Full of Wishes is a site for Galaxie 500, Luna, Damon & Naomi, Dean & Britta and Dean Wareham. With news, articles and lists of releases and past and future shows.
My record collection
[002] Luna - Close Cover Before Striking (CD)
No idea where I bought Luna’s Close Cover Before Striking, and for how much but it could have been anywhere. In fact by 2002 it could have been bought online.
The CD sleeve was designed to look like a match book and everytime I pick it up I want it to be exactly like a match book - but no, it’s just an ordinary digipack CD. It does have a sticker on the sleeve that makes it look a bit more like a matchbook - but the sticker is actually there to hide a printing error - when the sleeves came back from the printers it read “Close Cover Before Before Striking” - there are some promos, in plain card sleeves, with the mistake. Although, was it really a mistake or was it a change of mind? I quite like the “Before Before”, and seems strange that the error made it through promo and full release QA?
OK - just looked, and definitely did buy this online - it arrived in an order with CDs by John Parish and Sue Garner on the 1st October 2002. Here’s what I thought at the time.
Luna - Close Cover Before Striking
An exceptional little collection. Astronaut is possibly the most infectious Luna song ever - I’ve was humming it to myself after two listens (actually there are other infectious Luna songs - but you know what I mean). Waiting on a Friend - was the Stones’ last listenable song and Luna do a lovely take complete with Jagger-esque ooh oohs. Oh I’m not gonna go through the whole album but it is a very worthy release. Shame the matchbook packaging isn’t as complete as I’d hoped - it’s just a digipack - I was hoping to have a real staple and to have to untuck the cover before opening…
The CD was released in October 2002 and has seven tracks, mostly outtakes from the Romantica sessions - and also included pretty low-res videos for Lovedust and 1995.
The EP is on Luna’s Baandcamp with a couple of extra tracks… but no videos. But you can see the videos - in all their low-res-ness on YouTube:
- Catalogue Number: AHFOW 10/077
- Artist: Luna
- Title: Close Cover Before Striking
- Notes:
- Packaging: Digipack
- Format: CD
- Bought online, probably from play247.com
- Buy ‘Close Cover Before Striking’ on Bandcamp