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
[199] - #191: Luna - Superfreaky Memories (7")
Superfreaky Memories was the only real† single from Luna’s problematic fifth album The Days of Our Nights, and was released on the 12th April 1999 three weeks ahead of the UK release of the album.
This is how Beggars Banquet described the track in a promo piece on their website:
Superfreaky Memories features more minds playing tricks on themselves, mired in pharmaceuticals and borne aloft by cellos and radiant guitars. The drumming is noteworthy.
Beggars Banquet website (archived)
The flip side is the first appearance of Luna’s cover of Kraftwerk’s Neon Lights that was later released on Close Cover Before Striking a couple of years later, and on Dean & Britta’s Quarantine Tapes much later.
The single got to number 1… in the NME “On the air” chart for Radio Shetland.
This is what Dean said about Superfreaky Memories in the interview with The Independent around then (the same interview were he revealed that Elektra had dropped the band).
The title comes from a letter this killer got from his girlfriend when he was in jail for a killing spree in Utah in the 1970s. He wanted to be executed and he wnated her to die too, but she didn't. I hope she doesn't come after us
Dean Wareham - The Independent (April 1999)
Here are a couple of reviews of the single from around the release
A little raw, scraping cello at the beginning of a tune seldom fails to please. Luna always sound as if they stalled while listening to the Velvets' frail third album (you remember, 'Candy Says', 'Pale Blue Eyes', not a loud or discordant note on it) and 'Superfreaky Memories' fits that template exactly. Mainman Dean Wareham long ago perfected the low, Lou Reed growl, and here he puts it to use telling a gentle, melancholic tale of teenage memories. In other's hands, this would be the stuff of tributes, of anthems, remembering 'the best years of our lives', but not for Dean, who seems to be very much a one mood kind of guy. Bless him. Their cover of Kraftwerk's 'Neon Lights' manages to be faithful without altering the Luna sound one whit. It's as close as they come to letting their hair down and having a giggle, which isn't very close at all. ****
Music 365 review of Superfreaky Memories (April 1999)
The Mailing List was rightly up in arms at the suggestion that Luna are normally lacking in humour!
Dean Wareham (for 'tis he) has most certainly lived a few lives over the past decade. From the tranquil torture of Galaxie 500 to the glowering grooves of Luna, the man has studiously shunned reality in favour of a shadowy existence where mourning is never quite broken. Suitably, 'Superfreaky Memories' is not exactly a breeze, but certainly represents a bold slice of classically low-key Nooo Yoikist melodramatics, nonetheless. Tom Waits would surely nod his approval. Time, meanwhile, waits for everyone.
NME review of Superfreaky Memories (April 1999)
- Catalogue Number: AHFOW 11/010
- Artist: Luna
- Title: Superfreaky Memories / Neon Lights
- Notes:
- Packaging: card sleeve
- Format: 7”
† Dear Diary was released as a promo single (and Beggars Banquet sold it to on their website so… almost a proper single)