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
[210] Luna - California Blue / Rock Yr Baby
I had intended giving you all a break between Christmas and New Year but then I decided it would probably be appropriate to throw together a post about Luna’s New Year’s Eve perennial - their wonderful cover of George McCrae’s disco masterpiece Rock Your Baby†, which had been a live staple for years before this post-reunion studio version was released in 2017.
The single is on the AA-side (or B-side as I like to call it) of the single with a cover of Roy Orbison’s California Blue on the A-side. Both were recorded at Palmetto Studios with Jason Quever so I’ll assume as part of the sessions recording all those other covers for A Sentimental Education.
Before their split in 2005 it had become a tradition for Luna to play in NYC (or NJ) on NYE, to my knowledge they played…
- Luna - 31st December 1996 - Mercury Lounge, New York NY, USA
- Luna - 31st December 1998 - Knitting Factory, New York NY, USA
- Luna - 31st December 2000 - CBGBs, New York NY, USA
- Luna - 31st December 2001 - Knitting Factory, New York NY, USA
- Luna - 31st December 2002 - Maxwells, Hoboken NJ, USA
- Luna - 31st December 2003 - Mercury Lounge, New York NY, USA
- Luna - 31st December 2004 - Southpaw, Brooklyn NY, USA
… sometimes two shows a night.
At all of the shows I have a setlist for, they played their cover of George McRae’s Rock Your Baby during the night (I don’t have setlists for 1996, 1998 or 2003 but have no reason to think they didn’t play it at those shows as well). It became such a part of New Year’s Eve that in 2005 I felt the need to post a Roll Your Own Luna new year (this is a repost from 2013) collecting together as many recordings of Rock Your Baby as I could find
Dean & Britta looked like they might carry on the tradition when they played a show (and played Rock Your Baby) in 2007
… but that seems to have been a one off.
Post-reunion Luna have played New Year’s Eve shows in 2015 and 2023…
- Luna - 31st December 2015 - Starline Social Club, Oakland, CA, USA
- Luna - 31st December 2023 - The Fillmore, San Francisco, CA, USA
… and will be back at the Fillmore this evening.
The blog post mentioned above has MP3s of as many new year performances as I have.
A live version, recorded in San Francisco on Luna’s farewell tour featured in the film Tell Me Do You Miss Me and the LP of live recordings from the film. Here’s the clip from the film:
Here’s to 2025 - I hope it’s good for you all, and that I get to see some of you at Dean’s Euro shows in April!
- Catalogue Number: AHFOW 11/069
- Artist: Luna
- Title: California Blue / Rock Yr Baby
- Packaging: Card sleeve
- Format: 7”
- Bought from Great Pop Supplement for £14‡ for this and the other single released by Feral Child at the same time - The Lonesome Cowboy Bill split with Cheval Sombre.
† Not entirely sure why Luna have decided to call the track Rock Yr Baby - apart from legacy setlist laziness that made it onto this release. It got called Rock Your Baby on the TMDYMM LP.
‡ I then asked if I could buy a second copy of each - one for show and one for blow - so … expect this to turn up again… maybe next year! Perhaps I can talk about the A-side then, and most probably the sleeve!