Galaxie 500
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Galaxie 500 was a seminal slowcore guitar band from the late 1980s. Guitarist Dean Wareham, drummer Damon Krukowski and bassist Naomi Yang began playing together during their time as students at Harvard University. The trio was heavily influenced by The Velvet Underground, Joy Division and Jonathan Richman. In interviews on the Galaxie 500 DVD "Don't Let Our Youth Go to Waste", Wareham cites the Spacemen 3 as another key inspiration. The band's name comes from a Ford car of the 1960s, the Ford Galaxie 500.
Galaxie 500 leveraged fairly minimal instrumental technique with intense atmospherics, provided by producer Mark Kramer, and their distinctive sound bore an influence beyond the small audience for their independently released albums. With Kramer's live sound production at the mixing board at the band's every gig, the sound and the increasingly loyal audience grew with each release until Wareham quit the band in 1991 to form Luna.
Krukowski and Yang, devastated by Wareham's departure, remained inactive for two years until Kramer convinced them to return to his Noise New Jersey recording studio. They continued to record under the moniker Damon and Naomi (whose first two releases were also produced by Kramer), and additionally began the avant-garde press Exact Change.
Galaxie 500's records were released in the US and UK on the independent Rough Trade label. When Rough Trade went bankrupt in 1991, the group purchased the masters at auction, reissuing them on Ryko in 1997.
Cover Material
The group's oeuvre included a fair amount of cover songs, often with arrangements that were drastically different from their original counterparts. These include:
- "Listen the Snow Is Falling" - Yoko Ono
- "Ceremony" - New Order
- "Submission" - The Sex Pistols
- "Rain" - The Beatles
- "Don't Let Our Youth Go to Waste" - Jonathan Richman
- "Cheese and Onions" - The Rutles
- "Here She Comes Now" - The Velvet Underground
- "Isn't It a Pity" - George Harrison
- "Final Day" - Young Marble Giants
- "Victory Garden" - Red Krayola
- "Moonshot" - Buffy St. Marie
- "Well… All Right" - Buddy Holly
Trivia
- When Galaxie 500 was first formed, Damon Krukowski didn't own a drum kit, so he borrowed one from his Harvard classmate Conan O'Brien, who'd bought a kit but had recently given up playing it. This drum kit can be heard on many of Galaxie 500's early recordings.
- In Liz Phair's song "Stratford-on-Guy", she sings, "And I was pretending that I was in a Galaxie 500 video". [link]
Discography
Albums
- Today (1988)
- On Fire (1989)
- This Is Our Music (1990)
- Copenhagen'' [Live] (1997)
- The Portable Galaxie 500 [Best of] (1998)
- Uncollected [Rarities] (2004)
- Galaxie 500 Peel Sessions [Radio Broadcasts from 1989 and 1990 on the BBC's John Peel Show] (2005)
Singles
- "Tugboat" (1988)
- "Blue Thunder" (1989)
- "Fourth of July" (1990)
DVD
- Don't Let Our Youth Go to Waste (2004)
External links
- [A Head Full of Wishes] – comprehensive site that includes a discography, lyrics, tablature, and a tour and setlist archive.
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