Luna: "I Can Hypnotize A Pancake"

Longtime Everybody Taste favorites Luna have digitally remastered and released the LPs Romantica, Rendezvous and the 2002 EP Close Cover Before Striking over on Bandcamp. Word on the street is the band may even try and repress a few of these classic records onto vinyl (we've got our fingers crossed over here). If you're a fan of the band's dreamy and mesmerizing pop music, former bandmates Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips have also been keeping busy as the duo Dean & Britta with the acclaimed and spectacular 13 Most Beautiful: Songs For Andy Warhol's Screen Tests, which includes gorgeously captivating covers of The Velvet Underground's "Not A Young Man Anymore" and Bob Dylan's "I'll Keep It With Mine." You can peep the Britta-sung cut of "I'll Keep It With Mine" below along with a remastered version of Close Cover Before Striking's "Teenage Lightning"—one of my all-time favorite Luna tracks, thanks to the gorgeously restrained guitar work and Wareham's wonderfully smart-ass deadpan lyrics (see below). (via Magnet)

"I got pills that make me cranky, I got pills that make me cry. / I have crooked information, tiny nightmares in the sky. / Rest your head upon my pillow, put my hand inside your pant. / You can have it if you want it, if you'd like to take a chance. / I can hypnotize a pancake, I can levitate the pope. / I can make your teacher crazy, 'cause it's all within my scope. 

Rest your head upon my pillow, put my hand inside your pant. / You can have it if you want it, if you'd like to take a chance. / Teenage lightning in the basement, teenage lightning in the night. / Teenage lightning on my window, teenage lightning is alright"

Luna albums are available digitally from Bandcamp. 13 Most Beautiful: Songs For Andy Warhol's Screen Tests is available digitally directly from Dean & Britta.

Luna - "Teenage Lightning"
Dean & Britta - "I'll Keep It With Mine" (Scott Hardkiss Electric Remix)

Mercury Rev feat. Dean Wareham - "Car Wash Hair"

After having a discussion on Twitter last week about the lack of Luna vinyl in the world and the desperate need for some re-pressings, I stumbled through a black-hole of Luna factoids and into the arms of "Car Wash Hair" by Buffalo, New York band Mercury Rev. The track features a rather hypnotic Dean Wareham guesting on lead guitar in-between his gigs fronting Galaxie 500 and Luna. I know little about Mercury Rev—I was 6 years old in 1991 when "Car Wash Hair" was originally released—but over the weekend I developed a serious infatuation for this nearly 8-minute-long groove. Released first as a single, then as a secret bonus track on Yerself Is Steam, and again on Lego My Ego, "Car Wash Hair" is an epic and mesmerizing slow jam sprinkled with everything from eerily distorted and psychedelic guitars to organ, trumpet, and flute. The track also boasts this excellent and periscopic lyric regarding band culture and fandom:

Catchin' a ride from a band

I sat in the back of the van.

They tried to make me understand

That if I'm not in a band, don't mean I'm square

And if I am, well then I don't care.

Listen to the track below and, after the jump, watch the accompanying it's-so-90s-it-hurts music video.

Mercury Rev feat. Dean Wareham - "Car Wash Hair" (from Lego My Ego)

Luna: The Best Band You've Never Heard Of

Luna is one of those bands I don't remember discovering—rather, it just seems like I've always been listening to them. A few days ago I stumbled upon a copy of frontman Dean Wareham's memoir Black Postcards—which I had no idea even existed—and quickly became absorbed in the details of the cult figure's musical evolution: from his Glen Campbell-dominated New Zealand youth to discovery of New Wave, first shot at forming a band while attending Harvard, the rise and fall of Galaxie 500, an amazing 7-album-run with Luna, and plenty of personal turmoil and triumphs, including his love affair with bandmate Britta Phillips which produced the near-perfect L'Avventura. First to admit those ego-driven mistakes, Wareham offers up the truth behind his bands' music with detailed self-depricating humor and deadpan delivery. Here's a taste:

"We made an album called The Days Of Our Nights. Our fifth studio album, it is possibly the worst of the seven that Luna made. If you study rock-and-roll bands, I think that fifth album generally tends to suck. Maybe they all hate one another by this point. Maybe they need new ideas. Maybe they're trying new ideas. Whatever the reason, the fifth album is difficult."

Aside from the wealth of band insight, Wareham also recreates the inner-workings of the business side of the 1980's and 90's music scene with his own struggle to make a buck with both independent and major labels. The record companies are both shown at their greed-infused peak and inevitable fall from grace, and there seems to be no better source than Wareham, who has the numbers and lived-through-it experience to paint a vividly clear picture. For fans of Luna or rock music in general, there are few writers that depict the scene with as honest a touch.

Here's a soundtrack to the book, comprised of songs or albums specifically mentioned in the text.

Galaxie 500 - "Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste (Jonathan Richman)" (from Peel Sessions)

Luna - "23 Minutes In Brussels" (from Penthouse)

Britta Phillips & Dean Wareham - "Ginger Snaps" (from L'Avventura)

Papas Fritas - "Girl" (from Buildings and Grounds)
Jorge Ben - "Mas Que Nada" (from Samba Esquema Novo)
Glen Campbell - "Mary In The Morning" (from Gentle On My Mind)