Galaxie 500: Dean Wareham (vocals/guitar) Naomi Yang (bass/vocals) Damon Krukowski (drums) - 1987-1991 - a short-lived burst of lush eccentric guitar pop. Only three albums were created by this three piece but in those three albums they created more and explored deeper than some bands do over a twenty-year career.
Galaxie 500 was a band that embraced opposites, their songs were fragile, often delicately sweet, but played with a loose, rambunctious quality that gave a great overwhelming feeling of unease and that something was remarkably unhinged. One minute Dean Wareham’s guitar parts would be a slow, mournful strum before he exploded into solos that felt like somebody letting go of a fire hose – the trajectory completely unpredictable yet beautiful in it’s own self-crafted path. Even the vocals were an amalgamated exploration of androgyny, Dean and Naomi’s vocals at times almost indistinguishable in their overlapping quest for harmony. Naomi’s bass was in many ways, the backbone of the group - concurrently lead-like in her playing and impeccably subtle in her execution. ‘Blue Thunder’ perhaps the greatest display of this, the bass line alone packs so much emotive power that it could be a song in itself. Then the drums, the fucking drums –strange jazz-meets the velvets-like inventions, exploding like gun shots from the arm of a drunk, unpredictable cadences flying from all angles -just listen to ‘Flowers’ - a glorious example of all this and more. Yet together they retained a sincere sense of coherence amongst the sonic unpredictability’s that seeped from every pore of the collective. Then there was the production by Kramer, such was the integral nature of his addition to the bands minimal output that many attributed him as the ‘fourth member’.
What made and still makes Galaxie 500 such an intriguing and revolutionary group is that they were not alone in their pursuits to create pop-like, hazy guitar nods to the Velvets and Television, this was of course post-Mary Chain and C86. What they achieved in doing was realistically capturing the essence of late 1980’s music in all its greatest forms, whilst simultaneously guiding the way for the guitar-explosion of the early 90’s. Their existence during this period and the years that saw the albums released (88, 89, 90) was somehow a perfect fit because they had one foot firmly placed in each decade even from the moment they started. It was their embrace of the past and creation of the future that solidified them as a genuinely pioneering group. Oh, and they wrote fucking great songs too.
Four years, three great records, ending on not great terms. It’s almost the perfect career in many ways; not too far from replicating their greatest influence - The Velvet Underground. Naomi in a Pitchfork feature from 2010 affirming “The band was like a movie star or a musician who died young-- part of the mystique was that we never had a chance to grow old, or for people to get bored of us”. Damon and Naomi continue to work together to this day. Dean formed Luna and went on to perform with his wife Britta as Dean & Britta. The original line-up has not been together since they broke in 1991, but now Dean Wareham has been touring as Dean Wareham plays Galaxie 500, simply as the title suggests. We spoke to Dean in Barcelona.
“I’ve just been wondering around talking to people and it can be exhausting, I sing really high, so I have to be careful not to talk myself hoarse” he says of his recent time in Spain. So, what has been the catalyst for starting to do these Galaxie 500 songs on the road? “Erm…Well people have been asking me to do them, and this one Spanish promoter said ‘why don’t you come over and do one night of Dean & Britta and one night of Galaxie 500?’ So we did that and we got about ten songs learned and I thought they were sounding really great. I got home and all the records were being re-released, so it seemed like the right time. If I’m not going to do it now, I’ll never do it.” So, the shows have been going well? “They’ve been going great, I mean we’re getting to play these songs to more people than Galaxie 500 ever did in the day. I wouldn’t want to do it forever, I’m already at the point where I want to go back and do new things.” So, there’s no thought on doing some new Galaxie 500 material in the group? “No” Dean Laugh “I’d be sued if I did that”. So, in the wake of these re-issues and shows, is it generally felt that Galaxie 500 are more culturally significant now? “Cultural significance is subjective (and often cyclical) so I'm not sure how we would measure it or put a date on it. Did I think we were culturally significant at the time? It's hard to think of yourself in those terms I think, I was looking to my own favourite bands as being important. Galaxie 500's stature has certainly grown over time, but Mike McGonigal makes a point in his oral history of the band: some people are under the impression that we were criminally ignored while we existed, and only later rescued from utter obscurity. But that's not the case, we were well received critically and did well at college radio and people came to see us play”
How has revisiting the songs been as an experience? Feelings of nostalgia or have you become critical? “Well I’m amazed that everything from the first album and just how lazy I was with the lyrics. Every song just has one verse. Like Tugboat, that was just a couple of phrases repeated, but y’know sometimes that works” before further adding “It’s also odd singing songs about my then girlfriend, now ex-wife. There was an observation Nick Cave made somewhere that you write a love song and the love dies but the song lives on, that can be difficult… but it’s mostly pleasant”.
In regards to the Domino released re-issues, British UK comedian, KATP fav and music nut Stewart Lee wrote the liner notes to the debut ‘Today’ how did this come about? “Someone at Domino approached Stewart Lee, I believe he also does a bit of music criticism elsewhere, anyway he saw a number of our shows so was well qualified to write about the band. I for one enjoyed his insights; I think he's right that the sound of Today is the sound of musicians stretching just beyond their capabilities. I know I was slightly lost on those guitar overdubs when we recorded the album -- which is what makes them harder to play when I revisit them now. I discover that I'm soloing in an E minor scale over an A chord -- but that's okay” How have you generally found people’s interpretations of the band’s sound or genre? Have they always correctly summed you up? “I don't try to interpret it one way or the other. Hopefully Galaxie 500 were our own sub-genre, neither shoegaze nor slowcore nor dreampop”
Are there any moments that stand out as high and low points in Dean’s view of Galaxie 500? “High point: the day our first 7" single, "Tugboat" in blue vinyl arrived in the mail. It's always exciting to get stuff. Low point: some argument or another, it's hard for me to pick one moment” and then finally, the dreaded, doomed inevitable question surfaces - what would it realistically take for you to perform as Galaxie 500 as a full band again? and would it be even something you'd be interested in doing if it were possible? “I think the very structure of the band -- a trio made of two plus one -- is what led it to fall apart rather quickly, and this structure makes re-forming the band impossible to consider. If there were four of us, I'm sure it would be easier; I just can't imagine the three of us sitting in a room and rehearsing, let alone traveling round Europe in a van”