Dean Wareham
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Dean Wareham | ||
|---|---|---|
 |
||
| Background information | ||
| Birth name | Dean Wareham | |
| Born | August 1, 1963 (age 43) |
|
| Genre(s) | Shoegaze, Indie Rock | |
| Occupation(s) | Musician,Songwriter | |
| Instrument(s) | Vocals, Guitar | |
| Years active | 1987- | |
| Label(s) | Various | |
| Associated acts |
Galaxie 500, Luna, Dean & Britta, The Pastels | |
| Website | http://www.deanandbritta.com/ | |
Contents |
[edit] Biography
Dean Wareham (born August 1, 1963, Wellington, New Zealand) is a musician who formed the band Galaxie 500 in 1987. He left Galaxie 500 to found the band Luna in 1991. Since Luna's breakup in 2005, Wareham has released albums with fellow Luna bandmate (and wife) Britta Phillips. Wareham and Phillips have also written score pieces for the Noah Baumbach film The Squid and the Whale.
A 1997 studio project called Cagney & Lacee consisted of Wareham (Cagney) on Instruments and Claudia Silver (Lacee) providing vocals. The album, "Six Feet of Chain", consisted of cover versions.
He has collaborated with Stephin Merritt, singing vocals on a song for The 6ths entitled "Falling Out of Love With You". He also collaborated with Japanese band Shonen Knife providing vocals on the song "Under My Pillow" for the 2006 album "Genki Shock!"
[edit] Galaxie 500
Guitarist Dean Wareham, drummer Damon Krukowski and bassist Naomi Yang began playing together during their time as students at Harvard University. In their early years, 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 interviews on the Galaxie 500 DVD "Don't Let Our Youth Go to Waste", The band's name comes from a Ford car of the 1960s, the Ford Galaxie 500. Galaxie 500's records were released in the US and UK on the independent Rough Trade label.
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. Wareham cites the Spacemen 3 as another key inspiration. 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.
[edit] Luna
Luna was a Dream Pop/Indie Pop band formed in 1991 by Dean Wareham after the breakup of Galaxie 500, with Stanley Demeski and Justin Harwood (Demeski formerly of The Feelies and Harwood formerly of New Zealand band The Chills).
The original line-up was expanded with the addition of guitarist Sean Eden for their second album, 1994's Bewitched. Lee Wall replaced Demeski on drums in time for 1997's Pup Tent, and Britta Phillips of Belltower (also known as the singing voice of animated character Jem) joined when bassist Justin Harwood departed in 2000. Phillips and Wareham eventually became romantically involved and married. They now release records under the moniker “Dean & Britta”
In 1992, Wareham signed a demo deal with Elektra Records and recorded a number of tracks with Mercury Rev drummer Jimmy Chambers. Some of these recordings were later released on the Anesthesia single on No.6 Records in the US and Mint Tea in the UK under the name Dean Wareham.
Elektra were suitably impressed and Dean signed a deal and started pulling together a band. He first contacted Justin Harwood who Dean had met while Justin was playing with The Chills and they recruited drummer Byron Guthrie, the trio recorded some more demos (produced by Dave Fridmann) and played a couple of live dates augmented by Mercury Rev guitarist Grasshopper. Guthrie was then replaced by former Feelies drummer Stanley Demeski and this line up recorded the first album Lunapark, produced by Fred Maher and released by Elektra under the name Luna2 to avoid confusion with a new-age musician who was already using the name Luna (later an agreement was reached which allowed the band to use the name Luna).
In the summer of 1993 the band landed the prestigious slot supporting the reformed Velvet Underground on their European tour after which they set about recording their second album. Bewitched was recorded in New York City and co-produced by the band with Victor Van-Vugt. Velvet Underground guitarist Sterling Morrison played guitar on two tracks. The album was released in 1994.
Despite producing solid material and being popular on the indie music circuit, Luna experienced issues and/or disputes with their record labels. One Label went bankrupt, taking the rights to and thus leaving The Days of Our Nights (1999) out of print. Nevertheless, the band labored on to release three more albums. They announced plans to breakup in 2004, and played their final concert at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City on February 28, 2005.
[edit] Selected Discography
| Galaxie 500 | Luna | Dean & Britta |
|---|---|---|
| Today (1988) | Luna Park (1992) | L'Avventura (2003) |
| On fire (1989) | Bewitched (1994) | Sonic Souveniers (2003) |
| This Is Our Music (1990) | Penthouse (1995) | Words You Used To Say EP (2005) |
| Uncollected (2004) | Pup Tent (1997) | Back Numbers (2007) |
| Peel Sessions (2005) | The Days Of Our Nights (1999) | |
| Copenhagen - Live Performmance(1997) | Live (2001) | |
| Romantica (2002) | ||
| Rendezvous (2004) | ||
| Lunafied (2006) |
[edit] External links
 |
This article is uncategorized.
Please help improve this article by adding it to one or more categories, so it may be associated with related articles (how?). Please remove this tag after categorizing, but not before. |
