I guess it should be pretty obvious that I'm a big fan of scratchy old indie records by now. What is probably less obvious is jus thow much I love flexi disks. A couple have snuck in already from The Family Cat and A House, and these are absolutely my favouritest things so far. It's pretty fair to say that if I had a load of money and nothing better to do then I'd get completely obsessed with them. Just take a look on ebay and see how much cool stuff there is.
Anyway, suffice to say when I found this combination of Galaxie 500 and top notch 'free off of a magazine' flexi disk I was as happy as happy can be. This particular flexi was given away with a magazine called "The Catalogue" which I have to admit I'm not familiar with and comes with another tune from a New Zealand band called "Straitjacket Fits".
Anyway, I digress. Galaxie 500 were part of the late 80s American shoegazing invasion and owe more than a nod (in this recording at least) to bands like Spaceman 3. For a couple of years the band swirled around the UK, banged out a Peel Session and made a lot of friends, not least Liz Phair who cited them as an influence. Unfortunately Rough Trade, their label, went bust in 1991 and that rather spelled the end of the band in the UK at least.
There's some really good stuff available here and an mp3 of the flexi here in all it's scratchy plasticky wonderousness - Galaxie 500 - Victory Garden.
Monday, 22 October 2007
Galaxie 500
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In the US, Galaxie 500 are regarded as somewhat forefathers of the indie pop psychedelia thing. The definitely took license from Spacemen 3 (hey I recently saw Spiritualized here in San Francisco doing their Acoustic Mainlines gig, it was BRILLIANT), and of course the Velvet Underground.
ReplyDeleteI saw G500 for their second album "On Fire" at the Point in Atlanta (Dean Wareham was wearing a Spacemen 3 shirt). I met them afterwards. It was a very mellow sit on the floor kind of gig. If you find the 2-DVD set of all their videos plus bootlegged gigs, you can see the show I was at. It's very dark and almost impossible to see what is going on.
Dean went on to form Luna (now defunct) but he's continued with his Dean and Britta project. And Damon and Naomi have released a bunch of albums under their name Damon & Naomi.
The Catalogue was a magazine that used to be sold at "Chain with no name" record shops, and maybe gigs, if I remember rightly. I'd forgotten about it until just now. I used to buy it all the time, mostly for the flexi discs! My parents have probably thrown out the magazines - but I still have the flexis! All 19 of them (except one might not work. I seem to recall it was from the magazine I bought at a Kitchens of Distinction gig, which I then folded up to fit in my bag or pocket to get home. Flexi discs don't like being folded, and they're not keen on being ironed to remove the creases either!)
ReplyDeleteThis blog inspired me to digitise my 7 inchs a while ago, but I only got as far as my Field Mice 7"s and then got distracted. Now I have a new challenge! I'll let you know how I do.
Thanks Mavis, I'll look forward to it!
ReplyDeleteOh gods, the Field Mice, that's another one to add to the list...
last comment of the day - I meant to be working! I was a huge Galaxie500 fan before I'd even left home, but the first time I saw them they were supported by the teenage fanclub somewhere in Ladbroke Grove. I met the singer from Lowgold there. Now there's an influence that has stood the test of time.
ReplyDeleteGalaxie 500 are still the main reason I want a gold guitar. They were pretty good at the ULU too.
Galaxie 500 were one of the best bands of all time, seriously, seriously good
ReplyDelete