Dean Wareham: Want Me To Sign It? Me: Sure, Why Not?

Riding home on the G-Train tonight from Stories in High Fidelity, a reading series at Union Hall in Brooklyn, I was completely enthralled by the book I purchased there.

Dean Wareham read from his novel Black Postcards––as did other music aficionados /writers Dan Kennedy (McSweeney’s contributor, Rock On: An Office Power Ballad and Loser Goes First) and the extraordinarily charming Rob Harvilla (Village Voice music editor)––I was quite taken by the excerpt he read, in which he did so in a softly manner. Something about playing a gig in Spain and being awestruck by a dark-haired, big-breasted, olive-skinned beauty in the front row, who he ended up having an amazing night with, and then sort of felt guilty thinking about his son back home.

Sure he idealized the entire evening affair, but he did so quite brilliantly. So much in fact that I wondered why I had never heard of his bands–– Galaxie 500, Luna, and Dean & Britta.

Presumably since some of these former outfits bloomed in the early 90s, while I was just barely crawling out of my New Kids On The Block phase. I mostly blame my older siblings for not getting me into Luna, as their sole responsibility was to expose my eager ears to new music as they did with the Ocean Blue and the Sundays.

I suppose since Rolling Stone even penned Luna as “the best band you’ve never heard of”, I don’t feel entirely bad. I will just slowly get my feet wet with Wareham’s words and music through this read. So far, so good.