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Dean and Britta from The Little Squares on Vimeo.
Dean and Britta, a film by The Little Squares directed by Debra Scherer captures an intimate moment with the musical duo, with Dean Wareham narrating.
13 MB is now available for digital download on our webstore as well as iTunes, Amazon, etc…
Order the CD from our website and receive a free 11″ x 17″ poster
MORE “Dean Wareham plays Galaxie 500″ shows added!
Nov. 15 - Vancouver, BC
Nov. 16 - Seattle, WA
Dec. 10-12 - ATP’s Bowlie Festival 2
Butlins, Minehead, Somerset UK
(exact date TBC - either Friday or Saturday)
ALL tour dates: www.deanandbritta.com/shows
November 17, 2009
We have arrived in a windy London, after shows at the Tanned Tin Festival – in Barcelona on Friday night (at the Apolo, where Luna played our last show in Barcelona), and at the Neu Club in Madrid on Saturday night. We shared the bill with Cheval Sombre, who sounded great with both Sonic Boom and Britta sitting in on keyboards. We discovered an interesting Norwegian band on the bill Saturday night too – Rocket to the Sky.
Upon arrival here we went out for a meal which I shall not describe, and then went over to the Borderline and caught some of the set by L.A.’s Darker My Love. In the audience was one Mark E. Smith – an incongruous and surprising sighting, but apparently some members of Darker My Love have also played with the Fall.
We are at the Travelodge on Drury Lane, which I thought would be a step up from the Columbia Hotel, but it is not. Still, our room has a nice view of a new complex by Renzo Piano, and we are only steps from tomorrow night’s venue – the lovely St Giles Church. Anthony and Britta and I popped our heads in there today, on our way to Foyles bookshop, and saw a choral group rehearsing. This is going to be an intimate show, and you will be sitting in wooden pews if you show up Wednesday night. Cheval Sombre (with Sonic Boom) goes on at 8:15, we will start at 9:30.
- Dean
May 21, 2009.
I recently received an email from a pen-pal of mine, formerly in Cambodia, now living in Washington, D.C.; he wondered if we might be performing some Galaxie 500 songs at our upcoming shows (in Philadelphia, D.C., and at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City). Yes, we are planning on playing a bunch of Galaxie 500 songs; we did this at the Zipper Factory last year and it was fun and I managed to hit all the high notes. The Galaxie 500 video “Fourth of July” ran on New York Noise last week, followed by amusing comments from some young children. Warning: the video contains violent war imagery in addition to gorilla and clown suits. You can view it here; click on Episode 89, Section 1:
http://nyc.gov/html/nycmg/nyctv/html/music/nynoise.shtml
We rehearsed this week with drummer Jason Bemis Lawrence, who usually sits behind the traps for the Caledonia Mission, and is (like Anthony Lamarca), a graduate of the New School’s jazz program.
June 30 will find us performing the Andy Warhol Screen Test show at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre in Los Angeles June 20. We will also be doing a live radio session on KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic – June 18. And I’m doing a book reading at Skylight Books 5pm Sunday the 21st (Father’s Day). One father wrote to us this week – said that he was clearing the table after dinner and stumbled upon this drawing of yours truly, created by his 10-year-old son Lucas. Thank you Lucas.
- Dean
May 2, 2009
Yesterday was May Day, International Workers’ Day, which we do not recognize here in the United States. I spent the morning at the periodontist. She installed a titanium post where I had a tooth last year. It’s an odd sensation having that screwed in; I didn’t really enjoy it, and she did not reward me with good painkillers.
Wednesday last we played another show, sitting in with Cheval Sombre at Death By Audio in Williamsburg, a club that reminded me of 8BC in years gone by. Once again I watched the first three songs from the audience before getting on stage, and Cheval Sombre played a hypnotizing set.
Thursday night I went to the premiere and after-party for the new Jim Jarmusch film. Bill Murray was there (he’s in the film for about a minute near the end) and Tilda Swinton, and Gibby Haynes from the Butthole Surfers (who is not in the film). I don’t know any of those people; instead I was there with film producer (and high school classmate) Jason Kliot. Jason directed me in Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit back in twelfth grade. Now I am remembering that my former band-mate Damon had a small part in the play too (he played the valet). Jason and I got to talking about high school, and he reminded me that we first met in 1977, at age 14, at a model U.N., which took place in a big hotel right across from Penn Station. At model U.N.’s high school students come together and pretend that they are diplomats arguing the important issues of the day. I was lost, knowing nothing about disarmament, strategic arms limitation treaties, the plight of Yemen; all I remember is someone yelling at me for eating their draft resolution.
I do not have a personal Facebook account, but my paperback, Black Postcards, does. I set the page up a couple of weeks ago and my book now has 373 fans. You can visit it here
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Black-Postcards/65987958881
and learn about upcoming activities. Penguin releases the paperback on May 5, and at 7pm next Friday night (May 8th) I’ll be doing a reading at the newly-expanded Book Court in Cobble Hill. This is a book release party, which means wine will likely be involved, you could stop by for a drink on your way home from work.
April 20, 2009
Last week I visited the local branch of my bank (a bank with roots in the Pacific Northwest that has recently been taken over by a bank with roots in Manhattan) and deposited a couple of checks.
“We will be holding these checks for seven days before the money is released,” the teller informed me. “That’s our policy.”
“But how am I going to pay my taxes tomorrow if you’re holding my money for seven days?”
I walked out in a bit of a huff, and who should I run into by the ATM machines but comedian Todd Barry. We chatted for a bit about our summer plans. Todd is performing at some rock festivals, including Bonnaroo and All Points West. I told him that our drummer Anthony LaMarca is leaving our band to play drums with St. Vincent this summer, and they’ll be at Bonnarroo and All Points West too.
Turns out Todd, who is a drummer himself, is friendly with one of St. Vincent’s previous drummers. It’s a small world, we both agreed. I told Todd about my banking troubles.
“You need to talk to the assistant manager,” he said. “She can take care of that.”
So I followed Todd back into the bank and got on line behind him. Just then in walks Sean Eden (he has an account at the same branch).
“Dean looks angry,” said Sean.
I calmed myself, and asked to speak to the assistant manager, who kindly agreed to release those funds into my account after two days.
We are going to miss Anthony LaMarca, who was just a 19-year-old kid when he started playing with us (he’s a wise 21-year-old now). But we have a couple of people lined up to take Anthony’s place on the drum throne. Jason Lawrence (of the Caledonia Mission) will play our shows June 4-5-6, where we’ll be playing Dean & Britta songs and a bunch by Galaxie 500 too. And Lee Waters (who has played with Essex Green and Camera Obscura) will be taking over on the upcoming Screen Test shows.
Tuesday evening, I’m listening to Face to Face by the Kinks. This was my friend Graham’s favorite Kinks album back in high school. I had some of these songs on Kinks Kronicles but now I finally own the whole album. It’s a good one. I have also been enjoying the Crystal Stilts, Golden Animals, and Kraftwerk’s Ralf und Florian album.
We have been rehearsing for the next performance of our Andy Warhol Screen Test project, this Saturday night at the Allen Room (part of Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series). The Warhol films are going to look beautiful in this setting, framed by a giant window that looks out on Columbus Circle. Later this month we take the Screen Test project on the road, with shows in San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver, Chicago, Minneapolis, Boston and Mass MoCA in Western Massachusetts. Later in the year we expect to be playing European dates too. There will be a DVD of this project (likely in March), but the Warhol films look extra special on the big screen, and with the live band.
Our soundtrack EP is now available for download from our webstore for $2.99. It contains two instrumental pieces from The Squid & the Whale, my version of Pink Floyd’s “Hey You,” which I recorded to teach the song to Jesse Eisenberg (who sings it in the film), plus two other short instrumentals from Just Like the Son. Total running time is just under 14 minutes.
We are excited about the first signing to our Double Feature label – the Sand Pebbles, Australia’s most intriguing band. February 17 we release A Thousand Wild Flowers, a compilation of the best songs from three extremely rare albums by the band. They describe their sound as flower punk – equal parts Buffalo Springfield and Wire. We met bassist Christmas Hollow a few years back while doing an interview for their excellent webzine, Tarantula! Chris sent us their Ghost Transmissions album (now out of print) and we have been fans, and friends, ever since. I contributed guitar to one of their albums, and the Pebbles did a great remix for our Variations EP last year. These guys have an unusual pedigree for a rock band — they met, as scriptwriters, on the set of the Australian soap opera Neighbours. After long days of scriptwriting, they would occasionally spend evenings jamming in an empty Tae-Kwon-Do studio, before graduating to a chill-out room at raves. I am not making this up. You can pre-order the album from our webstore.
Further down the road – March 31 we are releasing the debut by Cheval Sombre, produced by Sonic Boom, with musical contributions from Britta and myself. This CD contains tracks from his out-of-print 7” singles (issued on the UK label, Static Caravan), and a whole lot more.
Dean Wareham
January 13, 2009
