Black Postcards: A Rock & Roll Romance

by Dean Wareham

A founder of two moderately successful rock bands describes his coming-of-age as a cultural outsider, his observations about the music industry, and his witness to the emergence of the indie and alternative music genres. 20,000 first printing.

Genres: Music, Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography, Biography Memoir, Rock N Roll, Drugs

336 pages, Hardcover

First published March 13, 2008

About the author

Dean Wareham (born August 1, 1963, Wellington, New Zealand) is a musician who formed the band Galaxie 500 in 1987. He left Galaxie 500 in April, 1991 and founded the band Luna. Since Luna's breakup in 2005, Wareham has released albums with fellow Luna bandmate (and wife) Britta Phillips (see Dean and Britta).

Reviews

[Ian "Marvin" Graye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anticipation

My review below isn't really a review of the book after I read it.

It's a whole lot of ideas in anticipation of the publication of the book.

I have read the book since then and loved it.

--------------------------------------------

Luna and Dean Wareham – "So why aren't you guys more famous?"

I experienced a little sense of excitement yesterday when I learned that Dean Wareham had written a book about his life before, in and since one of my favourite indie bands, Luna (due out March 13, 2008).

The promo says that "Black Postcards" is also about what it's like to have to pretend to be civil as you answer the same helpful question over and over again, "Why aren't you guys more famous?"

I can't wait to see what Dean has to say.

I don't know the answer to the question, but I'll have a go.

Luna was a cult indie band that played from 1991 to 2005.

Like another of my favourites, Bettie Serveert, and perhaps the Go-Betweens, they seemed to have everything needed to generate popular and commercial success.

They flirted with major record companies (Elektra and Beggars Banquet), but ultimately they got jilted.

So ultimately they remain(ed) a cult band whose obsessive fans (e.g., me) wonder why more music lovers don't join them in their (my) obsession.

So What is a Cult Band Anyway?

I know this will sound like heresy, but I think there is a sense of both success and failure implicit in the term "cult band".

Success

A cult band usually creates a sound that is different, unique, distinctive, quality, a worthy addition to what Julie Burchill used to sarcastically call "rock's rich tapestry".

This is the first and foremost duty of the band to itself and to its audience.

Everything else is secondary.

If the sound of the band is special to the band, then how many people "get" the sound is secondary from the musical point of view.

A cult band will usually have the right pedigree. In the early days, they will play the right covers, they'll name the right influences, they'll get name-checked by the right people. If they're lucky, some of the right people might even guest on their albums or invite them to play on their tours.

As a result, they will develop a dedicated following of early adopters.

A successful act of creativity communicates in some way (whether deep or superficial) with its audience.

We fans will want to buy everything, watch everything, read everything, see them every show and bore our friends senseless with our enthusiasm.

We will also look at our friends a little askew if they don't immediately share our passion.

The duty of the fan is to give the work an audience and space to breathe and grow.

This includes publicising or promoting the work if you're so inclined.

It means playing the CD to friends. It means buying new copies if it's within your budget (artists don't receive any royalties from second-hand sales).

It also means knowing when to stop obsessing and let your friends make their own decisions about what they like and what they want to buy.

Failure

I'm talking solely about commercial success now.

I don't know at what point of sales a four member band can live comfortably on their royalties.

Obviously, it depends on your costs, whether collective or personal.

Unfortunately, if you're signed to a major label, it's not 50,000 copies.

Most groups never get a shot at the big time. They never get signed by a major label. Equally, they never get dropped by a major label.

If they're not too obsessive about commercial success or fame, they make do with where they have got. They play music for their audience of loyal fans, they tour relentlessly, they work their butts off and maybe they make enough to survive without a day job.

It can be done nowadays, although there weren't the same income opportunities in the 80's and 90's.

This type of band can't really be said to have failed: if they are satisfied with what they have achieved, they have succeeded in their own vision.

If they are more commercially ambitious or set on financial success or they woo fame too slavishly, then they impose different expectations on themselves.

By failing to achieve these expectations, their only failure is that they have failed to achieve commercial success. So what?

It doesn't mean that they have failed musically, at least from a fan's point of view.

We fans have to make do with what the band was able to generate before the financial pressures terminated their career.

So ultimately the test of every band is: what were they able to achieve with the time and money available?

The Cult of Luna Takes Shape

I think my Luna CD's were among the first CD's I ever bought.

I had assembled quite a large vinyl collection when CD's were introduced and was a slow adopter of the new (replacement?) technology.

What attracted me to Luna was the sticker proclaiming "featuring members of Galaxie 500, the Chills and the Feelies".

Because both Lunapark and the Slide EP had been released in Australia by the time I found them, the deal was sealed when I noticed a Dream Syndicate cover on the EP (not to mention the Velvet's "Ride Into the Sun").

Quite early in their career, they supported the Velvets on their reunion tour of Europe in 1993.

Sterling Morrison played on a couple of tracks on "Bewitched" and Tom Verlaine played on "Penthouse".

It was clear that Luna was building on the foundations of the Velvet Underground sound and that they were firmly planted in the traditions of New York rock.

So I was hooked.

Defining the Luna Sound

The essence of the Luna sound is the standard rock combo: two guitars, bass and drums.

If pressed, I would say that the music is more important than the lyrics. However, I might be wrong.

What I mean by this is that Luna are first and foremost skilled musicians.

Unlike, say, the Go-Betweens, they are not essentially writers who happen to be in a band.

Music is primary, and the lyrics, while enjoyable, are songs, not paragraphs from novels (although I for one would like to read that novel).

Right from the beginning, their music strode the loud/soft divide like the Velvet Underground.

The louder stuff was driven by propulsive guitars and an always subtle rhythm section.

The guitars could be both rude or polite. But while they were often neat, they were never messy.

Some people call them simplistic. As a non-playing fan, I just marvelled at the melodies, even if they were simple or common or traditional or even classical.

By the time they released "Romantica" and "Rendezvous", I think they had taken their compositions to the level of an orchestra for guitars where they used layers of sound to develop a more complex textured sound.

As one critic has said, it was perfect music for headphones.

So to the lyrics…

Romantic, flirtatious, decadent, hedonistic, witty, sarcastic, mischievous, nonchalant, sincere, ironic, nostalgic, innocent, guilty, warm, cool, wistful, affable, arch, self-deprecating, funny, punny, comfortable, relaxed, moody, languid, intimate, post-coital, pre-coital…

Lou Reed might have captured the life and language of Andy Warhol's Factory set in the 60's, but Dean Wareham did the same for a generation in the 90's and noughties that were just getting on with business and life and love and more recently children.

Joe Levy has copped a bit of stick for his effusive liner notes for the Live album, but he does capture how a lot of non-critical fans relate to Luna music.

He also draws a picture of Dean Wareham that betrays a few Warholian brushstrokes:

"I often think of Warhol when I go to see Luna play. Not just because Dean Wareham stands still and shy onstage with a slight smile while his songs act out every manner of misbehaviour he can think of or orchestrate, but also because Warhol is the ground zero for the New York rock & roll that Luna have taken up.

"Without his outsider's desire, his fakery, his honest delight in invention, his thirst for gossip, his cruelty and kindness, his parties, where would we be?"

One of the things that I respect about Dean Wareham is that he came to the flame of New York from New Zealand (via Sydney), yet he appears to have fit in like a hand in glove, perhaps because he insinuated his hand into a velvet glove.

However, sometimes you need an outsider from Pittsburgh or Hibbing or Wellington to see things as they really are.

"So Why Aren't You Guys More Famous?"

Like any fan, I can only enthuse or list the reasons I'm a fan.

Yet my reasons can't be enough. I know I have friends who have no Luna in their collections, who have never heard of them or hate them as purveyors of wimpy dream pop rock.

It's not that they don't get it, some of them get it and just don't like it.

Perhaps, despite the Velvet feel, the music is just a bit too crafted for some? Perhaps, it needs to be a bit more torn and frayed? Perhaps, they haven't transcended their influences enough?

I guess I'll have to wait until March to see if Dean Wareham can shed any light on the question!

[Hannah · Rating 1 out of 5]

As a Galaxie, Luna, and Wareham fan in general, I was a little wary of this book; Dean has a reputation for being a bit of a prick. And in the end, I do think he comes off as rather self-absorbed; as another reviewer points out, he often quotes his own lyrics, which feels very pretentious, and he puts down other recording artists, which I found a bit gauche. There are an uncomfortable number of anecdotes that seem to have been included in an attempt to look like a better person- along the lines of "this fan really wanted to sleep with me, but I ended up going home alone." Other times, the tone becomes almost patronizing (phrases like "that's how it is in a band," or "sometimes bands argue"), whiny (he complains about everything!), smug ("the viper room is a silly place"), and frankly rather glib when it comes to his own transgressions, such as infidelity ("cheating on someone can sure make you feel horrible. Especially if you've hardly slept, and you have a headache, and you're riding in a stinky van, wondering what you're doing with your life").

In addition, the interesting parts of Dean's story- the formation and breakup of Galaxie 500, his relationship with Britta, etc.- are almost glossed over in favor of the mundane details of touring, like the time he had to pee so badly he left the stage, or the time the band was traveling through the Alps and the tunnel was closed, as well as "you had to be there" inside jokes. There are also lengthy recaps of his therapy sessions, which, again, feel like he is trying to prove something to the reader.

My main grievance, however, was with the editing. Lines like "I knew I should try to control it. But I couldn't control it" or, "secrets make you grumpy and distant, because there are secret things on your mind and you stare into space and someone says, 'a penny for your thoughts,' but you can't speak your thoughts so you stay distant" are awkward to read; Dean Wareham is a musician, not a writer, and you'd think his publisher would have been more aware of his limitations.

[Mark Stevens · Rating 5 out of 5]

A 2014 article on Stereogum included this great line about Galaxie 500: “One imagines the walls of the Galaxie 500 rehearsal space lined not with bikini girls with machine guns, but with posters of Buckminster Fuller and Trotsky.”

Galaxie 500 was slow-core, low-core, lo-fi, low-dive, down-tempo, moody, fragile and earnest. I loved 'em.

And Rolling Stone, listing Luna’s “Penthouse” among the top 100 albums of the 1990’s (No. 99), said this: “Dean Wareham made his name with the Eighties dream-pop trio Galaxie 500, but he really found his muse in these scandalously beautiful guitar ballads. His foxy voice slinks along the languid guitars as he plumbs his foolish heart in the back of a New York cab, going home alone after another night of fancy drinks and lucky toasts. Wareham purrs some sly one-liners (‘It's no fun reading fortune cookies to yourself’) but the music celebrates the pleasures of being too young, too rich, too pretty and too single, shopping for true love while getting lost in Chinatown.”

Luna offered more of a glossy sheen, more accessible melodies, and a bit more 4/4 punch, but you can still hear the rootsy, organic earthiness of G-500 and Dean Wareham's matter-of-fact singing style.

Wareham led Galaxie 500 for (roughly) four years in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s and then Luna from 1991 through 2004, when their seventh studio album, “Rendezvous,” was released. They toured after that record was released, claiming they were done; a farewell romp. Luna then went on a deep hiatus but returned a few years ago, releasing an album of knockout covers in 2017 (“A Sentimental Education”) along with a disc of instrumentals (“A Place of Greater Safety”).

For my money, Luna always hits that sweet spot where killer grooves, sharp lyrics, and blissful guitars come together. In concert, Wareham is understated, low-key, and pose-free (as is the rest of the band) as the rhythms build and the melodies soar. “Penthouse” and “Romantica” haven’t lost a step over the years, but I’m a fan of every album they recorded. Yes, “scandalously beautiful” stuff. The guitars rock harder than you think, but you have to hear them. No leaps off the drum riser, no rock-god poses with a showy boot up on the monitor.

Black Postcards, Wareham’s memoir of his youth up through the buildup and breakup of Galaxie 500 and through Luna’s entire first incarnation, came out in 2008. It’s blunt, funny, wry, poignant, sad, melancholy, frank, painful, inspiring, and heartbreaking all at once.

There are drugs, there is sex, there are parties—and boredom. There are dumb fans and bleak hotel rooms. If you ever wondered what it’s like to be in a band that tours—if you want to feel the grind, taste the tedium—Black Postcards has got you covered. (So does a DVD documentary, Tell Me That You Miss Me, an unflinching look at their last--though it wasn't--tour).

For rock fans of a certain age, reading Black Postcards is a musical memory trip. There’s Salem 66 at The Rat in Boston, Throwing Muses at the 9:30 Club, The The and The Ramones at The Lorelei Festival in Germany, and Veruca Salt in Valencia. (There are plenty of brutal assessments of fellow musicians along the way, including a diss of former Denver act 16 Horsepower. “I confess I didn’t like them. I mean, I didn’t know them personally, but I didn’t like their music or their instruments or their porkpie hats.”)

The first half or so of the book is devoted to the rise and fall of Galaxie 500, in which Wareham battled the voting bloc of two fellow high school chums, who later became fellow Harvard students, drummer Damon Krukowski and bassist Naomi Yang. Krukowski and Yang saw eye to eye on everything, later married. Krukowski and Yang thought Wareham quit the band seeking more fame. Wareham, believably so, rejects that notion.

“The suggestion is that I broke up Galaxie 500 for the money. No, it was not the money. There was no money. I had a hundred reasons, ranging from petty annoyances to major structural problems in the band. The bottom line is I quit because I couldn’t stop thinking about quitting … I didn’t want to be in a cult anymore. I wanted to be free.”

Black Postcards is intensely personal. Wareham takes us through marriage counseling and divorce with his wife Claudia, shows us the arduous process of recording with exacting producers and fellow musicians (ahem, guitarist Sean Eden, a.k.a. Meanderthal) who feels like he must try a hundred ways to nail a guitar solo.

Wareham details label deals and observes industry changes and the endlessly frustrating business of earning back advances. You can feel the changing of the guard, the upended music biz adapting to streaming and file sharing and the great fade of the almighty CD. Wareham is clear about his own secret (at first) coupling up with new bass player Britta Phillips, a move he knows will cause a major rift in the Luna dynamics, and he's blunt about his relationship with fans, too. (Some good, some weird.)

Wareham shows us how much work he puts into lyrics as well. “I had patched the ‘IHOP’ lyrics together from an episode of Wheel of Fortune, my own readings on André Breton, and an article about the Khmer Rouge in The New York Times. They seemed to make sense. The song was about a cad.”

Throughout Black Postcards is the same dry wit that shows up in Wareham’s lyrics:

“Next up was Bordeaux, where we played in a legendary little punk-rock called Le Jimmy. A punk rock club can become legendary just by having booked some cool bands back in 1980, and then staying in business. If the toilet’s don’t flush, so much the better.”

“You can generally add a star to the review if you announce that the band is breaking up. People are nicer to you when you’re on the way out, or dead. Cher, for example, said the nicest things about Sonny Bono after his tragic skiing accident.”

Wareham is both jaded and clear-eyed. He didn’t push Galaxie 500 farther than it was supposed to go. He didn’t insist on Luna’s existence when the end was near (and clear). Wareham is an observer, keenly aware that bands are doomed from the moment they start.

“…the truth is that rock and roll does kill your life, just a bit. It can lead you down the wrong path, into a double life, perhaps, or a life of drink and cigarettes and other vices. To be rock-and-roll is to be self-destructive, right? Think of Gene Vincent, Dee Dee Ramoe, Sid Vicious, Brian Jones. You have to take it all with a grain of salt, and not get caught up in it. It can be fun, living a rock-and-roll life, but it’s a slippery slope. Some can dabble. Others are swept away.”

Wareham remains a dabbler (check his post-Luna solo output, including some fine collaborations with Britta, whose 2016 solo “Luck Or Magic” is also worth tracking down). Wareham brought Luna back for a tour in 2018, including a stop in Boulder to a fairly full house at the Fox Theatre.  (A great show.)  Does Luna live? Maybe.

Sure, I’d love a few more Luna records. But the band has left its mark. Nostalgia is for suckers.  Hats off to Luna (and Galaxie 500).  And thanks to Dean Wareham for taking us on a ride in Black Postcords. If he’s been keeping notes for the past 10 years, I’d read another account of the past decade, too.

[tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dean Wareham's account of the music industry in the late 80s, 90s, and early 00s, and his personal experiences with it throughout those years makes for a riveting read. His recording and tour travelogs are flushed out into a smooth and engaging narrative. Not only has Dean helped create some of the most beautiful and richly layered music my ears have ever encountered, but he proves that he can write a solid memoir that stands on its own. His obvious intelligence, frank grumpy humor, appropriate ego, and dry wit come through effortlessly on nearly every page. He lays down a seemingly honest account of not always honorable behavior, which doesn't excuse everything he's done, but conveys that he is only human like everyone else--and of course, a (pseudo) rock star.

[Cody · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Whoa, oh, oh, oh, show and tell
Just a game I play
When I wanna say "Oh, I love you" (I love you)
Girl, so show me and tell me
That you feel the same way too
Say you do, baby, baby””
—Al Wilson


Dean dishes. Exactly what you want from Wareham: Galaxie 500 details and dirt; the formation of Justin and Stanley with our hero as Luna 2; hanky panky with Britta; sexdrugsrockandroll. It is a wonderful memoir written in the exact voice of the voice of wry indie rock in its coalescence that, if you know his work, sits perfectly along side it. No maudlin bullshit, no analyses of his inarguable influence and importance in what would become, meh, alternative. Dean is fully aware that he’s an icon in the underground music scene, and isn’t afraid to be confident in it. He also doesn’t seem to give that much of a shit about most things, at least not much that’s he’s willing to share with strangers. Typically dignified. I’m lucky as hell that I got to see Galaxie 500 and Luna a lot around Lunapark. This taints no memory.

Side note: Sean Eden sounds like an insufferable pain. Stanley was, is, and will always be a Feelie first, but herein he is credited with many hilarious, droll jokes; and Justin proves the steadfast loyalist to the cause.

Tons of coke, ecstasy, and acid; the up and downsides of sleeping with your bassist for years while, oops, married with child; and a fucking brilliant critique of Eddie Vedder’s vocal tic that is too funny and insightful to ruin here.

Who knew “Decomposing Trees” was literally an experiential lyric? Maybe those astronauts can feel it far away.

[Benjamin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Possibly the best music biography I've read. While I may not be as big a fan of Wareham as I might be of The Smiths, he might not be as famous as John Lydon, and he may not have the cult status of Kim Gordon, it is wipes out all of the above in terms of its humour, honesty and wit. Wareham's biography isn't afraid to be honest; from his marital indiscretions, to his feelings about other bands, right up to his own ability to see his own work as under-appreciated and utterly absurd all at the same time, this is is the stuff a good biography is made of.

From his childhood through Galaxie 500 and up to the break up of Luna (recently reformed) he manages to paint a portrait of an always-slightly-under-the-radar band that had amazing cult status and not much else. We see the highs and lows of indie and major label contracts, low level gigs and worldwide tours, and the battle of balancing this with a day job and a family. This is why I love it compared to most music biographies. Elsewhere you find tales of poverty leaping into super stardom, or bourgeois art school bohemianism turning into worldwide acclaim. Name dropping hardly occurs. When it does it's utterly reasonable (have you ever toured with Lou Reed by his request?) or knowingly hilarious (Death By Milkfloat?) or utterly pleasant for the reader of a biography about this kind of music (Mazzy Star, Teenage Fanclub, etc).

Wareham is funny and charming, and well-read. He doesn't just know his musical history, but also the history of the places he's played, the books he's read, the people he's met and a whole bunch of other stuff. All of this ties up in the fact that he's in a band you can imagine being in. If you've been in a band then you've done gigs, promotion, recordings, trying to get signed, failing to get signed, been heckled, been abused, been ripped off, and had some of the best moments of your life. He's done that and gone further to a point where you could imagine being; not so far from obscurity to be a dream, not so close to nothing that it's not interesting. Wareham's book is the best to read if you're not in a band and want to know what it's really like. Groupies and wild nights are minimal. The parties are just unusual or boring. The characters are crazy as you meet them along the way. It's painfully recognisably and instantly beautiful.

[Cynthia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is essentially Dean's annotated tour diaries, which works a lot better than you would think. There isn't really much big picture commentary on the music industry, as some of the book descriptions imply. But there is enough there for the reader to draw their own conclusions about how much it sucks to be a true indie band (before that term became just another marketing category) that doesn't fit into standardized radio formats that have been market-tested into oblivion, and at a time of enormous consolidation and mp3-panic among record labels. I saw Luna multiple times in college, and it all seemed so glamorous. If i had known then what i knew now, I would have bought a few more t-shirts so they could stay in better hotels.

Also, one of the best parts of the book was highlighting all the songs and influences he references and then going off to listen to them. As a fan, it is nothing short of a miracle that I can find all of it, instantly, through a single streaming app on my phone while i'm traveling. I miss the serendipity of discovering them on my own at the record store, but I'm old and boring and have a job and don't have time for that anymore.

On Dean's personal shit:

Upon seeing his son at the park from afar, after he had just confessed to his cheating and chosen to leave his family: "This was the worst moment of my life. Of course I know that other people live through much worse. Mine were the problems of a spoiled and self-indulgent singer/songwriter. Still, this was my moment, and it hurt. Never mind that it was self-inflicted."

I can't tell if talking about his cheating, marriage/divorce counseling, and the disintegration of his marriage is mere self-flagellation or if this is a more selfish exercise to assuage his guilt (or some combo). Who knows what he chose to leave out, but the stuff that made the cut is bad enough. Killing yr idols--and an inherent hazard of reading music memoirs--means realizing the person you admire may turn out to be just another middle-aged, emotionally withholding man-child that can't own up to his own flaws and desires.

But the music! Oh, the music!

[Peter Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of rock biographies, but not so much rock autobiographies. Biographies have authors who are somewhat removed from the subject's life, but when the subject is writing his own story, personal biases and maybe fear of revealing oneself too much get in the way. This book is probably a good example. Dean Wareham played in a band I liked a lot (Galaxie 500), but he doesn't get into much detail about it here. In fact, the first few chapters of the book seem like he's just reciting the basic facts with hardly any insight. Maybe his memory is failing him like everyone else who gets older, but I feel like the most descriptive parts of this book are the most recent, but inconsequential parts (e.g. the European tour for his 4th Luna album). To his credit, he is pretty wide open about the dissolution of his marriage due to his cheating, but even there he seems narcissistic. It almost seems matter of fact that he had to leave his wife for the sexy bass player. I did like his insights on the music business and wished there was a little bit more of that. But I have to say this rating is somewhat influenced by just liking his music. If this had been the autobiography of the singer from Nickelback, I would have been a lot harsher.

[Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a complete asshole. But thankful for 1994’s Bewitched which gave us California - one of the top songs on repeat throughout my high school days. I don’t think I know any Galaxie 500 songs. Sorry.

[Matt JL · Rating 1 out of 5]

i love G500, and enjoy luna .. but wow was this book ever bad. there is absolutely no detectable writing style, no emotional depth, unlikeable and pretentious observations, SO much telling and hardly any showing, and tons of unnecessary detail. the first 100 pages were interesting enough, but then it turned into ‘i went to the hotel, then i went to bed, then i got up the next morning, then i got dressed, then i went to the show, it was a good show unlike last night, then i went back to the hotel, then i ordered dinner.’ why in the world was any of that important? there is no accompanying story to these anecdotes, no important theme or message, i’m not even sure why he plays, why he creates, what his philosophy is. i cannot fathom why this book has any 4 or 5 stars, and i completely agree with all of the 1 and 2 stars. alright. rant over. no more wasting time on this book. it is gonna take me a while before i can appreciate galaxie 500 again after this :( & on fire is one of my favourite albums..

[Miguel Ayuso Rejas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Las memorias del rock suelen ser un coñazo, pero este libro está bien porque, sin ninguna pretensión, narra bastante bien lo que pasa estando en cualquier grupo, como que a la gente le interesa mucho más el deporte que la música y si tú concierto coincide con una final estás bien jodido.

[Kirstie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book gives a great deal of insight into the mind of Dean Wareham, lead singer of Galaxie 500, Luna, co lead in Dean and Britta. It reads much more like an autobiography of a person in bands than anything else. Like true autobiographies, it begins in childhood back in New Zealand. Dean talks about his family, most notably his brother who gets into all sorts of trouble throughout his life, and all of the music he listens to. That was one of the fun things about the book-we get to see how his music tastes evolved just as later on we see how some of the lyrics came about.

Dean does give his side on the breakup of Galaxie 500, in case you're wondering. He also talks about his wife and son and his affair with Britta Phillips. He deconstructs the idea of the classic rock star life and yet most of the elements are there-he's visiting glamorous places, doing drugs, having one night stands and the finally hooking up with Britta. Really, the only thing missing is that he doesn't have much money and Luna isn't selling out clubs regularly until their last farewell tour. Other themes include major label vs. minor labels, big bands more as corporations, and the recording experience.


I think one of the most difficult things about the book is that I just wanted Dean to be a better person..probably as much as he wants to be. I didn't want him to do tons of drugs and to cheat on his wife. It's probably true that he wasn't doing drugs all of the time, just when it became available in certain cities, but it still bothered me. Dean is an incredibly intelligent person, and that's apparent, but he's a very conflicted person morally.


The novel ends with the farewell tour of Luna and it's an incredibly honest ending besides. There's a good sense of closure with the ending band wise because of it. Still lingering is his personal conflicts within himself, though. Obviously, he's with Britta now and still makes music but I wonder about his relationship with his first wife and his son and I hope that has been resolved. I think there are so many good qualities to Dean, intelligence, talent, sense of humor and I wouldn't have known much about this just from watching him on stage. Though I did appreciate Luna as a live band (I saw them once at the Metro and once at The Abbey, then Dean and Britta at Schubas and then Lakeshore Theater), it's much more revealing to hear about his personal story. It takes alot of guts and honesty to come out with this, anyhow.

[El · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dean Wareham - the frontman for Galaxie 500, Luna and most recently, Dean & Britta - has compiled his thoughts and diary excerpts since the beginning of his interest and participation in music history. His autobiography is quite frank, from the break-up of Galaxie 500 in the early 90s to the break-up of his marriage due to the hot bassist he had hired for Luna. Throughout he drops names of some big names in the music industry and others not so well known, making the read both interesting and slightly pretentious. It then leads one to wonder why he felt the urge to write a memoir at this point in his life anyhow - he's not particularly a good memoirist, his writing leaves a lot to be desired, he's grumpy and bitter and often very defensive. But it's like a train wreck, I couldn't turn away. He did not describe a glamorous rockstar lifestyle, but did manage to include your typical rockstar behaviors (infidelity, drugs, battling egos, etc.).

He remembers where all the crappy hotels are, where random happenings occurred, all of which led to the impossibility of putting it down. He spoke lovingly of some of the places he has toured, including Pittsburgh (though the only real mention is that we have three rivers and a bunch of bridges, all a different color - but he liked it here nonetheless) and, surprisingly to me, Columbia, Missouri which I left in which to come here. He mentions Mojo's Roadhouse and I actually felt a pang of sadness as I remembered I found out about Luna's show at Mojo's in 2002 the day after the show. He went on to mention how the next day he walked around Columbia, which he described as a "pretty college town" - and then I remembered that it is pretty until you live there for 15 years and then it loses its novelty.

I enjoyed the book. Through all the black cloudness over his head, it's evident he loves his music and he has loved the process in which he has grown. On a personal level his different musical endeavors have touched me in different ways throughout the years, so I was especially looking forward to reading this when I found out about it. He did not let me down, though it makes me sad that he is so bitter about so much in the past, whether he's justified or not. He made me think fondly (for at least a minute) by mentioning my old town, which is not an easy task. He also claims to not like the Pixies or U2, so one can't take everything he says to heart.

[Simone · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had not heard of Dean Wareham or Luna when I started reading this book. I took it on as a bit of a burden simply because it was this month's book club book and I try to be a good member, even though reading is not compulsory.

I have to say though, this book won me over pretty much right away. There was a great ease with Wareham's story telling that kept me engaged and interested without a lot of great explosive events to keep it going. I really liked that, for something I had no interest in, I was taken in with his story anyway because it was an interesting one. Again, not with a lot of sex and drugs and infighting (though some), but just enjoyable to read about these dynamics and struggles and such. I actually liked that it did not rely on sensational events to keep it interesting. I couldn't put it down once I got going.

I had some personal relations to it too in that I know people around Luna's level of success who are known and sell a lot of records, appear on TV just simply don't "make it". All the descriptions of the tour I related to having been to many of the venues around the US with my husband on tour. I guessed the venue in Eugene, Oregon (W.O.W. Hall) before he mentioned it!

There is also a lot of good information in here about the sort money bands make on both major and indie label deals. It's a tough business, but still with interesting stories. I would say I enjoyed this almost as much as the Slash book which is saying a lot since I love Guns N' Roses and it was filled with debauchery and dirt on Axl Rose. That book read like it had ghost writing magic worked on it like a slick producer churns out the lastest piece of popular junk. This book was far more honest which counts for a heck of a lot to the reader.

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is everything you want from a rock n roll page-turner. Dean writes in a way that makes him feel like he could easily be your friend- he's flippant yet affable. He doesn't hold back on his opinions about other bands, the industry, his friends, and his loves or trysts, which is exactly what you want from this sort of book. None of that candy-coating, boring placating stuff that famous people tend to do.

Perhaps it's called a Musical Romance because while reading this you can't help but fall back in love or continue to love Galaxy 500/Luna. Reading this book definitely took me down a trip of memory lane, like working in a lame-ass record store in S. Jersey and slipping in Luna's first c.d. when the boss (a country music fanatic) would go out to lunch. Or how an old girlfriend in Eugene would sing Tiger Lily, or like living in Philly and missing the Valentine's day show because I didn't anticipate they'd sell out the TLA. That was the first time I realized that Luna wasn't just my band- that lots of other people liked them to.

The book starts with Galaxy 500 and follows the structure of touring and releasing records finally building up to the Final Tour. Sigh. I was still living in Portland back then and I'm pretty sure it's the last show that my girlfriend (at the time) and I saw together & both enjoyed. I caught her dancing and singing along to songs I didn't know she knew the words to. Much later we watched the dvd and it depressed us. So it goes- people break-up; bands break-up. Yet if we're lucky we're left with images floating in the head and lyrics affixed to our aortas.

[Patrick O'Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't want to sound like a broken record, reiterating what others have said. However, prior to reading his book, I too wasn't familiar with Dean Wareham, Galaxie 500, or Luna. Having gotten out of the music industry right around the time Galaxie 500 came to light, then slightly getting back in around the formation of Luna, and then out and into years of a drug induced blackout where I didn't care about music in the least. Yet, recently I've been writing my own book on the subject of tours and bands of the '80's, and a friend recommended I check out Wareham's Black Postcards, to see how he handled it all. And I'm really happy he did as Wareham totally captures the dynamics and relationships of bands and touring. His revelations on his band mates in Galaxie 500 were particularly telling. It is so sad and heartbreaking that performers, who used to be friends, should let their egos get so inflated they lose sight of what's important, and end up destroying what they have. Only it is all too familiar a story. And then with Luna Wareham beautifully breaks down the music industry, the financial reality, studio recording, and touring.

However, on a craft level, what I found really interesting was Wareham's exclusion of scenes. He writes from a narrative point of view. Doesn't rely on dialogue, instead, using introspective observations, and at times, for some collaboration, excerpts from music critics, and their reviews. And normally this can make for some dull reading, yet Wareham makes it work.

A great book for anyone interested in the reality of the inner workings of a rock and roll band.

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe I'm being too harsh with my review, but I don't think so-- many of the features that would make you think a Dean Wareham book a lay-up of pure pleasure are missing here. The man is known through his lyrics for being funny and suave, quick with a good natured sizing up and pinning down, an acute social observer, but there's little of that here, aside from some occasionally funny asides, like comparing Eddie Vedder's vocal style to Cher's. But there are far too few moments like that in this book... I think we all know, too, that Wareham is a big reader, but his book is written in kind of a flat language that doesn't really please-- it's all told in one long rush of stuff without any discernible texture. It makes it a quick read, which is good, because there's not a lot to it.

I think that's my major qualm with this book-- I don't know why Wareham thought the story needed to be told, or what story he thought he was telling. The whole notion of why he plays music? It never really comes up. What happens to his early political leanings? No comment. What he hoped to do in music, and did he succeed? No idea. Too much of what would make a great book, a peek behind the curtain, is missing here, and also missing is some of the things I think you might expect from the music-- quips and solid writing. Oh well.

[Stop]

Read the STOP SMILING interview with Black Postcards author Dean Wareham:

Dean Wareham, singer and primary songwriter for Galaxie 500 and later Luna, has written a different kind of rock story — the indie-rock underdog’s life story. Sure, there’s sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll, but it’s viewed through the eyes of a musician who, though lauded and revered, never quite made it in the unrealistic sense that MTV and Clear Channel — and even his own former label Elektra, part of Warner Music Group — demanded. Instead, Wareham, along with his bandmates, spent years touring shitty clubs, staying in divey hotels, driving stinky vans and loading in and out their own gear. They were loved abroad, opened for folks like the Velvet Underground and even found glowing praise in the pages of the New York Times and Rolling Stone — and still major success eluded them, but Wareham couldn’t shake the band life and settle down into a normal life.

Read the complete STOP SMILING interview...

[Jack Knorps · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are a number of musician autobiographies that have been reviewed on my blog. Black Postcards is among the best, perhaps because Wareham went to Harvard and obtained a good education and has good taste. He has a sense of drama and takes risks with writing about his own life that few others would dare. It is a page-turner, and it would be deeply educational for any and all would-be musicians. Fans of Galaxie 500 and Luna likely already know about the book, but if they do not, this will be like catnip to them. It is, in a way, the same old tired rock and roll story about life on the road and drugs and infidelity, but Wareham elevates the material by acknowledging the cliche and examining himself through a lacerating lens.

http://flyinghouses.blogspot.com/2008...

[Surfing Moose · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book but was disappointed by the omission of one piece of trivia. At the last show in Vancouver Dean looked up at the balcony and saw around 15 people (myself and Tim J included) all standing on the shelf against the back wall, which is used just for drinks. He did a double take and a perplexed look on his face. I guess from his angle it looked like we were all standing on the railing. It was the one and only time I ever saw Luna and do miss them. As Tim J said, "Man they are a band that is just ON".

Enjoyed the comments about other bands, insight into touring, and his honesty about his life (and divorce).

To Dean: Thanks for the soundtrack to some great memories

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written by Dean from Luna, which is one of my favorite all time bands. After reading this book (which I scarfed down in one day), I feel like I know Dean as an intimiate friend - all of his life was opened to full display, including the drugs, sex and rock & roll. I recommend this book for folks interested in reading a first hand account of indie vs major label deals. Dean doesn't glorify indie labels, but he does glorify the 'Neil Diamond'.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

eh. a singer/songwriter writes his memoir. he quotes his own lyrics. i would never do that if i were writing my memoir. he describes being given cookies after a bookstore gig as "infantile". what a grumpy pants.

[Jem · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is awesome. I love a good rock memoir, and this is exactly what I've been looking for: hating your bandmates, bloated egos, going home with girls in the audience... such foreign things to me, but makes for a juicy vicarious read.

[Paul Mackie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dean Wareham kicked around a bit in life before starting his first popular band Galaxie 500

https://popculturelunchbox.substack.c...

Dean Wareham’s 2008 autobiography Black Postcards: A Rock & Roll Romance starts off in unusual fashion, with a quote from his old Galaxy 500 bandmate Damon Krukowski, who says he was shocked and disheartened one time in L.A. when Dean—who never moved in concert—suddenly stepped into a spotlight for a guitar solo. Although Krukowski didn’t like it, Wareham was taking the moment to step out from his first band and soon launch into his infinitely better band Luna, one of my all-time favorites.

Black Postcards then transitions into funny tales from Wareham’s childhood in New Zealand and Australia—although he always had U.S. roots, including a great-great grandfather who served in the Civil War. Little Dean had a third-grade girlfriend whose face he mash-kissed before they showed each other their private parts, he told on his brother for stealing from a little store, and his first memories of music were songs by The Seekers such as “Georgie Girl” and “A World of Our Own.” Good tunes, yes, but lucky for all of us with older brothers and influential music collections, Dean’s brother had records by Lou Reed and David Bowie, which set Dean excellently on his course.

In 1977, he moved to Manhattan, where he was soon experiencing all the now-legendary punk glory of that place and time. His favorite band became the Talking Heads. In 1981, Wareham headed for Harvard with Krukowski and, on his first night there, dropped acid and explored the campus. He formed his first band that first semester, even though nobody knew how to play or even had instruments. They borrowed a fellow student named Conan O’Brien’s drum set and proceeded to get last place in every category of a battle of the bands contest.

Wareham spends a couple of chapters discussing his dabbling in LSD—a drug not really much in fashion anymore at this point in the 1980s—and his loose involvement in Trotskyism—also not too in vogue at a time when many college students, if they were activist at all, were turning right rather than left. He graduated as a social studies major and moved to Germany with his girlfriend, where he read the books he was supposed to have read in college and got good on guitar.

Wareham eventually made his way back to New York City, where he worked a series of awful temp jobs and tried joining with several bands advertised in the Village Voice. One band he joined for a while had a drummer who drove into town in his Galaxy 500, a kind of auto he had never heard of before and the obvious inspiration for what would be his first popular band down the road. But with this earlier band, named Age of Reason, Wareham got to perform for the first time at CBGB, but at that performance, he realized the singer was a David Lee Roth-like clown and the rest of the group were idiots, and so he immediately quit.

At this point, Wareham realized it was fruitless to start a band by answering ads in the newspaper. He needed to start one with friends. Thus began Galaxie 500 with Krukowski and his long-time girlfriend Naomi, who didn’t even know how to play an instrument but volunteered to learn bass. But “sometimes your very limitations as players sets you apart from the crowd. Great guitar players are a dime a dozen.” When the couple moved back to Boston for their studies at Harvard, Wareham followed them to see where this band thing might lead.

The trio ended up working on a half-dozen songs that they recorded in producer Kramer’s studio (not the one from Seinfeld). Wareham writes, “Kramer later said he thought we were retarded when he first heard us bashing on those chords.” But the demo was enough to start getting the band some gigs, including one on a bill with Olympia, Washington’s Beat Happening. Galaxy 500 was very quickly signed to a record deal, made their first full-length called Today, and began squabbling about things like which songs should be on the album and how to credit the songwriting.

Things were happening for Wareham and Galaxy 500. Spin Magazine’s 1989 review of Today said it “contains the snazziest Velvet Underground revisionism since the Dream Syndicate’s debut” and Kramer told the band it was Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth’s favorite album of the year.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was excited to read this book as I am a huge fan of Galaxie 500 and the first few Luna albums. Honestly, Wareham lost me with Pup Tent (although Bobby Peru is still one of my favorite Luna songs). I also knew that Wareham was a Harvard grad, so I figured we'd get some fantastic prose (I know, I'm a snob). What we got was good, but not great, writing.

I wish I could give half stars, because honestly I think this book deserves a 3.5 and not really a four -- but I rounded up on this one. This memoir is an engaging take on a band that is a critical darling, is able to support itself on its earnings, but is not popular enough to make it to the big time. Of course, the story within the story is Wareham's journey from ... well, much like a Galaxie 500 song, we don't know exactly what the real start of it was, where the real ending is, or what it means. I also found it interesting that many of artists featured in the books and movies I've been reading and watching (Just saw the Joan Jett documentary "Bad Reputation") have been victims of bad timing and bad management from record labels. Just like in other careers, timing and luck -- or being in a position to take advantage of opportunity -- can have a huge impact on where you end up.

Wareham clearly has an eye that is keen to the absurdity in life, and he has enough snark to keep going in spite of it. He points out many contradictions and flat out hypocrisy in the music business; however, he always takes the view of an outside observer. Somehow he sees himself as an alien looking in, believing himself to be separate from the machine and the business of which he is truly a part. Unfortunately, that causes the reader to be distant from him and his experiences as well. He frequently (more on editing later) stereotypes New Zealanders -- of which he is one -- as lacking the ability to deal with conflict and express emotions. This would be fine if we saw more of the emotions within but, except for a few passages about his divorce from his ex-wife Claudia, those moments are few and far between. Wareham, toward the end of the book, tells us about his frequent crying and he tells us he misses his son Jack, but he doesn't tell us what he's thinking or the emotions he's feeling. I'd rather he describe emotion than tell us the physical results. So, what we're left with is a critic of the world around him; someone who makes many clever quips and ironic observations, but doesn't seem to have the guts to be an active participant and be open to criticism himself. He doesn't trust us with his innermost feelings, he's not willing to be vulnerable, so we're not able to understand him and be willing to forgive his transgressions.

I found myself enjoying the first half of the book, but then feeling a bit disappointed as Wareham plods along in the universe he has created, expressing some inner-loathing at his inability to be faithful, but really having no other motives that seem to drive his behaviors beyond that. While I found it amusing that he completely disparages many other bands, I also found it alarming that he didn't seem to have the mostly universal appreciation for other artists that is a given with almost any band member I have ever met. Also somewhat aggravating is mediocre editing of the material. We hear rants multiple times in the book about the same topics (REM is a corporation, Metallica are assholes) which can be insightful or amusing the first time, but are glaring editorial oversights when they appear again. The editing is not terrible, and I don't blame Wareham for it, but it certainly distracts from the prose and makes the work feel episodic rather than like a coherent whole.

In the final reckoning, though, I liked Black Postcards and am glad I read it. I just came away from it with my image of Wareham diminished and, sadly, feeling as though those cryptic and alluring lyrics from Galaxie 500 and Luna may have had less substance behind them than I had always dreamed.

[Austin Bell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four rounded down to 3.5

Luna's Penthouse is my all time favorite album, so this was inherently a more interesting read than some of the other rock-and-roll memoirs out there. This book covers most of Wareham's life, ranging from his childhood in New Zealand and Australia to his years in New York City and at Harvard and finally through his years in Galaxie 500 and Luna, ending with the latter band's last show (until reuniting a decade later) in 2005.

Wareham is a smart, well-read dude and a pretty good writer - it's pretty easy to see that he'd have been bound for law school or Wall Street given his class background and education had he not chosen music - and the book is at its most interesting when going through the details of life as a successful (but not wildly successful) musician in the 1990's and early 2000's. The tedium of touring life, choosing venues, and working with record labels is all here, as is a love of life as a musician that makes it all worthwhile. Contra the lines in (Luna's song) Black Postcards, if he could do it all again, he would.

(Some of the differences from the present really come through as well. Musing on attending what he calls a "strange and pathetic party" after a gig in Cincinnati, he calls touring "an alternate reality, a parallel life. You are no longer yourself - you are a musician in a band. You have no bed and no home and there is no way to get a hold of you and you have every opportunity to do something stupid." In addition to being a poor justification for stupid and immoral behavior by a smart man, this is longer true in the era of Twitter and Instagram.)

He's also an awful father and husband, completely neglecting his ex-wife and young son on tour and going on long drinking and drug binges. He ruined his marriage with an affair with Britta Phillips that started almost immediately after she joined Luna. To Wareham's credit, he does not hold back on the damage caused by his behavior and doesn't try to milk sympathy out of the reader.

Wareham doesn't write explicitly much about his relationships with others with the interesting exception of his closest male friends, from his ex-best friend and Galaxie 500 band mate Damon Krukowski to the producer Kramer, Elektra Records' hard-partying, bisexual A&R man Terry Tolkin, and Luna bandmates Justin Harwood and Sean Eden. All the good times and every blowout fight he had with these guys is rendered in great detail while his birth family and spouses are barely mentioned. The telling exception (given the above) is his beloved older brother Anthony, missing from his life for years at a time due to drug addiction.

Good read for Luna or Galaxie 500 fans or rock-and-roll memoir fans.

[Gabe · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book opens with an extended quotation from Galaxie 500's bassist, Damon Krukowski, complaining about the way that success has changed the band's lead singer. He describes the shock of seeing the usually left-of-centre Wareham suddenly step into the spotlit middle of the stage for his guitar solo at a gig in LA in front of several music industry bigwigs. This excerpt sets the tone for the first half of the book. Wareham recalls the band's genesis and its first babysteps into the Boston scene, while also never shying away from the tensions which ultimately would lead to Galaxie 500's breakup just a few years later.

I can appreciate that lots of people won't be interested in the minutiae of touring life in a cult indie band, the revisiting of feuds and petty rivalries, the settling of old scores and pondering of might-have-beens. But personally I love Galaxie 500, I'm interested in that scene, and I can never get enough of reading about the pressures of touring. I really appreciated the clear, unromantic descriptions of the Sisyphean task of the touring band. As for the digging up of old grievances, I always feel like this is just a feature of any good rock memoir. If you can't do it in your own memoirs, then where can you?

That said, the book actually reads more like an extended tour diary than a conventional memoir. At some points the squabbling is reminiscent of scenes from Spinal Tap or Almost Famous. I always mean to keep a diary and I'm jealous of those who are able to draw on them years later. Some of the book's most poignant moments are those where Wareham revisits clubs and hotels, old haunts, several years later, only to find that he's changed and these places haven't. Some are as shitty as they ever were, half full of half-interested frat boys or professional hecklers, while others retain the magic of earlier years, loyal fans retained in unpredictable places, like Valencia or Copenhagen.

I've been a fan of Galaxie 500 for a while, but after reading this book, I will definitely delve further into Luna's back catalogue. I also want to read Lost in Music by Giles Smith, which, I've heard, is meant to tell a similar kind of story to Wareham's, in a slightly different era and landscape. Big Day Coming: Yo La Tengo and the Rise of indie Rock by Jesse Jarnow is also on my list.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

The day before I received this book I swore to give myself a break from rock memoirs, because they take me back to my youth in a wistful nostalgic way. I enjoyed this book much more than I thought I would. Dean is an infidel, and you may well say he’s self-absorbed, but he’s a great storyteller. A true raconteur. I only really love and know one album of his, Galaxie 500’s On Fire, but that is one of my favourite records. I almost don’t want to listen to any of his other records in case they don’t impact me the way On Fire did. I became aware of Galaxie 500 via Liz Phair’s mentioning the band in her sublime song “Stratford-on-Guy”, and it’s apt that a line from her New York Times Book Review is printed on the cover.

The most fascinating rock memoir I have read, for all the details about the recording industry in its peak and decline - the rise of music corporations and indie labels, the fanzines and the frothing fans themselves. The cramped and unreliable tour buses, the crummy shared accommodation and bunk beds, no air conditioning or TVs with no remote controls, cheap suitcases which fall apart and the repeated sleeping on floors. Selling t-shirts at concerts as the main means of income, a lot of activity at 2am: the life of an “almost rockstar” is definitely far from glamorous. The casual drug taking, the all-night afterparties: Dean was evidently a diligent diary keeper, because every hotel, departure time, every dining stop and meal taken, every street address is there by name, in vivid detail. Other readers may not have enjoyed this detail, but to me it only added to the veracity of the book.

Dean’s journey is one of eternal return, trapped in an adolescence that threatens to never end. His quoting Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood, “Death exists not as the opposite, but as part of life” resonated with me, but maybe that’s the eternal adolescent in me, looking for snappy existential solutions. “We didn’t set the world on fire, but it feels good to think that people are still listening to a little album that you made with your friends back in 1989,” he writes. “Can that be my legacy?” I believe it can be, especially with this book as a companion to it. It’s a fine one.

[Duffy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a casual fan of Galaxie 500 and Luna and haven't heard a lot of his other projects, but I was fairly familiar with the indie scene and the eras he was writing about, and after hearing a random recommendation for this I found it to be a really enjoyable read.
Dean is pretty upfront about what he likes and doesn't like, musically, politically etc., so if you're easily offended maybe skip this. I know he probably ripped on a band or two that I happen to like, I didn't take it personally. Honestly that was what I enjoyed about the book, he could have taken the easy route and said nothing or they're great musicians but they're just not for me, but who wants to read boring boilerplate stuff like that?
The other strong points about the book is he gives a really good idea of how the music business worked for smaller bands in the 90's , what touring is like and the process of recording an album.
If you would have asked me about Luna back in the day I would have thought they were a solid indie band, not on Sonic Youth or Pavement level, but at least middle of the pack popularity wise/ success level, so hearing about the financial/touring struggles they experienced was really eye opening.
Some minor quibbles are I wish there were year headers on the chapters, at times it's a little hard to keep track of dates, and also sometimes it's difficult to keep track of various managers/AR people.
A lot of the more negative reviews are people just having issues with Dean as a person, he's definitely not perfect, but I didn't find him all that off putting, but maybe these are people with a lot more fandom invested in his various bands than I have?
If you're interested in that eras music and the music business then it's definitely worth the time.

[Gary Fowles · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a huge Galaxie 500 fan, lucky enough to have caught them live and buy their records as they were released. I own a handful of Luna records but never found them as essential as Galaxie. Having read Naomi's account of life in Galaxie and now having read Dean's I'm mainly struck by the fact that one of my favourite bands split mainly because they were unable to do that most basic of human things, communicate. The irony being that all these years later they're able to put onto paper all the small things that irritated them so much. But there you go, that's what usually happens with bands.
All that said I thought this was an enjoyable read, it gives the reader a good view of the monotony of life within a not-large-but-not-small band. Wareham isn't afraid to have a whinge, which makes a refreshing change. He comes across as a real person rather than some untouchable.
At one point he writes how much he enjoyed a particular Luna gig in Malmö, Sweden, reminiscing about the support act First Floor Power. I remember that gig well too, since he stood next to me during FFPs set. I was the DJ at the venue that night and had a silver pen and a handful of his records for him to sign if I happened to bump into him. In the end he looked so happy that it felt wrong to disturb him. Having read Black Postcards I now feel that I did the right thing by leaving him be.