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Galaxie 500
Background information
Genre(s)	Slowcore Dream Pop Shoegaze
Years active	1988 – 1991
Label(s)	Aurora Rough Trade
Former members
Dean Wareham Damon Krukowski Naomi Yang

Galaxie 500 was a seminal slowcore/shoegaze guitar band from the late 1980s.

Contents 1 History 2 Cover Material 3 Trivia 4 Discography 4.1 Albums 4.2 Singles 5 DVD 6 External links

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", Wareham cites the Spacemen 3 as another key inspiration. The band's name comes from a Ford car of the 1960s, the Ford Galaxie 500.

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. 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.

Krukowski and Yang, devastated by Wareham's departure, remained inactive for two years until Kramer convinced them to return to his Noise New Jersey recording studio. They continued to record under the moniker Damon and Naomi (whose first two releases were also produced by Kramer), and additionally began the avant-garde press Exact Change.

Galaxie 500's records were released in the US and UK on the independent Rough Trade label. When Rough Trade went bankrupt in 1991, the group purchased the masters at auction, reissuing them on Ryko in 1997.

The group's oeuvre included a fair amount of cover songs, often with arrangements that were drastically different from their original counterparts. These include:

• "Listen the Snow Is Falling" - Yoko Ono
• "Ceremony" - New Order
• "Submission" - Sex Pistols
• "Rain" - The Beatles
• "Don't Let Our Youth Go to Waste" - Jonathan Richman
• "Cheese and Onions" - The Rutles
• "Here She Comes Now" - The Velvet Underground
• "Isn't It a Pity" - George Harrison
• "Final Day" - Young Marble Giants
• "Victory Garden" - Red Krayola
• "Moonshot" - Buffy St. Marie
• "Well… All Right" - Buddy Holly

• In Liz Phair's song "Stratford-on-Guy," she sings, "And I was pretending that I was in a Galaxie 500 video." [1]

• In Xiu Xiu's song "Dr. Troll", Jamie Stewart sings, "Listen to On Fire and pretend someone could love you."

• The Galaxie 500 album title This Is Our Music was lifted from the 1960 album of the same name by jazz legend Ornette Coleman [2]

• The Brian Jonestown Massacre, in turn, referenced the title with their 2003 release And This Is Our Music.

• The Submarines did a cover of "Tugboat" in their recent iTunes Live Session EP, recorded with famed indie rock producer Adam Lassus (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah).

• Today (1988)
• On Fire (1989)
• This Is Our Music (1990)
• Copenhagen [Live] (1997)
• The Portable Galaxie 500 [Best of] (1998)
• Uncollected [Rarities] (2004)
• Galaxie 500 Peel Sessions [Radio Broadcasts from 1989 and 1990 on the BBC's John Peel Show] (2005) (#200 U.S.) Sales: 1,002 RIAA Certification: N/A

• "Tugboat" (1988)
• "Blue Thunder" (1989)
• "Fourth of July" (1990)

• Don't Let Our Youth Go to Waste (2004)

• A Head Full of Wishes – comprehensive site that includes a discography, lyrics, tablature, and a tour and setlist archive.