Memory: Luna

I keep threatening to put more of my concert reviews on this blog, just like I’ve been threatening to post every single band photo I’ve ever taken (well, almost every single) on Flickr.com. I’m not lazy, I’m just busy. Where in the hell do these myspacers find the time?!

I’ve been listening to Luna at my desk today: the perfect rainy Monday music. Sadly, the band threw in the towel a couple of years ago, but I'm reminiscing having beers with Dean, the lead singer, in Chicago one night several years ago with my (that particular night) extremely intoxicated friend Alex. Star-struck days were so fun.

The funniest Luna story, however, was when I finally got to see them in Indy. A pretty girl started screaming at me out of nowhere about her boyfriend, with whom I’d had three dates (and, of course, he hadn't mentioned her). As a rule, I never argue with crazy people, and I simply said, “Thank you for the information.” She stood there continuing to tell me recent stories about the two of them and I said, “Look, thank you. Boyfriends come and go, but Luna has never been to Indy. You’ve paid your money, so you’re welcome to stay, but the band is about to take the stage so please remove yourself from my view” (oh, Jill, so quick on your feet!).

Her face went white. Shucks, I'd disappointed her; she was hoping for a fist fight, I think. She left, missing one hell of a show. I still remember her bright red lipstick; I forgot to ask her the color.

Perplexed for about 12 seconds, I wondered how in the hell she knew where to find me. Ah-ha, the preview:

Nuvo Newsweekly
Luna Preview
Feb 4 - Birdy’s

Despite the bleak dull-gray of winter, a full moon rises: The softcore rock band Luna will play their inaugural Indy show at Birdy’s on Tuesday, February 4. You there, romantic and pining sap…you don’t want to miss it.

Forming Luna in the early 90s after leaving his band Galaxie 500 (the predecessor to Luna’s delicate rock), lead singer Dean Wareham is still lead singer/guitarist/protagonist, though the cast of band characters has changed several times throughout the years. Drummer Stanley Demenski (The Feelies) has long since been replaced by Lee Wall; Justin Harwood (The Chills) by beauty Britta Phillips, yet Sean Eden holds his own on lead guitar. Hardly label allegiant, Luna recently set up camp at Jetset Records and, derivative of Galaxie 500, keeps producing gorgeous, restrained torpor in their own kind of Velvety Underground. Their 2002 release “Romantica” is followed up by their seventh wonder “Close Cover Before Striking.” Strikingly so, is a familiar template of their soft melodic flux. Harvard graduate Wareham’s unique, attentive voice forces most radio stars to keep beating the hackneyed dead horse. His timbre is melancholy and sweet, like an organ pipe that’s allergic to candy, and many of his lyrics border the insane: “Is there a doctor in the house? In the house of pancakes…”

Luna derived its name from Diane Keaton’s character in Woody Allen’s movie “Sleeper,” and ‘sleeper’ terms an apt resolution for Luna’s slowly advancing popularity, but that’s what makes cult bands good—right? Myself, and three others, once waited to meet Luna in a dismal Chicagoland alley after they played a show: the three of us, strangers, were from Indy, Bloomington and Terre Haute. Wareham, probably surprised that the Hoosier hand he’d just been dealt was not, in fact, euchre, grinned and said, “I guess we’d better get ourselves to Indiana.” And so they are, and they’re so worth your Tuesday night.