Luna

After Galaxie 500

Dean Wareham, born on August 1, 1963 in Wellington, New Zealand, settled in New York in 1977 and co-founded Galaxie 500 with Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang in 1987, leaving in April 1991. Luna took its name from Diane Keaton's character in Woody Allen's Sleeper, Wareham told Salon, and he met the bassist Justin Harwood of the Chills in England in 1989. Stanley Demeski of the Feelies became the drummer, and Sean Eden joined in 1992 after answering a Village Voice ad. Rolling Stone called them the best band you have never heard of. The first album was released under the name Luna2 because a new-age musician named Luna had a prior claim.

"Anesthesia" and "I Can't Wait" were recorded as demos in July 1991 at Fun City with Wharton Tiers producing, and "Anesthesia" came out as a single credited to Dean Wareham in February 1992, on No.6 Records in the US and Mint Tea in the UK. Lunapark (August 18, 1992, Elektra) was produced by Fred Maher at RPM Studios. Slide (EP, 1993), Bewitched (March 1, 1994, with Sterling Morrison), Penthouse (August 8, 1995, with Tom Verlaine), Pup Tent (1997), The Days of Our Nights (1999, after Elektra dropped it), Romantica (2002) and Rendezvous (October 26, 2004) followed. Demeski left in 1997 for Lee Wall, and Britta Phillips replaced Harwood in 2000. They toured as openers for Screaming Trees and the Sundays, and played a last show at the Bowery Ballroom on February 27, 2005, documented in the DVD Tell Me Do You Miss Me (2006).

Wareham published the memoir Black Postcards in 2008 and formed Dean and Britta in 2003. The band reunited for Spanish dates in April 2015, played Penthouse in full in 2015, and released the covers album A Sentimental Education (2017) and Postscripts (2019). The box set Long Players: 92-99 came in 2016. Penthouse was ranked 99th among the albums of the 1990s by Rolling Stone, and Wareham and Phillips scored Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale. Setlist.fm lists "23 Minutes in Brussels" as their most-played song, at 256.