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You're listening to Sound Opinions, and this week we're doing our second installment of 5 albums that made me.

This time we're talking with Dean Wareham of Galaxy 500 and Luna to name a few of his musical projects.

You got it, Greg.

Dean is probably best known for his work in those two bands, Galaxy 500 and Luna, but he has also released albums with his wife under the name Dean and Britta, and under his own name, including last year's I Have Nothing to Say to the Mayor of LA.

He was born in New Zealand, lived in Australia, then his family settled in New York City in 1977.

I mean, what a time to arrive at the center of the musical universe, and he's a high school student in New York.

Oh yeah, Jim, it was unbelievable seeing where I went to prep school, and then Harvard, where he met his future Galaxy 500 bandmates, Damon Krakowski, and Naomi Yang, who have also appeared on our show.

They were post Galaxy 500 guys as Damon and Naomi, but Galaxy 500 made three great studio albums and then imploded.

They didn't, there was internal tensions within the band, but those three records, you know, a parallel can be drawn to bands like the Velvet Underground or Big Star, where they kind of codified a movement before anybody could put a name on it.

People later on started calling it Slowcore and things like that, but they created this moody atmospheric vibe with just guitar bass and drums, and it was beautiful, haunting, and there was, at the same time, sort of a depth to it, there was more than just this beautiful sound, but there was a sadness, a melancholy and introspection there.

They brought layers and layers of musicality and meaning to what they were doing, and you know, a band like Low, for example, wouldn't get straight out of that scene.

So incredibly influential band and incredibly important band.

Well, and then the big second act that Werem had, you know, it's the beginning of the alternative era, bands that had forged a path in the indie Underground are getting signed to the major labels.

1991, Dean Werem puts together Luna. You know, at various times, Luna included such fellow indie rock superstars as Stan Damesky of the Feelies, Justin Harward of the Chills, but in his book and in interviews, you know, Dean says basically his entire musical career, the roots of that sound can all be heard in the first Galaxy 500 single.

Tugboat, which I always heard and many people did, Dean was coy for years about its real meaning. I always heard it as being about Sterling Morrison, the great velvet underground rhythm guitarist after making four of the most important albums in rock history, most influential recordings, you know, splits the band, Lou Reed becomes Lou Reed, and Sterling is a Tugboat captain, who really nobody heard from for years until the short,

live velvet underground reunion, except he did play on some Luna tracks. In 1999, Britta Phillips joined Luna and became a romantic partner with Dean. After Luna broke up, they started recording as Dean and Britta, doing some soundtrack work, notably for Noah Brumbach's The Squid and The Whale.

And eventually in 2013, they moved on to Los Angeles, which explains the title of his recent solo album.

You know, Greg, a couple of weeks ago, I got to do a wonderful session for the Old Town School of Folk Music here in Chicago with a musician I've been a fan of since the 80s, and we had such a wonderful chat, Dean Wehram and I.

And while I've mentioned his duo, Dean and Britta several times, and we've played Galaxy 500, I think we've played Luna on the show, we've never had Dean Wehram on the show.

We were like, hey, this is one of the most enthusiastic music fans, funniest, smartest guys, we know Wehr fans, we've got to rectify this.

So Dean is going to follow in the prestigious footsteps of Amy Mann. We figured let's talk five records that shape me with Dean Wehram. Dean, welcome to Sound Opinions.

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