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Black Postcards: A Rock & Roll Romance | 
 enlarge | Author: Dean Wareham
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $14.94
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Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 14398
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 1594201552
Dewey Decimal Number: 782.42166092
EAN: 9781594201554
ASIN: 1594201552
Publication Date: March 13, 2008
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Product Description
A bewitching account of the lures, torments, and rewards of making and performing some of the most interesting music in some of the most iconic indie bands (Galaxie 500, Luna) in recent memory
What do you do if you're an outsider with a funny accent coming of age in alien bastions of privilege in New York City and Cambridge, Massachusetts? If you're a certain sort of kid, you front a rock band. And if you're Dean Wareham, you end up founding a rock band, Galaxie 500, that continues to enjoy what can be called notable postmortem cult success. And then you start a new band, Luna, which enjoys even more spectacular, albeit still "cult" success (which means they don't play your songs on mainstream radio and you never crack MTV), until, some fifteen years after it began, that band reaches its natural end too. And then you write a book about it all: an unsentimental journey through the great, world-wide indiemusic landscape.
A wickedly honest and unsparing account of a journey through the music world-the artistry and the hustle, the effortless success and the high living as well as the bitter pills and self-inflicted wounds-by a brilliant and fearless participant-observer, Black Postcards is absurdly rich in rewards for anyone who was ever in a band or just took an interest in indie music over the past twenty years-a sort of Kitchen Confidential written by a different species of front man. Black Postcards also captures what has happened, for good and ill, to the entire ecosystem of popular music over this time of radical change, a time when categories like "indie" and "alternative" started to morph beyond all recognition. Rolling Stone called Dean Wareham's band Luna "the greatest band you've never heard of " and named its album Penthouse one of its 100 greatest rock albums of our time. 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?" Why indeed?
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 Hey, how come there aren't more photos of Britta? April 11, 2008
I was pleasantly surprised at how well-written and entertaining this book was. "Black Postcards" is a genuinely funny and touching book. Dean Wareham adroitly navigates his past, revelling the reader with nuggets from his youth ("My toes were smiling at me!") before documenting the fall of Galaxie 500 and the salad days of Luna. Throughout it all, Dean is refreshingly frank. No punches are pulled, he (rightly) takes credit for the rise of Galaxie 500 while openly admitting his own douchebaggery when necessary. Indie fans will also delight at the numerous cameos throughout the book by musicians such as Calvin Johnson, Yo La Tengo, and Stereolab.
But the humor! Goodness gracious me, it's been a long time since I've laughed so much while reading a book. Dean's accounts of life in a band are hilarious, from working in a studio ("We should have hired a cook...") to endlessly touring Europe in a van. The most amusing tales, however, are his casual dismissal of other bands. "We hated the Pixies." "I thought Eddie Vedder sang like Cher." "Metalllica are not the brightest bunch of guys you'll ever meet." "The Ramones were too punk to enjoy the beauty of the Rhine Valley." My favorite anecdote is a brief encounter with Anthony Kiedis in a hotel exercise room.
I would recommend reading this book even if you're not a fan of Galaxie 500 or Luna. Just being a music fan is reason enough to read this book because it will shed voluminous light on the day-to-day workings of being in a band.
A great read April 9, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Couldn't put the book down. What a treat to read Dean's perspective. I wish there were more written first hand accounts out there as authentic as this one is.
 More songs about buildings and food April 5, 2008
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
A decent memoir by an indie rock icon. Undoubtedly it helps to be a fan of either Galaxie 500 or Luna, the cult bands Wareham fronted in the 80s and 90s. Wareham's no hack, but the book lacks narrative shape. A good writer on a small scale, the endless anecdotes flatten out as tour after tour is related in inconsequential detail. This approach does manage to convey the tedium of life on the road in an almost famous band: the crappy hotels, squalid clubs, long drives. We don't get much insight into the creative process, except the negotiations of recording an album in a democratic ensemble. Nor do we get much in the way of celebrity name dropping, though Luna opened for Lou Reed (one of the two times I saw them), who appears in a photo op and contributes a dustjacket blurb. Wareham is in fact, pretty discreet, handling the climax of the book, his infidelity and divorce from his first wife, with kid gloves. A salacious tell-all this is not.
What he does talk about is food: paella in Spain, barbecue in Texas, brisket on Houston Street. He also has the sniffy attitude of a fanboy music nerd of a particularly 80s ilk, catty about bands he doesn't like. Favorite road game: "Who wouldn't you open for?"
But Wareham's a smart guy who doesn't wear his Harvard education on his sleeve. There are a fair number of wry asides and one liners. Though some of these stories fall flat, I guess you had to be there.
There are also some genuinely poignant moments, like when he catches sight of his toddler son across the avenue the day he walked out on his first marriage.
All in all this is a respectable book for fans and those interested in the nuts and bolts of being in a minor league rock band. Still, better worth waiting for the paperback.
I Had to Get Drunk Just to Look at Your Face April 2, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
A great memoir -- like this one -- provides a well-written honest personal story set against an historical backdrop -- in this case, the indie rock movement that ignited at the end of the 20th Century and flamed out in the 21st. As minor rock royalty, B-celebrities, and opportunistic business people float by, Dean's tale focuses on love (and love lost) as he tries to connect with family, band mates, fans, ex-wives and ultimately, his son. Beautifully done and surprisingly honest.
The death of Galaxie April 1, 2008
3 out of 8 found this review helpful
Galaxie 500 is one of my favorite bands, and the 1st hundred pages deals with their birth and their demise and I loved it. Dean more than accounts for his side of the story, giving insight on just how hard it must be to be in a 3 person band with a couple. His complaints are heartfelt, balanced, and I could clearly understand his reasons for breaking up the band.
The rest of the story concerns Luna, and like that band's music, it's a fairly bland and uninspired, with occasional sublime moments. Luna never came close to creating the music that Galaxie did, and the story of each band is not comparable. One gets the feeling here that they're not getting near the whole story either, especially concerning Brittas influence, and that Dean's current relationship with Britta is muzzling him. It felt to me like a yoko Ono shadow frankly.
Wareham is an arrogant and opinionated guy, especially in terms of what music he deems to be good.He vents impassioned distaste for much modern music, while sprinkiling complementary tidbits sparingly. This is cool with me though, as I tend to be pretty opinionated myself. It could turn off some others.
The ending is brief. The last 30 pages appear to be written in a rush to publish, and there is no discussion of anything past Lunas final show.
I found it disappointing that an artist so preoccupied with musical authenticity and integrity would omit so much in terms of Luna, Post-Luna, Britta, and on top of it all rush the conclusion. I'd recommend waiting for this in paperback if you can.
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