Moon units

>> New York City's Luna, now in orbit

by LORRAINE CARPENTER

On the eve of an East Coast mini-tour to support their new Live! album, and to show off their new bassist/backing vocalist Britta Phillips (the singing voice of '80s anima-rocker Jem, girls!), the Mirror talked to Luna singer-guitarist Dean Wareham about being down and out in the industry and (what else?) the Velvet Underground.



Mirror: So Beggar's Banquet released your live album, but you're technically label-less. How 's that working out for you?

Dean Wareham: We've been making a record without a record contract. We just thought we'd try and do it ourselves instead of waiting around for a deal to get figured out. These things can just drag out for months. But, on the level of playing live, the band is drawing more people than we ever have, even without the support of a record company, and that feels great.

M: Do you ever get tired of Velvet Underground [VU] comparisons?

DW: Sure I do, but I guess it's more apt than comparing us to AC/DC or something. I've made eight albums--three with Galaxie 500 and five with Luna--so hopefully I've transcended my influences, but I think all kinds of interesting bands are in some ways derivative. Like Stereolab, who are fantastically inventive, yet also very obviously derivative of Neu! or, on their early stuff, the VU. But VU is a very strange band, with the viola and the standing drummer and strange tunings. Having toured supporting them in Europe, my impression is that nobody sounds like them.

M: Can you picture yourself on a reunion tour somewhere down the road?

DW: Reforming Galaxie 500, for example? You know, maybe if there was a million dollars in it. Some of these reunions seem kinda sad. When we were just on the road we ran into the Dictators, a New York proto-punk band. It was funny seeing a bunch of 50-year-old guys pulling up in a van and one of them's standing there holding the door shut so the others couldn't get out. They were playing these ridiculous little games that teenagers play. God, that was a frightening glimpse into the future.

At Café Campus on Friday, June 15, 8pm, $17.50