My Top 1000 Songs #344: I Can't Wait

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

Coming across Luna's 1992 debut was one of those moments of sheer record-shopping bliss--an unexpected super-group featuring members of some of my favorite bands. The singer from Galaxie 500! The drummer from the Feelies! The bassist from the Chills! It felt like a one-off, a nice little treat, though Dean Wareham ended up keeping the enterprise running for years and years and a wealth of fantastic albums (though those other co-founders would drift off along the way).

The song that most got my attention was "I Can't Wait," a fizzy, more upbeat track that built up layers of guitars and touches of feedback, more alt.rock blended with shoegaze than than the moody dream pop Wareham had favored with Galaxie 500, and a rousing, crank-it-up visceral feel that Luna would ease off as the band progressed and moved into gentler terrain over succeeding records. Drummer Stan Demeski supplies a steady roll reminiscent of the Feelies final LP, while Wareham's layered guitars merge buzzsaw distortion with bagpipe chimes. As such, it's a bit of an anomaly in the often more sedate Luna catalog, but a track that to this day still revives that initial thrill of seeing some indie rock luminaries joining up for something ephemeral and exciting.

Live at a 2019 reunion show (well, a reunion of the latter-day band, not the original trio):