I was never all that adept at following my favorite music performers as they moved from band to band. This was in part because I became a music a fan at the time when there were still really only three steps in a music career: 1. be part of a band, 2. have a solo career and 3. realize you’re too old to be doing that crazy rock ‘n’ roll thing any more. And that unofficial though seemingly mandatory retirement age was actually pretty young. When rock musicians persisted into their forties or, egad, fifties, they were still viewed somewhat skeptically, although that perception was starting to soften (undoubtedly in part because Rolling Stone founder and publisher-for-life Jann Wenner was growing older himself and suddenly seeing the value in maturity, and that publication was very much still the standard-setter). I also had a stubborn commitment to closure. If a band was done, then surely it was due to the irreversible fading of whatever made the group special in the first place.

So my philosophically misguided inattentiveness caused me to miss out on Luna for a long time, even though it was packed, at least initially, with veterans of bands I happily embraced: Dean Wareham of Galaxie 500, Stanley Demeski of the Feelies and Justin Harwood of the Chills comprised the original line-up. Their first album even came out when I was still a student DJ and therefore keenly attuned to everything that crossed the station’s Heavy Rotation. And yet I can’t knowledgeably testify to hearing a single note of their music until my second spin on the left end of the dial, which began in 2001. Somewhat fittingly, given my embarrassing lateness, the first album I truly connected with was also their last, 2004’s Rendezvous.

It surely shouldn’t have taken me that long to find my way to a band that demonstrated a devotion to the moody, poetic, downbeat aesthetic forged by the Velvet Underground. Luna was exactly the sort of band that I usually became overly ensnarled with, finding emotional majesty in their gloomy guitar lines and lyrics that, no matter how their delivered, come across as the moan of spiritual destitution. Records always sound best late at night, and this is music made to be played late at night. It would have been real handy to have gotten my ears on it about ten years earlier.

Luna, “Cindy Tastes of Barbecue”

(Disclaimer: I can’t claim absolute authority on this point, but it appears to me that Rendezvous is out of print as a physical item that could be order through and then purchased from your favorite local, independently-owned record store. The song from it is posted here with the understanding that it cannot be acquired in a manner that provides due compensation to every part of the music distribution food chain that deserves dollars. It’s my suspect policy, and I’m sticking with it. Regardless, should I be contacted by someone asking me to remove it from this humble corner or the interweb, I will gladly and promptly remove it as long as the individual or entity contacting me has due authority to make such a request. I’m sticking by that policy too.)