Video: Dean Wareham – “Cashing In”

Directed by Leanna Kaiser. From I Have Nothing to Say to the Mayor of L.A., due October 15 on Double Feature.

Examples of indie rockers aging gracefully are few and far between. I suppose it helps to be graceful as a young person. Can you even imagine Dean Wareham ever spazzing out?

I used to think we were on the brink
I could just watch my fortunes grow
I used to think our ship was coming in
I’m not selling out, I’m cashing in.

It’s rare that music that is this pleasant to listen to is still interesting and engaging. Wareham proves you don’t have to be aggressive or obnoxious to be captivating.

“Musically I was inspired by Michael Rother’s great, late-’70s instrumental guitar records,” Wareham says. “And also by Peter Hook; I played the new ‘Hooky 6-string bass’ I bought last year, it’s a big part of that early New Order sound.”

Dude, if you’re going for that early New Order sound you should be playing that bass way higher up on the neck though!

Video: Dean Wareham – “The Past Is Our Plaything”

Directed by Alexandra Cabral. From I Have Nothing to Say to the Mayor of L.A., due October 15 on Double Feature.

This upcoming album contains the first new songs Wareham has written in almost seven years. Why so long? Wareham jokes, “Maybe it’s just too sunny in L.A.”

Tonight I am playing my 335 while gazing at your photograph
We’re living inside a beautiful dream
A winter where memory sleeps.

Wareham says, “‘The Past Is Our Plaything’ was recorded at a studio on Stinson Beach, just north of San Francisco, in November 2020. The song sorta grew out of observations by Julian Barnes in my favorite book last year — The Man In the Red Coat — about a collection of dandies, drug addicts, artists and writers in belle epoque France and England.”