The Wedding Present

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The Wedding Present

Country Leeds, England
Years active 1985–1997–2004–present
Genres Rock, Alternative, Indie rock
Labels Reception (1985–1988)
RCA (1988–1993)
Island (1994–1995)
Cooking Vinyl (1995–1999)
Scopitones (2004–present)
Members David Gedge (1985–present, vocals, guitar, keyboards)
Chris McConville (2006–present, guitar)
Terry de Castro (2004–present, bass guitar, backing vocals)
Simon Pearson (2005–present, drums)
Past members Peter Solowka (1985–1991, guitar, accordion)
Keith Gregory (1985-1993, bass guitar)
Shaun Charman (1985–1988, drums)
Simon Smith (1988-1997, drums)
Paul Dorrington (1991-1995, guitar)
Darren Belk (1993–1995, bass guitar, guitar, vocals)
Jayne Lockey (1995–1997, bass guitar, vocals)
Kari Paavola (2004–2005, drums)
Simon Cleave (1996-1997 & 2004-2006, guitar)
Website(s) Official site

The Wedding Present is a rock group based in Leeds, England, that was formed in 1985 from the ashes of the Lost Pandas. Their music has evolved from fast-paced indie rock in the vein of their most obvious influences The Fall, Buzzcocks and Gang of Four, to more varied forms.

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Early stages and the Reception era (1985-1989)

The Lost Pandas fell apart in 1984 when singer David Gedge's then girlfriend Janet Rigby, the drummer for the band, ran away with guitarist Michael Duane. Gedge and the Pandas' bass player, Keith Gregory, decided to continue the band, renaming it The Wedding Present.

Gedge had wanted to use the name "The Wedding Present" for ages but was afraid of the perceived similarity with the name of one of his favourite bands, The Birthday Party. By the time the Lost Pandas broke up, however, that band had gone as well and Gedge felt free to name his new band The Wedding Present.

   
“
 I’ve always thought that The Wedding Present was an inappropriate name for a pop group — more like a poem, or a book or something — and therefore quite attractive (to me!). I’ve also always been fascinated by weddings...

I used to be a huge Birthday Party fan and although I’d thought of ‘The Wedding Present’ about ten years ago [i.e., circa 1982], I decided it was a bit too similar and hence called the band I was in The Lost Pandas. By the time our first single came out in 1985, TBP were dead and gone so I felt more comfortable reverting to my original idea.[1]
   
”

Gedge and Gregory recruited an old schoolmate of Gedge's, Peter Solowka, to play guitar and auditioned a string of drummers, including John Ramsden, and Mike Bedford, with whom they recorded a demo tape, before settling on Shaun Charman. The country's clubs and bars were toured as the band prepared for the recording of their first, self-financed single.

After some consideration, "Go Out and Get ’Em, Boy!" was chosen over early favourite "Will You Be Up There?". Charman felt somewhat insecure about his drumming abilities and so the A-side features drumming by hired hand Julian Sowa (Charman does, however, play drums on its B-side). The single was released on the band's own Reception Records label with distribution through Red Rhino. Although Reception was only intended to be a vehicle for the release of their own material, it also released a number of singles by This Poison! and Cud.

Two more singles followed that did well on the independent charts and the band was spotted by veteran BBC radio DJ John Peel, who immediately started championing them and invited them to do a radio session (three songs from the session are included on the 1988 compilation Tommy 1985-1987; the entire session had already been released as an EP in 1986), starting a long collaboration.

By the time the band started work on their debut album, a number of independent and major record companies showed interest, but the band declined all offers and decided to keep releasing their material themselves. The album was released in 1987 and titled George Best after the well-known Northern Irish football player. Disagreement on production values with the record's producer, Chris Allison, led to the product being remixed by the band and their engineer, Steve Lyon. The larger part of these conflicts seemed to lie with the personal and musical incompatibility of Allison and Charman.

Upon its release, the album was critically acclaimed and the band were soon lumped in with some of their peers as the 'shambling' or C86 scene, a categorisation that they vehemently declined (although they were featured on the original C86 compilation). Musically, the album featured fast-paced rhythm guitar attacks; lyrically, apart from a few tentative excursions into social critique ("All This and More") and politics ("All About Eve"), Gedge's main concerns (which would become his trademark) were love, lust, heartbreak and revenge. Soon after the release of George Best, the early singles and radio sessions were compiled and released as Tommy (1985-1987).

When Solowka, who has Ukrainian roots, started fooling around with a Ukrainian folk tune during one of their many Peel sessions, the idea arose to devote some of their radio time to recording their versions of Ukrainian and Russian folk song, encouraged by Peel. To this end, two guest musicians were invited, singer/violin player Len Liggins and mandolin player Roman Remeynes, and three Peel sessions were recorded with Gedge temporarily limiting himself to playing rhythm guitar and arranging the songs.

Between the recording of the first and the second 'Ukrainian' session, Charman was fired from the band. It is said that musical and socio-political differences between Charman and the rest of the band were to blame. His replacement was Simon Smith, who remained the band's drummer until 1997 and for a long time was, next to Gedge, the only other stable factor in the shifting line-ups.

The band planned on releasing eight cuts from the Ukrainian sessions on a 10" LP and an initial batch was pressed when Red Rhino went into receivership. Rather than trying to find a new distribution company, the band decided to fold their Reception label altogether and sign with a regular record company: RCA.

[edit] The RCA era (1989-1993)

Although the band were criticized by some quarters for 'selling out', the terms of their contract were revolutionary (for a major label recording contract). They were allowed their own choice of producer and singles and could even release singles independently without breach of contract, should RCA find the songs uncommercial (this never happened).

The band's new record company bought the initial Reception stock of the Ukrainian record from the band, pressed another batch, and finally released the record in April 1989 under the unwieldy name of Українські Виступи в Івана Піла (meaning 'Ukrainian John Peel Sessions'; the Latin transliteration Ukraïnski Vistupi v Ivana Peela appeared on the sleeve's spine only).

The first proper album that The Wedding Present recorded for their new label was released in the same year 1989 and reunited them with Allison. Bizarro’s lyrical themes were largely the same as before (although they showed that Gedge had grown as a lyricist) and the songs featured the same three-chord structures, but its production was beefier (no doubt thanks to a better recording budget) and many of the songs featured Velvet Underground-like extended codas. The album's companion single, "Kennedy", provided the band with their first British Top 40 hit.

Seeing that they were growing ever more popular in the American college radio scene, the band turned towards America for their next project. Instead of taking another single off the album, the band decide to re-record Bizarro track "Brassneck" with an engineer whose work they admired, the former Big Black frontman Steve Albini. It was the start of a two-year collaboration: the next single, "Corduroy" (officially just one of three tracks on the Three Songs EP) and album, Seamonsters, were also recorded by Albini at Pachyderm Recording Studio in Cannon Falls, MN.

Seamonsters saw the band take both their music and lyrical themes to extremes and actually was just about a year ahead of its time. Had it been released in early 1992 instead of early 1991, its grunge-like intensity and Albini cred could have made it a huge smash. As it was, listening to the record was likened by Melody Maker to sandpapering your ears. Fans thought differently and polls invariably showed the opening track and lead single of the album, "Dalliance", at the top of the favourites list.

Almost directly after recording the album, the band announced that they had sacked Solowka. His replacement was Paul Dorrington of local band, A.C. Temple. Solowka teamed up again with Liggins and Remeynes to form the Ukrainians.

The next year saw the band testing the extent of their contractual liberties (and the record company's patience) when they announced their scheme to release twelve (12) 7" singles in one year. The general music press once again praised the band's PR/marketing shrewdness and in the record sales press, serious articles appeared that outlined how the band's singles (which were limited to 10,000 copies that almost always sold out within the week of release) showed the decline and general worthlessness of the modern pop chart. Previously, record companies were deliberately vague about singles sales to cover up sales decline, but the band showed that they were able to score a Top 10 hit with just 10,000 sales ("Come Play with Me", #10 in May — in fact less than 10,000 sales since the record managed a second week at #65).

All the other singles reached the Top 30 as well and The Wedding Present equalled Elvis Presley's age-old record for most Top 30 hits in one year. To economise on songwriting, the B-sides consisted of cover versions of songs proposed by all band members and saw Gedge wrapping his tonsils around such unlikely songs as Julee Cruise's "Falling" (the theme tune from Twin Peaks). The singles and their B-sides, which were produced by such luminaries as Ian Broudie (Lightning Seeds) and Jimmy Miller (The Rolling Stones) were collected on two albums, appropriately called Hit Parade 1 and Hit Parade 2.

Shortly after the 1992 singles scheme had ended, the band announced that contract renewal negotiations with RCA were going nowhere and that they were leaving the label.

[edit] The Island intermezzo (1994-1995)

The band spent most of 1993 taking time off, occasionally playing gigs. A stopgap compilation of three more archive radio sessions, Peel Sessions 1987-1990, was released by Strange Fruit. When they re-emerged in early 1994 with the news that they had signed to Island Records, it was quickly followed by the announcement that Gregory had left the band due to lack of enthusiasm. He was replaced by long-standing fan Darren Belk.

For their next album, The Wedding Present again left for the States and another well-known underground producer was enlisted: Steve Fisk (Screaming Trees, Nirvana). The result was their most accessible record to date, the brilliantly poppy yet resolutely alternative Watusi. The album's songs ranged from warm lo-fi pop ("Gazebo", "Big Rat") to semi-psychedelic, Velvets-like workouts ("Click Click", "Catwoman"). Lack of promotional muscle and perhaps the band's stubborn refusal to play the media game prevented this album, which could and perhaps should have been their breakthrough to the general public, from becoming a smash.

No further albums were recorded for Island, and the best part of 1995 was spent the same way as 1993: touring, writing new material, no recording. Paul Dorrington decided to quit the band; no replacement was made as Belk moved up from bass to guitar. In the autumn of 1995, The Wedding Present released "Sucker", a self-financed, no-label single that was sold at their gigs only (it has since been included on the international editions of their next album). Shortly after, the band signed with independent label Cooking Vinyl.

[edit] The Cooking Vinyl era (1995-1997/99)

The band, still a three-piece, wasted no time recording their newly written material and issued the car-themed six-track mini-album called, of course, Mini (U.K. 1st Limited press, US and European editions, called Mini Plus, added the "Sucker" single and B-sides). The songs showed diversity in sound (both the lighter, Watusi-like style and the heavier, Seamonsters noise aspects were present) and deftness in wrapping Gedge's usual loved-and-lost interests around the automobile-inspired theme.

Belk played both guitar and bass on the songs but struggled at the lead instrument. Shortly after releasing the album, Jayne Lockey, who had already sung backing vocals on Mini, was announced as the band's new bass player. Feeling trapped in his unhappy role as guitarist and unable to step back down to bass, Belk decided to quit the band. He was replaced by The Wedding Present's current guitar player, Simon Cleave.

The band had still a wealth of material lying around from their sabbatical year, songs that did not fit the Mini format, and so they immediately went into the studio again to record Saturnalia, which was released within the year from Mini. The album, like Mini diverse in style and showing a versatile, tight band at the height of its powers, was widely praised in the music press.

Unfortunately, it also proved to be the last new material by The Wedding Present for a long time. After playing a number of gigs to support the album, the last one in Liverpool on January 18, 1997, the band took a long sabbatical.

[edit] Suspended animation (1997-2004)

To fulfill contractual obligations, two more compilations were released by Cooking Vinyl: another Peel sessions volume, John Peel Sessions 1992-1995 (1998), and Singles 1995-1997 (1999), a package that for some reason included the entire Mini album but also offered some b-sides. Additionally, Strange Fruit offered another radio sessions compilation, Evening Sessions 1986-1994 (1997), and the band's American label released Singles 1989-1991 (1999), 2CD package, which added rarities and live track from 1990 era. But apart from these, things remained quiet in the Wedding Present camp. David Gedge recorded an album called Va Va Voom in 1998 under the Cinerama band name with his girlfriend, Sally Murrell, and some session musicians. The project blossomed into a full-time new band.

In recent years, Gedge expressed interest in reviving The Wedding Present, but Smith and Lockey apparently were not terribly interested. Cleave was, and joined Cinerama. The latter started to regularly play Wedding Present songs at their concerts.

[edit] Resurrection (2004-present time)

News came in early September 2004 that Cinerama would be rebranded as The Wedding Present. The line-up was to be the same as the last line-up of Cinerama. The first new single, "Interstate 5", was issued in November 15, 2004, to lead off the new album, Take Fountain, which was released on February 14, 2005. A second single, "I'm From Further North Than You" was released in January 31, 2005. Due to fan pressure, third and final single "Ringway To SeaTac" was given a limited, non-promoted release in October 2005.

All singles, their B-sides & specially recorded acoustic versions from this period were compiled on the 2006 compilation "Search For Paradise". The release came with a DVD compiling the videos for "Don't Touch That Dial" (a Cinerama single re-recorded for Take Fountain), "Interstate 5", "I'm From Further North Than You", "Ringway To SeaTac" + others.

The Wedding Present toured Europe and North America in the Spring of 2005 (with John Maiden on drums) and again in Europe towards the end of 2005 (this time, with Simon Pearson on drums).

During Christmas 2005, guitarist Simon Cleave left the group to pursue personal projects and was replaced by the group's sound engineer Chris McConville - who played on the 2006 tours of North America (with Charlie Layton on drums) and Europe (with Graeme Ramsay on drums).

[edit] Discography

Key to personnel: Because there have been a number of personnel changes over the years, a key has been appended to each entry to indicate which line-up was involved. Album compilations may, of course, feature multiple line-ups.

[edit] UK singles

  1. Go Out and Get ’Em, Boy! (Reception 1985/City Slang [reissue] 1985) GSGC
  2. Once More (Reception 1986) GSGC
  3. Don't Try and Stop Me Mother 12" (Reception 1986) GSGC
  4. You Should Always Keep in Touch with Your Friends/This Boy Can Wait (double A-side, Reception 1986) GSGC
  5. The Peel Sessions EP (Strange Fruit 1986) GSGC
  6. My Favourite Dress (Reception 1987) GSGC
  7. Anyone Can Make a Mistake (Reception 1987) GSGC
  8. Nobody's Twisting Your Arm (Reception 1988) GSGC 46
  9. Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now? (Reception 1988) GSGS 42
  10. Давні Часи (promo, Reception 1988/RCA 1989) GSGS
  11. Kennedy (RCA 1989) GSGS 33
  12. Brassneck (RCA 1990) GSGS 24
  13. 3 Songs EP (RCA 1990) GSGS 25
  14. Dalliance (RCA 1991) GSGS 29
  15. Lovenest (RCA 1991) GSGS 58
  16. Blue Eyes (RCA 1992) GDGS 26
  17. Go-Go Dancer (RCA 1992) GDGS 20
  18. Three (RCA 1992) GDGS 14
  19. Silver Shorts (RCA 1992) GDGS 14
  20. Come Play with Me (RCA 1992) GDGS 10
  21. California (RCA 1992) GDGS 16
  22. Flying Saucer (RCA 1992) GDGS 22
  23. Boing! (RCA 1992) GDGS 19
  24. Loveslave (RCA 1992) GDGS 17
  25. Sticky (RCA 1992) GDGS 17
  26. The Queen of Outer Space (RCA 1992) GDGS 23
  27. No Christmas (RCA 1992) GDGS 25
  28. Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah (Island 1994) GDBS 51
  29. It's a Gas (Island 1994) GDBS 71
  30. Sucker (no label 1995) GBS
  31. 2, 3, Go (Cooking Vinyl 1996) GCLS 67
  32. Montreal (Cooking Vinyl 1997) GCLS 40
  33. Interstate 5 (Scopitones 2004) GCCP 62
  34. I'm from Further North Than You (Scopitones 2005) GCCP 34
  35. Ringway to Seatac (Scopitones 2005) GCCP 157

[edit] Albums

  1. George Best (Reception 1987) GSGC 47
  2. Tommy (1985-1987) (compilation, Reception 1988) GSGC
  3. Українські Виступи в Івана Піла (compilation, RCA 1989) GSGC/GSGS 22
  4. Bizarro (RCA 1989) GSGS 22
  5. Seamonsters (RCA 1991) GSGS 13
  6. Hit Parade 1 (compilation, RCA 1992) GDGS 22
  7. Hit Parade 2 (compilation, RCA 1993) GDGS 19
  8. John Peel Sessions 1987-1990 (compilation, Strange Fruit 1993) GSGC/GSGS
  9. Watusi (Island 1994) GDBS 47
  10. Mini (Cooking Vinyl 1995) GBS 40
  11. Saturnalia (Cooking Vinyl 1996) GCLS 36
  12. Evening Sessions 1986-1994 (compilation, Strange Fruit 1997) GSGC/GDBS
  13. John Peel Sessions 1992-1995 (compilation, Cooking Vinyl 1998) GDBS/GBS
  14. Singles 1989-1991 (2CD compilation, Manifesto 1999) GSGS
  15. Singles 1995-1997 (compilation, Cooking Vinyl 1999) GBS/GCLS
  16. The Hit Parade (2CD compilation, Camden Deluxe 2003) GDGS
  17. Take Fountain (Scopitones 2005) GCCP 68
  18. Search for Paradise : Singles 2004-5 (Scopitones 2006) GCCP

[edit] Video/DVDs

  1. *(S)punk (BMG-1990)
  2. Dick York's Wardrobe: The Hit Parade Videos (BMG - 1993)
  3. Search For Paradise : Singles 2004-5 [Disc 2] (Scopitones-2006)

[edit] References

  1. ^ David Gedge quoted from the Wedding Present FAQ.

[edit] External links

The Wedding Present
Terry de Castro | Simon Cleave | David Gedge | Simon Pearson
Mike Bedford | Darren Belk | Shaun Charman | Paul Dorrington | Keith Gregory | Jayne Lockey | Kari Paavola | Simon Smith | Peter Solowka
Discography
Studio albums: George Best | Bizarro | Seamonsters | Watusi | Mini | Saturnalia | Take Fountain
Compilation albums: Tommy (1985-1987) | Hit Parade 1 | Hit Parade 2 | Singles 1989-1991 | Singles 1995-1997 | The Hit Parade
Radio sessions compilation albums: Українські Виступи в Івана Піла | John Peel Sessions 1987-1990 | Evening Sessions 1986-1994 | John Peel Sessions 1992-1995
Related articles
Cha Cha Cohen | Cinerama | The Popguns | The Ukrainians
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