CLOSE-UP : THE CINERAMA SINGLES (Part 1)

A GUEST SERIES by STRANGEWAYS

Don’t touch that dial. We interrupt your regular Sunday Wedding Present singles series with…

Close Up: The Cinerama Singles #1

It all begins with a different pop group.

In 1996, The Wedding Present was as busy as any band in all indiedom. Late January: Mini, a six-track, predominantly motorcar-themed EP had zoomed out from Cooking Vinyl of Newcastle.

The record had been backed by a short UK tour which saw several cities – Glasgow, Manchester and Birmingham – each treated to a couple of consecutive nights. And that spring, a North America trip followed, all prior to assorted summer shows across the mainland UK and in northern Europe.

In September, Saturnalia, the band’s fifth LP was released. The excellent almost-forty-year career-spanning concertography over at the Weddoes’ website confirms a sizeable tour in support of that record too. Once again, this happened across the UK, Europe and North American territories: welcoming locations hard-earned by years of past visits. In all, ninety-eight gigs are listed for 1996. Even by my dodgy arithmetic, this works out at a pretty punishing rate of better-than-one concert every four days.

https://www.scopitones.co.uk/concertography

Saturnalia is a fine record. At one time it was, and perhaps still is, Wedding Present main man David Gedge’s favourite of the band’s LPs. Opener Venus is as heavy and fast and thrilling as you’d like. And Montreal, the second single from the album, is one of the group’s most downright lovely moments. It was an era also that finally saw Where Everybody Knows Your Name (the theme from Cheers), which had previously been a live-only affair, given a proper studio take and released on the B-side of one of the two Montreal 7-inch singles.

Despite these tracks and others, it’s a fair assumption to say that Gedge, if he does rank Saturnalia in pole position, is probably in a minority here. For the band’s fans one from the holy trinity of George Best (1987), Bizarro (1989) and Seamonsters (1991) would surely occupy top spot.

Why Saturnalia, and its quality is relevant to this short Cinerama series – (short when compared to its inspiration: the recent and stellar Singular Adventures of R.E.M.posts) – is that due to the new band’s formation it was the last Weddoes LP for more than eight years. A glance at that concertography reveals just three WP shows for the whole of 1997, and all in mid-January – anathema to a group committed since day one to regular gigs and those lengthy globetrotting tours. The band, to use a euphemism appropriate for a pop group fixated on the trajectory of relationships, went on a break.

But it wasn’t us. The LP was well-received by the sizeable constituency of people who just automatically buy and enjoy each release. The tour too would have been as well-attended as those of the past.

It was them. As discussed in Saturnalia’s 2014 epic four-disc re-release on Edsel Records, there emerged the need to take a breather. And compounding this was the desire of Gedge to create largely alone, and to exploit increasingly easier-to-use kit like samplers and sequencers. Also, there was the opportunity to indulge in a passion for what in his Sleevenotes book he termed filmic music and classic pop records. Three Cinerama tracks are present in David Gedge’s stab at Sleevenotes (published by Pomona in 2019) – the series of books that sees musicians providing self-penned insight into key tracks from their careers.

So, with fans jilted and rather hacked off for the whole of 1997, a post-Weddoes era was characterised by this and that: the fast-fading smell and swirly embers of Britpop. The need to never again hear Three Lions. The realisation that sometimes even lemon Hooch can’t cheer you up. And pointing and laughing at the Tories: finally grinned to death by a typically rubbish, British-made version of Jack and Jacqueline.

Then, in 1998, David Gedge conceived a new band. Cinerama. And, thanks in part to those studio gadgets that had caught his eyes and ears, a new sound too. For a while, at least.

So, context over and done with, for the sake of chronology Jim has paused his Wedding Present singles series and allowed Cinerama to step in. Don’t worry, though: when this ten-part interloper is over, he’ll ping you back to 2005, and resume the second half of his posts.

This opening effort has already gone on a bit, so let’s call it a prequel and begin properly next week. Meantime, here are a couple of Saturnalia songs – examples of the last Wedding Present material heard for several long years.

mp3: The Wedding Present – Venus

The album’s first track is breezy and bright, and a pleasing little xylophone section contrasts with the distortion.

mp3: The Wedding Present – Kansas

Kind of twitchy, graced with bassist Jayne Lockey’s backing vocals and, if all that weren’t enough, Wizard of Oz references too.

Thanks to Jim, and to those who made it this far.

strangeways